Page 182 of Once Upon a Fable

I kept my swirling attention on the girl still sleeping on the floor.

Had she heard me buckle against the door? Was she still unconscious or just faking? If I went over there, would she pounce on me again? Would she use my weakness against me like she’d done ever since she’d pushed me off the fucking cliff?

Bits and pieces came back to me.

Her tying a rope around my wrists.

Her apologizing but still trapping me like all the others.

It didn’t matter that she’d tended to me. Storymaker himself had given me drugs and overseen my healing when a guest had grown particularly cruel.

My health was valuable to him. I had to stay alive to do his bidding. We all did.

She’s the same.

I didn’t think she’d found my valley by accident after all.I bet it was all planned. Her trespassing on my home, her running so I’d follow, her skills at climbing and knots and ropes, giving her the chance to push me into the sky.

Had I foiled her plans by surviving, or had I only played into her hands?

Now, I was broken in places and concussed in others.

I was easy prey.

Or so she thinks.

Rage flowed through my veins, granting me the power to push off the doorframe, cross the room, and tower over her.

Even if she was faking, so what?

She was small compared to me. Regardless of her unnatural strength; despite her stamina and knowledge that kept putting her above me in every possible way...she was still mine.

And I was done letting her think our roles existed in any other direction.

Dropping to my knees, I shoved off the blankets, snatched her leg, then lashed the cuff tight around her ankle.

CHAPTER TWELVE

––––––––

“WHAT THE—” I SWOOPED upright, my head swimming, sleep clinging to my thoughts. “What are you doing?!” My voice slurred, my reactions slow like syrup.

“Did you enjoy playing queen of the castle?” Kas snarled, his fingers working quickly around my ankle. “I hope you did because now it’s time to go back where you belong.”

I struggled. “What are you doing?!”

I tried to pull my leg out of his control.

And then I saw the leather cuff being buckled around my ankle.

“No!” I threw myself forward, limber from years at contorting myself on boulder faces, pushing ligaments to their extreme. “Don’t you dare!” Grabbing his hand, I jerked his fingers away, leaving the buckle still undone.

Triumph filled me only to die a useless death as Kas launched himself at me.

I wasn’t expecting it.

I’d spent almost two weeks at his bedside, nursing a man who could barely move without grimacing and passing out from pain. His explosive savagery caught me unaware, shoving me onto my back and planting a fist between my breasts.

Automatically, I wrapped my hands around his wrist, fumbling over the splint, recognizing the pain in his eyes from using an arm that wasn’t whole. The second my touch locked around his heated violence, he shivered.