Page 256 of Once Upon a Fable

Because Ididsee.

I saw it every minute of every awful day, and it stopped all my loathing in its tracks because...I finally knew.

He gave me explicit enlightenment on just how much he’d suffered.

How a single act that ought to be drenched in pleasure and togetherness could be used as the worst weapon of all. An act that ought to bring lovers together had been used against him to smash him apart.

That was the honest to God truth. The only reason I struggled so much with what Ishouldfeel toward this man and the reality that I’d gone past pity, past empathy, and I’d stepped entirely into his world.

I’d seen where he’d slept as a slave. I’d witnessed a man scream in his sleep. I’d uncovered a boy who’d given his body to monsters in order to protect his family as much as possible.

He’d sacrificed himself for those he loved.

And now, he had nothing left.

I clawed at his back, my heels kicking his ass as he surged again and again into me. “Please!” My tears caught in my barbed-wire-wrapped throat. “Please, stop,please—”

“That’s right. Beg.” He rutted harder. “You said you always love it when I beg. Let’s see if I can learn to like it too.”

His speed increased to outright war.

He punished me for trying. He proved I was an idiot for caring.

But beneath it all, he proved he was unreachable, even for a girl who wanted so, so much to help him.

He kissed my cheek, softness in his viciousness.

And I spaced a bit.

My mind detached.

I didn’t want to be here anymore.

I couldn’t hate, and I couldn’t forgive.

I didn’t know what that made me. Weak or kind? Brave or stupid?

This wasn’t just a physical overtaking. It was emotional too, leaving me stripped bare and questioning everything. Questioning society and laws and the very foundations of humanity.

“You feel special...more,” he grunted. “You feel...” He gasped as if he was the one being tortured. He cried out as if someone hurt him. He jerked above me with a keening cry.

His pain brought me back.

It locked me to him even as he rode me harder.

And my bodyreacted.

It sparked, it welcomed, it didn’t follow the same rules as my mind. All it knew was it was being claimed by a male who made me feel, who made me wet, who’d crawled into my head, my core, my heart.

And I forbade it from doing such things.

If I allowed a climax to happen, that would open dangerous doors in my mind to what sort of sex I enjoyed—forcing me to admit confessions I wasn’t ready to face.

“This can’t be happening.” I spoke to the books. I implored leather bindings full of fantasy and fiction, seeking a way to save him and myself.

I couldn’t allow myself to find pleasure from this.

Never.