“By the way, you look nice too,” she added almost shyly as we reached the bottom of the stairs. Her attempt at switching the subject wasn’t lost on me.
I deliberated ignoring her and continuing with our argument, but what was the point?
There was no easy answer; not tonight at least.
“The choices are getting limited these days,” I said, glancing down at my latest wardrobe choice. “I used to wear something until it fell apart, but...it’s cold tonight, and my skin still burns from the icy shower, so I indulged.”
She nodded. “You look hot.”
I rolled my eyes, wincing as my head hurt. “I’m sure I still look exactly what I am. A heathen.”
I’d chosen a similar sweater to the one Gem wore, only mine was navy with dark jeans. I’d even put on boots for the first time in years, wanting to feel more human than animal, recognizing that only animals had feet worn enough to run in a forest without footwear.
She deserved a man, not a beast.
Eventually, I hoped to be that man.
Glancing around the foyer, my ears pricked for noise.
Nothing.
“Wonder where Jareth is?” I asked, pulling Gem forward to peek into the games room, dining room, and library.
All empty.
My stomach sank.
He wouldn’t...would he?
“He better not be in the fucking veggie garden.” Yanking Gem forward, I made a beeline for the kitchen, my heart racing with fear.
Our existence was already compromised in so many ways. I still wasn’t at full capacity. The thought of traipsing through cold forests trying to hunt filled me with dread, and the seedlings Gem and I planted wouldn’t yield anything edible for months—if they even sprouted.
Jareth had the power to kill us just by being reckless with whatever food we did have.
Walking past the small staff staircase heading toward the dormitory where I’d slept for most of my life, I stumbled to a halt.
The sounds of boots on bare floorboards came from above.
Gemma heard it too, her head tilting toward the landing. “He’s in the dorm?”
Letting her hand go, I bolted up the steps, bursting into the bedroom where sad, neat beds ringed the room, complete with gray blankets, gray sheets, and a book about fables left neatly on each pillow.
Jareth didn’t turn as I entered, his focus locked on a book open in his hands. I didn’t speak. I didn’t need to.
I knew that he read his own copy of The Fables by Stuart Page. Morals for all occasions. I knew that he’d chosen Fable of Monsters as his namesake, turning it into a premonition rather than just a name he’d been forced to take.
He’d read it aloud often enough for me to be as familiar with his fable as I was with mine. The moral was that love was the worst curse of all, destined to bring death to anyone foolish enough to claim it.
Once upon a time, a dragon named Jareth lived in a cave all by himself. He had no memory of family, friends, or company. Always alone. Forever unwanted. Scaled and horned, winged and feared, he was constantly hunted and tormented by the villagers who lived in the valley below.
For centuries, he survived alone. No other dragon. None of his kind to ease the unbearable loneliness of being a monster everyone hated.
As the years passed by and old age swept in, the villagers died one by one. A flood washed away their empty homes, erasing him from their history books.
Once again, he was forgotten.
A myth slowly turning to stone all alone.
But then...finally, on a rare summer’s day when the sun enticed the monster from his cave, he was caught sunning his wings by a woman with hair as red as the fire he could breathe and eyes as priceless as the gemstones inlaid in his scaley hide.
He tried to disappear.
But she saw him.
He waited for a spear or a lance, but she merely smiled and opened her hand in welcome. Instead of trying to kill him, she tried to touch him, stroke him, and offered him a fish she’d caught from her new home below.
They spent the afternoon together.
He fell in love as she snuggled into his side, protected from the twilight breeze by his wing, watching the sunset together.
But he couldn’t keep her.
And when she left, his heart broke in two, believing he’d never see her again.
But the next day, she returned.
And for two years, she visited every afternoon.
She became his everything.
The dragon slowly began to believe. He willingly and wholeheartedly did something only fated mates were permitted to do. He gave her his heart and sealed the bargain that would forever link her life to his by making her drink a thimble of his blood that he disguised as blackberry juice from a nearby bush.
The moment she drank, his life was hers, and hers was his.
It was meant to be the perfect beginning. She would be as immortal as he because she now shared the heart of a monster.