Page 174 of At the Edge of Surrender

I whipped back around and finished loading the bags into the back, and I turned around so I could return the cart to the corral.

Only I gasped when a blur came at me from out of nowhere. A rush of maliciousness that flew up from behind.

A hand clapped over my mouth, and a thick arm locked around my waist, pinning me against the horrid wall of wickedness.

Evil oozing out and blackening my sight.

Terror ricocheted through my body as the deviant began to drag me backward where we were almost completely hidden fromthe lot by the angle of the car. Toward the dense copse of trees that surrounded the store and lot.

No.

No, no, no.

Flailing, I kicked and jerked. A frantic, desperate bid to break free of the painful hold.

My nails raked at the only bare flesh I could find on him—a sliver of it at his wrists where the long sleeves of his black tee didn’t meet the leather gloves that he wore.

“You bitch,” the ungodly voice hissed in my ear. “You want me to make this hurt? Stop squirming, and maybe I’ll make it easy for you.”

He meant make it easy forhim.

That was not going to happen.

I gripped onto the wrist of the hand that covered my mouth, causing him to release it for a fraction of a second.

It was enough time to release a scream. A scream full of rage and anger and all the fear I’d kept contained for too many years.

And I fought, tearing and ripping at his hold as he tried to pull me into the forest where there was no question I’d be forever lost.

I rammed an elbow into his ribs.

He grunted out in pain, though it rebounded in indignation.

“You fucking whore. The things I’m going to let them do to you.” He grated the threat at my ear.

Horrors spun. A thousand of them that hit me in a torrent of appalling flashes.

Things I’d suppressed.

Three days of agony.

Three days of torture and hell.

A lifetime of it that Jana had lived, however short that was likely to have been.

And the fury of that all came rising to the surface. Erupting in a strength that I didn’t know I possessed.

Little Warrior.

Kane’s murmured praise echoed through my mind, and I fought the monster with everything I had.

Refusing to let this happen again.

Kicking the heel of my shoe back, I struck him in the shin. It was enough to make him stumble a step. I used it to my advantage, jerking the arm he had bound around my waist.

It set him off balance, and I threw my weight forward and fully broke out of his hold.

A rabid growl of frustration heaved out of him.

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