Page 278 of Once Upon a Fable

Was this the path she’d warned me about? That she’d not slept with me out of kindness but manipulation? That she fully intended to rip out the very same heart she’d woken up inside me and prove, once and for all, that monsters did bleed. That they could cry. That they could die from wretched heartbreak.

No.

I tripped backward.

She stood, her bare legs flashing with moonlight as she came toward me. Her hands came up as if to catch me. Her eyes glowed with the same sympathy and softness that’d completely annihilated me in the library. “Are you okay? You look like you’re about to be sick.”

I shook my head, too fast, too fierce, sending plants and moonlight swirling. “I-I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“I’mfine,” I growled, gagging on more than just the thought of her leaving but the thought of her still hating me. Worse than hating me—being such a mastermind and flawless actress that she could hide her true feelings and begentle.

To give me the one thing I’d never had. The one thing I was fucking desperate for. The one thing I would happily die for.

Could she do that?

Could she be worse than all the guests combined? Could she carry off a performance of kindness and affection, coaxing me under her spell, all while driving the very same knife she’d thrown at me feet into my back?

Christ, I—

That would make her crueler than Storymaker, Levin, Willby...it would make her more diabolical than all of them put together because not one of them had been able to mask their true desires, their real natures.

But Gemma?

She could be my greatest enemy, all while she made me fall in love with her.

Ah, fuck.

She was right.

I was going to be sick.

I spun and stumbled for the wall. Slamming both hands on the glass, I sucked in a tainted breath, wincing against the pain in my broken arm. Air was tainted because she was there. Her scent. Her beauty. Her very fucking presence.

And then, her hand rubbed softly between my shoulder blades, and her voice lowered to a coo that I’d never, not once, been privileged to hear. “It’s okay. If you’re still upset about what you did...don’t. It’s in the past.” She paused before murmuring, “It’s two a.m., Kas. That was yesterday. Today is fresh. We can start anew.”

I groaned from the sheer pain of her comfort. Did she know her empathy was the worst weapon against me? Did she understand my bones crumbled to dust and my blood turned to mud and I couldn’t fucking think straight all because of her benevolence?

But it could be faked.

She could be playing you for a fool—

I snapped upright.

My nausea vanished.

So what?

So what if she did? So what if I stumbled right into her game?

At least, I could find some smidgen of happiness along the way. I could enjoy a few soft touches, a couple of calm moments from the shitstorm of my mind.

I suddenly didn’t care.

So what if it was all a sham? So what if this was her delivering the worst agony of my life? By the time she twisted the knife in so deep I finally figured out her intention, it would be too late.

It wasalreadytoo late.