Page 162 of Once Upon a Fable

The strain of the past few days melted as his tongue continued tasting me, claiming me. Our breathing turned harsher, bodies no longer content with just a simple kiss, no matter how precious.

My nipples ached. My core clenched.

His moan turned to a harsher groan as he reached for me.

Passion overflowed, demanding we finish whatever magic we’d started.

His right arm looped around my waist, and I bowed into him. His left arm swooped around my shoulders and—

He cried out, his mouth slipping from mine.

The moment instantly shattered.

The spell around us vanished as he winced and cradled his broken arm. Giving me a sheepish shrug, he murmured, “My arm...it’s killing me.”

For a second, I felt as disorientated as he must feel when his mind played tricks on him. Shaking my head, I inhaled fresh air and slipped into my role of nurse. “Here, let me.”

Nodding gratefully, he gingerly placed his arm on my lap, and we both gritted our teeth against the remaining need between us.

I dared not make eye contact with him, focusing instead on my task.

Grabbing the slim stake I’d brought from the garden, I wiped off any obvious dirt then placed it along his broken arm. “Keep that there.”Reaching sideways to my medical station, I gathered up the sliced pieces of cloth that I’d prepared while he’d been in and out of sleep.

I’d been diligent in my nursing duties.

I’d scavenged the house for any and all medical equipment. My little doctor’s pharmaceutical box beside his carpet bed had already been very useful in treating him when he was sleeping.

Hopefully, in another few days, he would snap out of his concussion-induced complications, remember who I was, who he was, and could be trusted to stay awake, eat, and survive while I went to get help.

Every time I woke from a fretful nap, I’d ask myself if today was the day I could leave. And each day, he woke even more twisted than before, trapping me inside this place, unable to leave.

And now, he’d gone and kissed me.

He’d shown me a side of himself I would never have met thanks to his past.

He made me beg for a way to help him, to keep him alive instead of wish for his death.

Unfortunately, the sweet version of Kas didn’t last long. He stayed with me long enough for me to bandage his broken arm, eat some snow peas, corn on the cob, and inhale one of my rapidly dwindling chocolate bars before he fell asleep again.

I kept my distance after that.

For personal safety, I fashioned a rope cuff and tied it around his ankle, tethering him to the same heavy couch leg. It wouldn’t hold him if he had full faculties but in the brief moments of lucidity, it would stop him from leaving or hurting me.

I needed to know he’d stay in the library.

My nerves were too frazzled to think of him stalking around the house in his current, unstable condition.

While he slept, I pushed the kiss out of my mind and studied the medical books until my eyes felt as if a thousand papercuts had replaced my retinas, then fell asleep in my nook of the library. Wrapped in a blanket, I slept with my hand on my knife, just in case.

On the seventh day, I’d left Kas sleeping fitfully, crying out occasionally, speaking the names of people he loved with such longing and reverence. Normally, if he dreamed of them, he’d wake in a foul mood. He’d threaten me, then snap into subservience. He’d war between two sides of himself—the protective brother who would do anything to save his siblings and the aggressive loner who’d been abandoned for a decade.

He was dangerous.

An enigma of wanting to hurt me all while bowing at my feet like I truly was his new master.

After our kiss and the constant stress of the past week, I didn’t know how much more of this I could take.

My brother would’ve lost his head by now. My mother would be worried sick. My fans would’ve sent snooty emails asking why I hadn’t posted a video in so long.