Page 448 of Once Upon a Fable

To an outsider, our tale would sound preposterous and require serious psychiatric help. But I knew what I felt, and I knew Kas felt it too, so no one else mattered because we’d survived and grown and were together, for better or for worse.

Josh looked back and forth between us, his temper darkening hishandsomely boyish face. “Has he got something over you, Gem? Is that why you’re protecting a man who locked you up like a dog and stopped you from coming home to us?”

Kas tensed, but I squeezed his hand and raised my chin. This was my fight, not his. “I wasn’t able to come home, brother, not because of Kas holding me but because of what I did. I was the reason Kas had an accident. He fell off a cliff—” I gulped, remembering that day. The way his eyes locked with mine and filled with absolute acceptance. He’d fallen into death and hadn’t even cried out.

My heart squeezed. “Iwas the reason he fell.” I gave Kas a sad shrug, hoping he knew just how sorry I was for causing him to trip into the sky.

He raised our joined hands and kissed the back of my knuckles.

Unlike that day when he’d almost died, his eyes were no longer accepting of death. They sparkled with ebony fire and a conviction that he would heal, he would be happy, and he would love me until the end.

I lost myself in his stare, amazed that the ghosts inside him were finally starting to fade, slowly and reluctantly...thanks to our connection.

Josh coughed as if he choked on a bone, shattering the moment. “You expect me to believe that you were, what? Giving him climbing lessons? That he fell while you were teaching him to climb a cliff, and you felt so responsible—toward a man who’dimprisonedyou—that you turned your back on your panicked family to play nursemaid in the goddamn jungle?”

He soared to his feet, pacing on the other side of the coffee table, stepping over the TV glass with his sneakers. “Come on, Gem. The sister I know is smarter than that. There’s no way she’d forsake those she loved and not find a way to contact them.” He slammed to a stop, a horrified look on his face. “Unless...you’re not the sister I know. Unless he did something to you. Did he hurt you? Did he scramble up your mind?” He leaned over the coffee table with murder in his stare. “Get away from him, Gem. I’ll help you. I’ll save you from whatever mess you’ve got yourself into.”

Kas sucked in a breath, and all the energy in the room went to crackle around him, filling with possessiveness and protection.

How much more could Kas take before he snapped?

Not wanting to test his limit, I shot to my feet as well, matching Josh’s angry stance. “I’m still the same sister you know and love. I’m telling you the truth, Joshua. Kas had been alone for a very long time. He didn’t have the same happy upbringing as us, so I forgave him for his inability to accept my company at the beginning. He fell off the cliff, not because I was teaching him, but because I pushed him. For every time he’s hurt me, I’ve hurt him right back, so don’t you dare think I’m in some sort of strife and need your help. I don’t. I know my place, Josh, and it’s right here. Beside this man. I made the choice to care for him when he didn’t wake up. His concussion kept him semi-coherent for almost two weeks. And when he did become conscious, he wasn’t able to be left alone.”

My voice cracked, but I plowed on. “I’ll never be able to apologizeenough for the stress and pain I put you and Mom through, but if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. I couldn’t leave him, Josh, and I had no way to tell you where I was. Without a vehicle, I was stuck because I refused to have his death on my hands, and he would’ve died if I’d come home.” I tapped myself over my heart, imploring Josh to accept the truth. “He would’ve died and...I couldn’t let that happen because I love—”

Kas suddenly shot to his feet, placing himself a foot away from me. His hands spread with his palms up as if he offered a sacrifice. His long hair cascaded over his shoulders, and his beard looked so rugged and unruly compared to my clean-shaven brother.

“Kas...what are you doing?” I blinked, unsettled by him standing while I’d been so impassioned in my speech.

“I’m giving him what he needs to know.” He bowed his head toward Josh. He looked both subservient and masterful. A warrior laying down his sword while still holding his dagger. Locking eyes with my brother, he said clearly and curtly, “I was the reason her Jeep wouldn’t work. I was the reason the locator beacon didn’t send a signal.”

“Ha! I knew it!” Josh shoved a finger at Kas. “You motherfucker!”

“I threw her keys into the forest and smashed her beacon,” Kas said. “I did what was needed so she couldn’t leave me.”

“You absolute bastard!” Josh went to attack Kas, his fists ready to fly.

I leaped in the middle of them, bringing my arms up like a wall. “Stop it!”

Kas stayed behind me, but he didn’t stop talking. “What she says is the truth, but what she isn’t saying is...I wasn’t human when she first found me. I’ll never forgive myself for what I did to her, but I’m also not righteous enough to say I wouldn’t do it all over again because...she gave me back my life. She gave me back the will to live. No...” He paused and shook his head, making me look over my shoulder. His face twisted with regret but also gratefulness. “That would imply that I had a life before her. And I didn’t. I was a slave. My body was not my own. My soul was bought and paid for. My pain was their toy, and I lived in hell from the moment they snatched me from a world I no longer remember, hiding me away in a place no one could find.”

Kas came to my side. He didn’t touch me, but the heat coming off him made my heart flip and skin tingle. “I love your sister, Joshua Ashford. I love her with everything that I am because shemademe everything that I am. I know I’m not worthy. I know I’m not the man you’d pick for her. I’m penniless. I’m homeless. I’m healing from a lifetime of shit that I can never properly explain, but what I can give her is my heart. She has it until her last breath and beyond. She’ll have it even if she decides she no longer wants me.”

Tears trickled down my cheeks as Kas shrugged. “So, say what you want to me. Hit me if you need to. I get your desire to protect her because she’s your family. I would do the same for mine. But afterward, youwillaccept me because I will never stop loving her. And if she loves me back the way I hope she does, then there’s nothing you can do to stopthe inevitable.”

Josh swallowed hard, his anger making his cheeks red. “What’s inevitable?”

Kas let out a caustic laugh, shaking his head as if the epiphany surprised even him. “You’ve just shown me what I need to do. I felt it before in the hallway just now. A shift inside me. An acceptance and submission that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to handle.”

“And what’s that?” Josh sneered.

“I love your sister,” Kas murmured.

“You already said that.” Josh crossed his arms.

“I love her past myself, past my nightmares, past every shit I’ve lived through. I love her.”

“Geez, get to the point!”