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CHAPTER ONE
“LET GO OF ME!”
I twisted my arm, trying to get free of the bastard’s grip.
His fingers merely tightened, digging into my flesh, keeping me well and truly trapped at his side. His strange, bi-colored eyes sca
I kicked out, aiming for his knee. “Someone who doesn’t take kindly to being held against her will.” My bare foot struck his leg.
He stumbled sideways as I co
I sneered. “Let go of me, and I won’t have to.”
“I’ll let go of you when I have my answers.”
“Answers you haven’t politely asked for!” I bared my teeth. “Say please, and maybe I’ll—”
He yanked me into his body, brushing our noses together as he stood to his full height. “Say please? Ha. How about you give me answers that I’m entitled to, seeing as you’re the one walking around my valley in your fucking nightgown.”
“Your valley?!” I squirmed and tried to get free. “I think he would have something to say about that.”
His eyes lit up, glowing brown and blue. “He being...”
“None of your damn business!” My self-defense training kicked in. Memories of getting free from attackers swamped my muscles, and I spun beneath his arm, forcing his wrist to twist at an u
My hackles warned he wasn’t a good guy.
I needed to go.
Now.
I spun the final way, ripping his fingers off me and parrying backward.
Hissing beneath his breath, he shook out his twisted wrist, his eyes narrowed and sharp. “You’ll pay for that.”
Backing faster, I grabbed a stick from the ground and brandished it at him. “I think it’s my turn to ask a question.” I swished the stick through the air. “Who the hell are you?!”
Dropping his arm, he slipped his shoulders back. Ever so slowly, he shrugged out of the backpack, not looking down as the bag dropped to the ground with a thud.
He didn’t answer me, his eyes skating all over me with fascination bordering on obsession. His stare made my skin crawl. Waving my stick, I snapped, “Eyes up here, buddy.”
A half-smirk twisted his lips. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”
I hid my shudder. “Don’t flatter yourself.” I arched my chin at the cave where he’d appeared from. “Leave before I hit you. You’re trespassing.”
His eyebrows shot up his forehead as a choked laugh rumbled in his chest. “Shit, this just keeps getting better.” He held up his hand, shaking his head. “I’m the one trespassing?”
“Yes. Leave.” I looked over my shoulder, searching the night forest, wishing that Kas was close. Where had he gone? Worry over his state of mind and what he’d intended to do as he’d run from the house trickled ice down my spine.
I didn’t have time to fight this asshole. I had to find Kas before he did anything stupid.
“I won’t tell you again,” I hissed, taking a step toward him as if he was a raccoon who would run at my show of dominance. “Get.”
He laughed fully then. A deep, rich, intoxicating rasp that threatened as well as ridiculed. “Ah, fuck...you’re really quite adorable. If you weren’t already under the thumb of a master, I’d be tempted to keep you.”
“What?” My nose wrinkled. “I’m not under anyone’s thumb.”
He pointed at the last remaining links of the chain Kas had padlocked to my ankle. The same chain I’d smashed with an ax and looped like a thick anklet up my calf. “I told you. I belong in this valley far more than you do. That chain isn’t just a chain. It has a name. It has a history.” He stepped smoothly toward me. “And I know that history very fucking well. Better than you, I’m guessing.”
More chills darted down my spine. My arm shook, keeping my weapon high. All instincts told me to ignore him. He wasn’t just talking; he was doing his best to undermine my strength and resolve. Yet...there was something.
I studied him, truly studied him. I followed the scar on his cheek, the taut way he held himself, and the barely concealed violence in his stance.
He had blood on his hands, without any doubt.
He had nightmares in his soul and death in his veins, but...
He reminded me of someone.
Someone who’d run from kissing me and vanished into the forest after remembering something that he couldn’t forgive himself for.
Someone who’d been raised in this valley, groomed, molested, and then left to die.
Kas belonged in this valley.
He was more animal than human and more broken than whole, but he was healing...slowly. He was trying. He was learning how to live one hard, horrible day at a time.
This man reminded me of Kas.
His bi-colored eyes held the same haunting. His body pulsed with power, ready to kill instead of accepting another bruise from someone else.
His head cocked as if he couldn’t understand why I’d stood down, but he never stopped assessing me, poised to attack.
I lowered the stick.
His nostrils flared as the stick rested on the ground, no longer aimed at his face. “Wise move. If you’d struck me with that, I wouldn’t have been responsible for my retaliation.”
I swallowed hard.
My arm bunched to bring my weapon back up.
If I was wrong about this. If I was seeing things that weren’t there, then I was more stupid than I thought.
My mind raced with names that Kas had moaned in his nightmares. The names written in books resting on pillows of slaves, binding them to a particular fable, ensuring their fates were no longer theirs but written by their so-called master.
Balling my hands, I whispered, “Wes?”
The stranger stiffened to steel. His eyes narrowed to slits. “What did you just call me?”
“Zanik, perhaps?” I stepped toward him, dropping my stick on the way. “Umm...” What other names had Kas said? What other names had been on those books? “Neo? Maliki?”
He seemed to grow, gathering all the shadows and wrapping them around himself. His boots snapped a twig as he stepped toward me, closing the distance I’d put between us.
The air crackled as he approached. The forest went thick with anticipation.
I stopped moving as he came nearer. My body buzzed with adrenaline and warning, but I wouldn’t run. I had no doubt if I ran, it wouldn’t end well. It was either fight or persuade. Those were my only two options. I would never turn my back on this man.
Not when he was so similar to Kas but also entirely different.
Kas had been rough and brash when we’d first met. He’d been cruel and fierce, but beneath it all, there’d been an endearing sort of fumbling. He’d invoked terror but also summoned empathy.
This man wasn’t like Kas in that respect.
There was no humanity buried beneath decades of protection.
There was nothing in him that struggled to understand who or what he was.
He knew.
He knew he was dangerous.
He knew he could kill and get away with it.
He knew who he was and wasn’t afraid to use every skill he had to his advantage.
There’d only been one family member Kas had moaned about in his sleep who seemed different from the way he talked about the rest. Whenever he mentioned him, reverence and shame would fill his tone as if he was both in awe of his adopted brother and guilty that he wasn’t able to protect him better.
A boy who’d stepped into the darkness with Kas and hadn’t walked back out again.
“Jareth?” I whispered.
The man froze.
His one blue eye and one brown locked onto mine. His blue one blazed almost aquamarine while his left seemed to feast on every shadow inside him. With a predator’s grace and a hunter’s power, he crossed his arms over his chest. He inhaled, making his jacket creak and rib cage expand. For a second, I didn’t think he’d answer, but then his lips twitched, and he cocked his head in a small bow. “It seems you know more about me than I thought.”
I let out a small exhale, triumph filling me to have figured out who this random nightwalker was. “You’re Jareth? One of the Fable children?”
His jacket creaked louder as his arms tightened. “Never refer to me as that again, understand? Mention the word fable, and your heart will be pumping in my fist.”
I shuddered but didn’t drop his stare.
Icy silence swirled between us.
Finally, he sniffed and asked, “Where is he?” Stepping into me, he dropped his arms to his sides as his hands curled into stone. “Are you ru
I fought the urge to back away, standing my ground. “I have nothing to escape from.”
He chuckled black and low, his gaze dropping to the chain around my ankle. “That so?”
I dug my toes into the earth. “That isn’t what you think.”
“You so sure about that?” He swayed toward me, his breath tickling my cheek as he sniffed the air around me. He sniffed me as if a simple scent could give away my lies and secrets. “I know someone else who wore that chain, and he refused to escape too.”
I braced my shoulders as memories of Kas holding me in the bath, washing my hair, and kissing me hard filled me. “He didn’t escape because he refused to leave you.”
His face shut down. A switch from curious toying to stark unreadability. He studied me as if he couldn’t figure me out. As if the effort might not be worth his while. His knuckles cracked as he fisted tighter, shifting on the balls of his feet.
I didn’t like the look in his eyes.
I didn’t like the way my instincts went from wary to downright panic. “If you hurt me, you hurt him. Kas is mine. Just like I’m his.”
He jerked back. “So he is still here.” He tripped a few steps before his knees locked into place, his gaze locking onto the chain around my ankle. His surprise gave way to pure rage. “The day that fucking cunt buckled that chain on my brother...it was the begi