Page 22 of Once Upon a Fable

It hadn’t wanted to be found.

It’d been hidden away for a reason.

And that reason was driving me crazy.

Sighing heavily, I left the last bedroom—this one decorated in navy and cream with a four-poster bed and a mountain of pillows artfully arranged—and stepped back onto the landing.

The skylight above, complete with its clumps of wildflowers, showed the sun had slipped into later afternoon. If I was going to make it back to my Jeep tonight, I needed to leave now. I’d already left it far too late.

Gathering my hair off my neck, searching for some coolness after sweating in this hot house, I moved quietly toward the staircase. My boots made soft thumps on the gray carpet as I touched the banister and prepared to climb down.

Only...

A noise.

A growl.

The heavy pound of running feet.

Someone’s here!

My heart shot into my throat as a man suddenly exploded through the door disguised as a bookcase and skidded into the foyer. His legs splayed wide, his hands fisted by his sides, his eyes darting everywhere at once. His chest rose and fell with rapid breaths, sending sunshine scattering over his body and highlighting a thousand silvery scars.

I sucked in a breath.

He froze as his head whipped up and his dark eyes latched onto me.

Time stopped.

I swear it did.

Every clock in the world paused as he stared at me on his staircase, and I stared at him below me. I drank in every inch of his naked skin. His cock hanging between wide legs. His defined muscles etching with fury and power. He looked as if he’d appeared from the river moments ago with dripping dark hair touching defined shoulders and grass sticking to bare feet.

My stomach quickened. My heart raced. Every inch of me tingled with awareness.

I didn’t know who he was or where he’d come from, but he was the wildest, most furious looking man I’d ever seen.

Swallowing hard, I tried to speak. I licked my lips and pushed away my nerves, my voice quivery and full of guilt. “I didn’t mean to trespass. I—”

He snarled.

A rabid thundering sound that echoed in the marble-encrusted foyer.

And then, he was running.

Leaping up the stairs four at a time. His thighs rippling with power. His cock swinging. His arms coming up as weapons.

A lifetime of safety and living in a tame society left me woefully ill-equipped for a monster rushing up the stairs.

I didn’t understand.

My brain refused to contemplate that this stranger meant me harm.

But my body wasn’t so conditioned.

It still operated on instinct, and it knew.

It knew it was being hunted and needed to run.