Yet...

Her.

She’d given me something no one else ever had.

She’d given me peace in her violence. Connection in her fight. She’d met my rage with her own, not just letting me fuck her but fucking me right back. Forcing me to take her harder. To snatch up every morsel she offered. To let myself feel for the first time in my sorry excuse of a life.

Feel wanted. Feel desired. Feel powerful when I’d been so successfully stripped of everything since I was a kid.

Wedged on my elbows, looking down at blond hair now caked with mud and a pretty face now streaked with rain and midnight, I struggled to stay with her.

To not let my past sweep me away from the most perfect, most wonderful moment I’d ever had.

She didn’t move, even though most of my weight pinned her into the dirt. Her pussy continued to ripple around my cock, echoes of her pleasure.

Pleasure.

She’d found pleasure...with me.

She’d hurt me like they had. She’d left wounds on my body like them. But she’d given me so fucking much in return. She’d shared herself with me. We’d burned together. We still burned together—our skin pressed tight, our heartbeats quick, our bodies twitching with the aftermath.

And I didn’t know how to deal with that.

Closing my eyes, I shook my pounding head. My temples felt as if pokers stabbed inside me, drilling into my skull. My forehead had swollen, a throbbing bump thanks to her whack with the shovel.

She cleared her throat, wrenching my eyes open again.

Only this time, it wasn’t the girl who’d trespassed in my valley. Not the woman brave enough to fight me—truly fight me. To meet me in the madness and battle for her life or mine.

It wasn’t Gemma.

But Quell.

The girl who might’ve grown up to look like Gemma with her blond hair and hazel, flickering eyes. A girl who’d wiped away my tears after I’d been raped. A girl who I’d rocked as she’d sobbed in my arms. A girl who’d been utterly destroyed, like all of us.

And fuck, the guilt.

The motherfucking guilt...it crushed me, ravaged me.

I was supposed to keep her safe.

Instead, I’d fucked her in the dirt all because she’d dared stand up to me.

No!

Withdrawing from her wet heat with a wince, I swooped to my feet and almost tripped over my sodden pants still clinging to my ankles.

My heart rate exploded.

Trapped.

You’re trapped.

A snarl crawled up my throat as I bent and tore my feet out of the slacks and threw them as hard as I could. They slapped against a tree, tangling in the branches in the rain. Needing to move, to assure myself I was free, I paced.

I stalked the clearing and dug hands into my hair. I massaged a head that was full of rocks and cotton. Sharp edges and foggy corners, memories and realities, heavens and hells.

Nyx’s blood oath came and went. Wes’s suffering. Jareth’s conditioning. Elise’s initiation. Zanik, Maliki, Sarez, and Neo. Every Fable kid entered my mind and reminded me why I was alone. Why people were dangerous. Why this woman, who’d successfully made me hope, was the most dangerous of them all.

Turning on her, I glowered as she stood gracefully from the mud. Streaks on her thighs and waist, dark blond curls between her legs as she kicked away her own soaking pants.

We stood there, naked and filthy, breathing hard with what we’d done and my mind switched again. What was I thinking? This woman wasn’t sweet little Quell. This woman was too brash, too brave, too damn beautiful.

Too beautiful to be innocent.

With her hair darkened by water and her eyes shaded by night, she reminded me of another. A guest who’d taken great joy in breaking me before riding me. Who’d tied me up so I couldn’t move, gagged me so I couldn’t beg, and sucked me until I had no choice but to give her what she wanted.

Mrs. Dita had been devious in her debasement of me. She’d shared her bed and her meals. She’d touched me kindly until it pleased her to touch me cruelly.

That was the woman standing before me.

A viper who could never be trusted.

Not bothering to hide her body, Gemma dropped our heated stare and glanced at the ground. She moved away from me, back to the spot where I’d stalked and tackled her. Rain continued to splash on our skin as she ducked in the mud and grabbed a handful of gunk.

The second I saw the flash of metal in her hand, I charged forward and snatched them.

So this was her weapon. The slicing agony she’d rained upon my face.

“Hey!” She reached for my fist, her touch sending electricity through my blood even now. Even after what we’d done and the fact that I was sick to my stomach for enjoying something that only came with prostitution and persecution.

“Think you’re going somewhere?” I held up the keys to the rain, washing away as much mud as possible.

“Those are mine.” She planted both hands on her hips, bold in her nudity and scrambling my mind even more. Arching her chin at the beige 4WD, she added, “I’m done here. After what we just did, surely that will convince you that I mean you no harm.”

I chuckled blackly. “No harm?” Wiping my bleeding forehead and the numerous cuts she’d given me in our fight, I grinned thinly. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“You know what I mean. I need to go home. I need to see my mother and brother. I won’t tell anyone that you live out here. Your secrets are safe with me.”

I went still. “And what secrets are those exactly?”

She paused. Her hands slipped from her hips and crossed against her belly, subconsciously sheltering herself from me.

She didn’t answer.

Clutching her keys, I cocked my head. “Well? You think you know me now? Please...do tell. Tell me what my secrets are.”

Inhaling, her chest rose with indecision. Her eyes flickered from me to her car then back again. Clinging to courage, she tipped up her chin and said quietly, “I know you’ve been abused. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand you have some deep-seated issues. You’ve been hurt...far too many times. Your scars are external and internal. The fact that you won’t tell me your name says you have epic trust issues. The clue that you live in the middle of nowhere with technology decades outdated and no modern conveniences hints you would rather die alone than try to live with others.”

She sighed heavily. “And I get that. I do. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. But...” Taking a step toward me, she gave me a soft smile. A terrifying smile. A smile that arrowed its way through my ribs and pierced my rotten heart. “I’m not your enemy. What we just did—” She shrugged helplessly, looking exactly how I felt. “I’ve never experienced that before. Ever.”

“We were fighting. It was a messy overflow from one violent act to another.”

“Perhaps.” She nodded, brushing away wet hair. “But perhaps it’s more than that and we both don’t want to admit it. I know I don’t. The more minutes that pass, the more I’m struggling with it.” She swallowed and dropped her stare, her honesty harsh in her throat. “How can I ever justify sleeping with a man who hunted me with the single intention to kill me? How stupid could I be to let you come inside me with no protection, no discussion of birth control or disease—”