Throwing myself over Kas like a protective shield, I hissed, “Don’t you dare touch him.”
Jareth stopped.
For an endless second, I honestly believed he weighed up the pros and cons of just killing both of us. Of taking my life and Kas’s. It would be so easy for him. So simple for a heartless man who’d been taught nothing but cruelty.
A man who had his own agony. His own mistakes. His own black-riddled story.
But then, he slowly pulled a packet of cigarettes from his back pocket. He lifted the lid, tapped the side, pulled out a smoke, and lit it with a silver lighter. Tucking the packet back into his pocket, he dragged in a lungful of tar before narrowing his eyes and pointing at me with the glowing end of the cigarette. “Here’s what will happen, you lovestruck fool. You’ll keep fighting to save him. He’ll keep fighting to deserve you. You’ll both believe you’re winning. That love will prevail. That you’ll both end up happy. But I’m telling you now, that won’t happen. Take it from someone with experience. He will kill you. It’s just a matter of time.”
Kas opened his bleary eyes, choking on a gasp. My attention dropped to him just as Jareth brushed past, ducking to whisper in my ear as a cloud of tobacco smoke licked around him. “One chance. I’ll give him one chance. If he fucks it up, I won’t hesitate next time. I’ll do you a favor and ensure you have nothing holding you here anymore. And I’ll do him a favour by setting him free after a lifetime of being in hell. No one, and I mean no fucking one, should live in this place voluntarily. Call it ruthless. Call it heartless. But if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll see that it’s actually called mercy.” His teeth flashed as he stood, ice dripping off his every word. “In fact, my mercy will extend past both of you. I’ll kill this entire fucking valley. I’ll destroy it. Burn it to ash. Bulldoze every tree into dust.”
Kas struggled to sit up, his gaze still vacant and not computing his surroundings.
Jareth stepped back, his upper lip sneering in something akin to pity and cool detachment. “One chance.” He held up his finger, smoke curling around his hand. “That one chance starts now.”
He waltzed toward the tree line, chose a particularly weathered-looking pine, crossed his ankles, and leaned his shoulder against the bark.
He took a drag on his cigarette just as Kas bolted upright, his mind rebooting, his memory kicking in, shoving me into fear and panic.
CHAPTER SIX
GEMMA’S FACE WAS THE first thing I saw clearly.
Her strained, beautiful face with golden-hazel eyes, pinched cheeks, worried lips, and leaf-tangled blond hair.
And everything fell away.
The nightmare faded, leaving only streaks of horror slinking through my blood. How Storymaker had returned from the dead. How he’d thanked me for filling his house with slaves once again. How glad he was that he had fresh meat for his eager guests to sample.
I shook my head, doing my best to stop the echoes in my head. Storymaker had been rotten and worm-eaten. He’d been a walking corpse. Bone fingers complete with ribbons of skin hanging off a gaunt skeleton, stepping like a ghoul into the conservatory where Gem slept.
He’d touched her.
He’d run his motherfucking putrid fingers over her forehead while she slept. “She’s pretty, Kassen. You did good. She’ll be a nice addition to our Fable family.”
His sentence was far too similar to the thought I’d had when I’d first met Gem. When she’d broken in the bathroom and asked for privacy. When she’d picked up her pieces and dealt with me head on. She was strong. Probably stronger than I’d been when faced with such ownership. I’d respected her so much in that moment. I would’ve been honored to serve beside her because she had far more courage than I ever did.
I’d launched myself at him, smashing through the walls of the conservatory in my dream.
His emaciated, decomposing body vanished. His nasty cackle throbbed in my every heartbeat. “I’m taking her, Kas. She needs to be introduced to our guests. Don’t you think?”
I’d looked back to where Gem had been sleeping.
She was gone.
Her blankets empty.
Nothing but loneliness.
I’d lost myself then.
I’d forgotten it was just a dream.
I’d stepped over the line of reality and nightmare.
And I’d run.
I’d bolted after Storymaker, chasing him to the only place in this valley that housed Fable guests.
The boneyard.
The pit of decaying devils.
His laughter had grown louder and louder as I’d dug at the ground, desperate to get beneath the earth, fighting against a panic attack that Gemma was down there, with them, unable to get free, lost in the dark, being touched and hurt and—
“Christ.” I wiped my face and sat up, gently pushing Gemma away so she wasn’t hovering over me. I swallowed hard as vestiges of the nightmare lingered in my thoughts.