Author: Pepper Winters

His parents heard us screaming; his dad shoved me out the front door and straight into a large flower pot. The rose bush sliced the delicate skin below my eye with its angry thorns.

Blood dripped, smearing my one and only t-shirt, and I knew I never wanted anything to do with them.

The baby was mine.

Ever since that day, Clara was mine completely. I wasn’t good at sharing, but Roan Fox gave me no choice.

He fell in love with my child with a freaky single-minded determination that scared me more than his underlying temper and violence.

He looked at Clara as if she held the answer to all his problems.

But he didn’t know.

He didn’t know that one day soon she’d be gone.

The day that happened, his life would be over, and my heart would break, and I would give him back his blue pill.

The day Clara died, she would take both of us.

It was inevitable.

A story.

There were good stories, bad stories, tragedies, and happily ever afters. Whatever Fox wanted to tell Clara, I doubted it would be fluffy unicorns and sunshine.

I wanted to end this—all of it. I couldn’t stand my heart breaking every damn day. I couldn’t stand lying in bed thinking about Fox and fighting a never-ending war of hating him for making me feel, and despising him for keeping me hostage.

I’d been prepared to walk. I couldn’t sacrifice myself for a man who suffered more demons than the devil himself. I’d been through too much to let him hurt me again.

But then he saw Clara.

He fell in love with Clara.

He stole Clara, and she was no longer mine.

The slow burn of rage hadn’t left since he fell so obsessively in love with her. I wanted to sneak out the moment he’d gone to bed and leave—but when I took Clara’s hand and dragged her down the driveway, it was as if an invisible chain tethered me. Pulling me back, making me stay.

It wasn’t obligation or about the money anymore. By falling for Clara, he’d proven he had a heart. He proved he was a man—deep inside, and as much as I wanted to hate him, I couldn’t.

Not when he doted upon my own flesh and blood; cooked her food, cut the crusts off her sandwiches, and jumped to her every demand. He became human in my eyes and that made me want to hate him more.

But hate was an emotion that demanded limitless energy. I lost the will to stoke my rage and fan my flames of anger. After all, didn’t everyone deserve happiness?

Even men who’d killed. If they repented and acknowledged their sins, wasn’t it my job as a human being to help him on the road to recovery?

At the cost of Clara?

No, at the cost of him. It would be Fox who would suffer—not Clara. She was too bold, too well loved and strong, too educated about the world to have long-term effects from Fox. But him? He wouldn’t survive her.

And that turned my hate into a sadness, more heavy and all-consuming than ever before. By letting them grow close, I was destroying both of them.

I didn’t seem to exist to either Fox or Clara as he picked himself off the floor and stalked toward the exit. He didn’t come back to collect me, or offer his hand to Clara. His body was locked down and untouchable.

“Hey, wait for me.” Clara shot out of my arms and trotted after him like a perfect puppy. I, on the other hand, trailed after them like a zombie whose world had just collapsed.

Fox led us down the corridor where the high-noon sun beamed through the glass ceiling. The heat warmed my shoulders and top of my head as we climbed down a flight of stairs to the main foyer. We headed along another hallway toward the back of the property before heading deeper downstairs, trading sunlight for shadows.

All the stupid hope I’d had that Fox might’ve broken through his no touching issues had been dashed into dust thanks to what happened in his office. He was still the same. Still haunted. Still ruined.

I thought my heart would never find a natural equilibrium again.

My skin pricked with goosebumps, and I breathed shallowly. I hadn’t been in this part of the house, and my limbs throbbed with adrenaline. I kept an ever watchful eye on Clara, poised to grab her just in case anything went wrong.

I want a weapon.

The thought popped into my head as Fox stopped outside a massive medieval door with a large lock. Engraved in the wood, looking as if someone took a sharp blade and carved with no finesse, were three lines. III.

It didn’t look like it belonged in this century. Just like the house constructed around it, there was something sinister and evil—something inhabitable.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up as Fox inserted a key and pushed open the door. The only door without a keypad lock.

He looked back, his grey-white eyes delving into mine. You can leave if you want. His gaze screamed the message glowing with pain.

I wanted to take him up on the offer. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t think I would ever be ready for what he wanted to show me.

I couldn’t give him a reply—either silent or verbal. My thoughts waged with each other, terrified at knowing, horrified at what he had to say. But mostly petrified of the decision I would have to make.

Clara darted inside—no fear or residual surprise with what happened in his office. A brief exclamation of amazement escaped her, followed by a delighted giggle. “It’s like a cave. No, it’s like a prison cell.” She turned to me. “Remember? Those pictures you showed me of those poor people in Tower of London for stealing the crown and all the Queen’s money? Remember, mummy, with the things dangling from the walls and the horrible items they used to make the poor men tell the truth? It looks like that.”

My heart stopped beating as I moved forward, taking in the room. Clara was entirely right. The space looked like a dungeon—fit only for murderous thieves and men who waited for the gallows.

Fox snorted before moving forward to flick on a row of lights hanging above work tables, tool benches, and paraphernalia. The light helped dispel some of the original cell appeal, but the walls were damp, the floor unfinished and compacted with earth.

The sharp metallic scent of bronze and lifeless metals hit my nose. Mixing with old sooty smoke from the large fire, and the cold dirt around us, the scent reminded me of Fox.

He belonged here more than he belonged in the black decadent rooms above. I couldn’t swallow at the thought of him living somewhere like this. Enduring a life in this sort of environment.

Clara skipped around the room, inspecting old-fashioned bellows, and eyeing up two massive anvils. Pliers lay scattered along with hammers and odd bits of discarded metal.

My eyes fell on the silver chain draping off the corner of a table. Fox spun to lock gazes with me. He nodded. “It’s the same gauge I used on you. It seems stupid now.” His eyes fell to the glint of silver around my throat. I still wore the star bracelets he’d made. The centre piece that secured my wrists to the belly chain had disappeared into his pocket never to be seen again.

“You were never the danger. It was me. I should’ve been the one to wear that. Not you.” His eyes fell from my throat, tracing the metal under my clothes.

“Wear what?” Clara came to my side, her eyes wide and interested. She coughed gently, sending spasms into my heart.

“Nothing.”

“You always say that.” Snorting in annoyance, Clara dashed off and disappeared through a crack at the back of the work room.

“Clara!” I jogged forward, very aware of how many sharp instruments and dangers this place held. What the hell were we doing down here? Fox could’ve told her his story anywhere. The garden where the sun was bright would’ve been much better than a fucking dungeon. “Get back here.”

“Shit, I thought that room was locked.” Fox moved forward, effortlessly swooping like a shadow on the wall rather than a human. Something about him had changed, almost as if he embraced the side of himself he was about to expose. He didn’t have to hide down here—he fit.

I held back, letting him crack open the heavy door that looked like a bank vault. Disappearing inside, he looked over his shoulder. “It’s safe. I promise. It’s a hobby of mine—that’s all.”

I frowned, entering the smallish space. Rows and rows of shelves existed from floor to ceiling.

Oh, my God. My heart clouted my ribcage, taking in what the shelves held. How was this possible? I’ve stepped through time, or entered a movie set.

“Wow, this is awesome,” Clara said, spinning around in a treasure trove of weaponry.

Fox kept a careful eye on her, but his body faced mine, ready to take whatever I had to say. I glared at him, unable to believe he thought bringing a child to someplace like this was smart.

But as much as I wanted to scream, I couldn’t deny he hovered over her like a protective father, ready to snatch whatever danger she gravitated toward out of her reach.

“Holy crap.” I drifted forward, eyes bugging at the huge arsenal hidden beneath Fox’s house. A secret room full of secret things. Things from his past. Things no one should see. Unless they were a Jacobite, or Napoleon Hill. Every item of death existed from dirks, sickles, swords, and bayonets to sabres, axes, long bows, and nun-chucks.

“Like I said, I don’t use them. Not anymore. I just make them. I did it before with—and…well, I find it therapeutic to work with what I know.” His body vibrated with tension, filling the small space with masculine energy.

My face went slack as I drifted around the room, drinking in the sight of blades and killing apparatus, breathing in bronze and iron, metallic and sharp.

Clara piped up, dragging her damageable fingers along a wicked looking spiked mace. I almost had a heart attack before Fox carefully removed her hand and placed it by her side.

“You made this?” Her innocent voice rang around the room—a huge contradiction of purity compared to the barbaricness of what she touched. “Are you going to war? Who are you fighting?” She stilled, biting her lower lip. “Ohhhh, I get it. Is that how you got your scar? You’ve been to war.”

My heart glowed for my bright little girl. “Stop asking such prying questions, Clara. His scar is personal, and I doubt it’s a story he can tell easily.”

I glanced at Fox, and he unconsciously stroked the puckered skin on his otherwise perfect face. He had a five o’clock shadow which was unusual for him, and no hair grew where the skin had been damaged.

He blinked, shaking whatever memories haunted him away. “I might tell you that story another time, little one, but not today.”

Ducking to her level, he added, “I didn’t go to war, but I did serve time and obeyed orders I wished I didn’t have to.”

Clara’s face fell. “I’m sorry.”

Fox’s lips twitched into a small smile. “It’s not your fault.” His face darkened. “If you want to hear my story, Clara, you have to promise me you won’t be sad. It isn’t about fairies or mermaids, it’s about a little boy who had a family and was made to do bad things to them. It’s about a teenager who did things he’ll never be free of, and it’s about a man who wished he could rewind the past and start all over again.”

Clara nodded, blinking big soulful eyes. “I promise. I know bad things happen. I’m big enough to hear.”

He looked up, grey eyes delving into mine. “I’ll censor, but it’s still going to be hard to tell.” He stood up, coming toward me, but not reaching out. “Is that okay?”

Was it okay? Not really. I didn’t like the thought of Clara’s head being full of sadness, or things that might give her nightmares. I didn’t like that Fox had chosen my daughter to share his past with—but I also…

Shit, I trust him.

I trusted him not to go too far. To filter the gruesome and spin a story that Clara would believe would be fanciful and fantastical. Something released in me, some of the anger I felt disappeared, and I found myself falling once again for the damaged man before me.