Fable of Happiness (Fable 1)

“You...you don’t want me?”

I tilted my head. “Pretty sure you can see for yourself that I do.” My trousers hadn’t dropped their tent since I’d walked into this damn basement.

She bit her bottom lip, her gaze skating over my erection before swooping back to my face. “Then...I don’t understand. We had a deal. You said you wouldn’t kill me if—”

“A little chat is in order before any other favors are granted.”

She crossed her arms, protecting herself. “What chat?”

“Will others show up here?”

Her eyes flared. “Why? Have you seen someone?” She glanced at the ugly, bulky cell phone beside her. Hope blazed over her face, hinting that maybe it wasn’t a useless piece of technology, after all.

Stupid girl.

Darting forward, I scooped it off the ground and clutched it in my fist.

“No!” She launched to her feet, her nails digging into my fingers and trying to pry it free. “It’s pointless. It just has...sentimental value. I have photos and things—”

“Photos? On a phone? You think I’m some imbecile?”

“No, I...just let me put it away.” Her fingers heated until her touch burned me. She branded me better than any fire, any ember. And Christ, it made me thirst. Made me hiss and smoke with violence.

I raised my arm, making her body stretch and fingers cling. Her face lost its reluctant submission, flaring with vibrant hate.

I knew it.

I knew there was a fucking hellcat hidden beneath her reserves.

“Give it!” She scratched my forearm.

I groaned.

Her touch on my skin. Her fight and fury incinerating her act of demure and downtrodden. She wasn’t meek. She wasn’t accepting.

She was stupid and reckless and just as mad as me.

“I knew you’d give me a war if I pushed hard enough.”

Her eyes shot to mine. “I’ve given you my body. I refuse to give you anything else.”

I raised my arm even more, making her stretched-out form crash against mine. We both sucked in a desperate breath. “Are you so sure about that?” Our noses brushed as I looked down at her. I trembled with her closeness, drinking in the rage of a pissed-off girl who was no longer free.

“You’re a bastard.”

“That’s what you think I am?” I smiled icily. “That word is far too polite for the likes of me.”

She froze, hanging off my arm.

For a second, we were both trapped in a web of hatred and heat. An intoxicating curse that blurred every rule and erased every line.

My mouth watered to kiss her.

My cock begged to fuck her.

I couldn’t stand having her this close. Her very nearness set my mind on fucking fire and the walls I’d built shivered with fear.

Dropping my arm, I grabbed her wrist with my other hand. Ripping her hold off me, I held the device to the side as I jerked her against me, making her slam into my chest. “This isn’t just a phone, is it?”

She struggled and squirmed, her lips thin and angry. “Let me go.”

“What is it?”

“You’re hurting me.” She tried to pry my fingers off her wrist.

“I’ll hurt you worse if you keep lying to me.” I gripped her harder, not caring my nails punctured the paper-thin skin around her breakable bones. I shook her. “Is this how people will find you?”

She gritted her teeth, her eyes no longer gold-flecked hazel but heated with flames. “Fuck you.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“It will never be an invitation!”

“No?” I shoved her away from me and raised the unknown device above my head. “I think time will change your mind.”

“Wait! Don’t.” She threw herself at me, but it was too late.

I tossed the thing as hard as I could against the concrete, smiling coldly as it smashed into smithereens.

For a second, she stood in shock even as blood trickled through a slice in her legging where a chunk of plastic had ricocheted and cut her, then she dropped beside the wreckage, scrambling to pick up the fragments and shove them back into whatever they once had been.

“How could you?” she hissed under her breath. “God, I’m an idiot! I should never have—”

“Trespassed? Yes, my thoughts exactly.”

“Go to hell.”

“Already been.” I raked a hand through my long hair and looked around the cell for any other weapons or inconveniences. It was time she knew her place.

I’ve been too gentle on her.

Spying another device by the scratchy blanket she’d made into a nest, I stormed forward and stole yet another piece of her life.

“No!” She shot upright and once again tried to attack me. “Give that back! Please. It’s the only thing I have left!”

“You shouldn’t have brought it into my valley then, should you?” Holding it out of her reach, I permitted her to scratch at my naked chest, to kick at my knees, to believe she could overthrow me. Each strike and injury threatened to shove me deep, deep into my memories. Each punch against my scars, each scream into my ears covered me in the darkness that I’d done my best to crawl out of.