Page 517 of Once Upon a Fable

I stayed where I was, grinning. “I’m debating if I should wrap that picnic blanket around you before the neighbors see.”

“We don’t have neighbors. Or at least, not close ones anymore.”

“They’re still only a few acres away.”

“And we’re surrounded by trees that block every view of this place. That’s why we bought it. It’s our own private sanctuary without having to live deep in the national park...remember?”

I grew wet as Kas stepped toward me. “Remember what we did those few days camping when we went to get your Jeep?”

Did I remember?

Holy shit, I would never forget that weekend. Kas and I had traveled back to where it all began, hauling a spare battery, a newly minted car key, and a small backpack with snacks. We’d planned on staying the night in my Jeep before driving home the next day. However, we’d gotten...distracted.

I’d gone for a quick climb, still trying to find the boulder that didn’t seem to exist, only for Kas to strip me slowly afterward, guide me down to his river where we swam in the sun and padded naked with our hands linked to gaze upon the ruins of Fables.

Only the foundations remained, the walls, roof, and ivy were gone, the ritz and sinful glamour burned to dust.

We’d stood side by side, silent and deep in our own thoughts, for a very long time. We paid tribute to the kids who’d lost their innocence and their happiness. We cursed the monsters who had ruled this realm.

And, once the memories in Kas’s eyes had faded, we’d turned to each other with the same victorious drive to consummate our love, right on the ashes of a place where so much darkness had existed.

We’d had no shame as we let loose and forgot we were human. We thrust, we bit, we licked, we fucked, showing the ghosts of rapists and sick-sadists that we were free and they were not. We were happy, and they were dead.

Kas had won despite all their tricks and torment.

We hadn’t stopped at just one release.

Our hunger for each other had exploded, ensuring we came like animals, screaming into the sky, moaning into the earth, letting ourselves feel the true extent of everything that we’d overcome.

We’d slept beneath the stars that night and gone for a walk within the cave, and then we’d done it all over again, making love to each other, crudely and rudely, shedding every last hold that Storymaker and hishorrible book of fables had over us.

We’d returned to my little house with cuts from twigs and leaves in our hair, as wild as when we first left the valley. And not only had we brought back fond memories instead of nightmares, we’d also returned with my Jeep. The very same Jeep that Kas had stolen from me—commanding me to give him driving lessons and deciding he suited the bashed up 4WD far better than the black car I’d replaced it with.

So many milestones.

So many incredible moments of buying this house together, Kas’s phenomenal success with his own YouTube channel—SOM—Survivors of Monsters—and the unbelievable next chapter that we were about to embark on. His online following had doubled mine. He’d been named one the most influential healers for victims of trafficking, abuse, and unlawful imprisonment. He gave his time selflessly to the parents who found their children after a lifetime of misery and gave everything he had to those survivors who reached out to him.

Those with trauma gravitated toward him, knowing he’d been there, he’d felt it, lived it, overcome it. His own story helped theirs, and Tony had done exactly what he said he would the night of the gala. He opened a charity in Kas’s name and helped with the colossal donations that poured in, ensuring every penny was spent on the healing and happiness of those who needed it.

That was our next venture.

It was why we’d bought this giant house that looked eerily close to Fables without the evil dripping off its walls. There was a smaller groundkeeper’s cottage that Kas and I had claimed as our own, tucked in the dense forest that needed some trimming, with a small brook babbling beneath the kitchen window.

We’d moved in two weeks ago.

Tradesmen were arriving next Monday to start the conversion of the elderly mansion from cobwebbed deceased estate into a safe halfway home for those kids who had no family to return to.

The ones like Kas who were nameless with no memory or past.

They would be found, they would stay here, and then...when they were ready, we would do whatever they needed to find their own happiness.

My heart pinched a little, thinking of Quell.

It’d been six months, but she still hadn’t visited Kas. I knew that was the only shadow in his otherwise sunshine-filled world. Tony kept in regular contact, and through him, we knew she was healing slowly. Kas had sent her a letter, saying he was there for her when she was ready. That he understood she needed time. That he represented the past, instead of the future, and if she never felt ready to see him, that he loved her regardless.

I rubbed at my chest.

God, what had I done to deserve this wonderful man?