Page 211 of Once Upon a Fable

Climbing slowly to my feet, I wobbled a bit before grabbing a handful of Parable and moving forward. Unsteadily, I made my way out of the library, following the links, swallowing hard as my stomach decided to tangle with hunger at seeing her and hope that she hadn’t been snooping into things she shouldn’t see.

No sound hinted at what she was doing, and I held my breath as I continued tracking the path of the chain, through the foyer, past the stairs, following a path leading through the games room all the way to the rear conservatory.

And there she was.

Sitting cross-legged on a rattan peacock chair, nestled between two palm trees with the algae-stained water of an abandoned fishpond beneath the glass floor. In her hands rested a magazine that one of Fable’s guests would’ve brought. Trivia and gossip from a society I’d been stolen from. It didn’t seem to bother her that it was over a decade old. She studied the glossy photos of women on the arms of men and overly white fake smiles from movie stars as if it was an almanac on escaping.

She didn’t look up.

I cleared my throat.

She didn’t acknowledge me.

I coughed pointedly.

Her eyes stayed locked on the magazine.

“The silent treatment will get old real fast around here, you know,” I muttered, entering the stagnantly humid conservatory and leaning nonchalantly against the glass wall. I leaned to give an air of “I don’t care,” but I also used the stable surface to catch my breath and train my knees into being trustworthy instead of trembly.

Surprisingly, I was feeling better than yesterday. The short walk had woken me up and my internal war on denied orgasms and wanting a woman who I had a lifetime to fuck and grow old with blew away the smog in my head, leaving me slightly more coherent than before. Perhaps it was the carbs from dinner; maybe it was knowing she’d lasted a night, and I was still alive. Maybe it was because I’d finally accepted something had been missing inside me for so fucking long, and she’d somehow filled that void.

I’d say all of those things were worth celebrating.

Despite the fact that her living here wasn’t voluntary, I couldn’t argue that her wrath was worth more to me than her disappearance.

She sniffed and thumbed over a new page, her body language screaming at me to leave her the hell alone. She was so prim, so proper, so exquisitely beautiful. It was unfair really, how gorgeous I found her. It wasn’t just physical attraction—it was so much more than that. It was too much more. Too much for me to acknowledge in my current concussed condition.

Sitting so demurely, she glowed with power. After all, she did have the power to kill me. I’d gladly given her that power if it meant I got to keep her until that day, but I didn’t think she understood just how desperate I actually was for...

Companionship?

Civility?

Co-fucking-habitation?

It wasn’t fucking her in the rain that’d switched my heart. It hadn’t been my humanity that’d steadily been waking up. It’d been our conversations, our arguments, our volleys of hate and hurt.

“Where did you sleep?” I asked softly. “You look...rested.”

She looked ready to slay me and not just climb up the cliff but fly.

She gave me nothing but silence as her hair glimmered with darkergold, hinting she’d had a shower in one of the three downstairs bathrooms. The subtle scent of lavender and pear from the tissue-wrapped soaps set my mind alive with images of her naked under a cold spray, her hands teasing her breasts, feathering down her belly, cupping between her legs—

Christ.

I shifted, willing my stubborn hard-on to fuck off.

A small growl sounded beneath her breath as she snapped another page over, glowering at some poor TV star as if she’d happily rip his head off and crumple it into a paper ball—mainly so she had a weapon to throw atmyhead.

With the sun bathing her and anger still dripping off her like the addicting liquor I’d consumed during my year-long party for one, I physically couldn’t stand the thought of her leaving. My stomach didn’t just clench; it tore itself in two. It bled. It slid into my feet and died.

How had I ever thought I could kill her?

She. Was. Mine.

After all, why had she found me if I wasn’t meant to keep her?

Yet you tried to kill herhowmany times?