Kas had won despite all their tricks and torment.
We hadn’t stopped at just one release.
Our hunger for each other had exploded, ensuring we came like animals, screaming into the sky, moaning into the earth, letting ourselves feel the true extent of everything that we’d overcome.
We’d slept beneath the stars that night and gone for a walk within the cave, and then we’d done it all over again, making love to each other, crudely and rudely, shedding every last hold that Storymaker and his horrible book of fables had over us.
We’d returned to my little house with cuts from twigs and leaves in our hair, as wild as when we first left the valley. And not only had we brought back fond memories instead of nightmares, we’d also returned with my Jeep. The very same Jeep that Kas had stolen from me—commanding me to give him driving lessons and deciding he suited the bashed up 4WD far better than the black car I’d replaced it with.
So many milestones.
So many incredible moments of buying this house together, Kas’s phenomenal success with his own YouTube channel—SOM—Survivors of Monsters—and the unbelievable next chapter that we were about to embark on. His online following had doubled mine. He’d been named one the most influential healers for victims of trafficking, abuse, and unlawful imprisonment. He gave his time selflessly to the parents who found their children after a lifetime of misery and gave everything he had to those survivors who reached out to him.
Those with trauma gravitated toward him, knowing he’d been there, he’d felt it, lived it, overcome it. His own story helped theirs, and Tony had done exactly what he said he would the night of the gala. He opened a charity in Kas’s name and helped with the colossal donations that poured in, ensuring every penny was spent on the healing and happiness of those who needed it.
That was our next venture.
It was why we’d bought this giant house that looked eerily close to Fables without the evil dripping off its walls. There was a smaller groundkeeper’s cottage that Kas and I had claimed as our own, tucked in the dense forest that needed some trimming, with a small brook babbling beneath the kitchen window.
We’d moved in two weeks ago.
Tradesmen were arriving next Monday to start the conversion of the elderly mansion from cobwebbed deceased estate into a safe halfway home for those kids who had no family to return to.
The ones like Kas who were nameless with no memory or past.
They would be found, they would stay here, and then...when they were ready, we would do whatever they needed to find their own happiness.
My heart pinched a little, thinking of Quell.
It’d been six months, but she still hadn’t visited Kas. I knew that was the only shadow in his otherwise sunshine-filled world. Tony kept in regular contact, and through him, we knew she was healing slowly. Kas had sent her a letter, saying he was there for her when she was ready. That he understood she needed time. That he represented the past, instead of the future, and if she never felt ready to see him, that he loved her regardless.
I rubbed at my chest.
God, what had I done to deserve this wonderful man?
This kindhearted, incredibly loving man who retained such goodness even after so much wrong?
I closed the distance between us, the sun blinding me as I looked up and caught his stunning dark stare. I had so much to be grateful for, so much that made me happy, but it all paled in comparison to Kas standing so powerful and brave, his bare feet cushioned by thick grass, wildflowers around his ankles, willows dancing in a midsummer’s breeze, and only the sounds of birds and insects surrounding us.
I no longer cared that anyone might see.
This was our home now.
This was where we were free.
This was where we could love, laugh, and live life to its absolute fullest.
His body heat burned me as I reached out and wrapped my fingers around his hard cock.
His nostrils flared as he sucked in a hiss, his back bowing and pressing more of his erection into my palm. “Fuck...” He licked his lips, his eyes fluttering closed. “Told you, you could touch it.”
I laughed under my breath, rising on my tiptoes to kiss him.
His arms snapped around me, pinning my hand between us, his cock pulsing in my fingers. His tongue dove past my lips, seeking mine.
I licked him back, giving myself over to the spell he cast.
Fang barked once, his wet nose snuffling my free hand. His way of checking that I was okay with this. That he didn’t have to protect me even though Kas growled like a beast.
I stroked Fang’s head, mumbling through our kiss. “Good boy. Lie down.”
Fang immediately flopped back onto his belly, soaking up the sun and letting us do whatever the hell we wanted.