Page 257 of At the Edge of Surrender

But instead, I turned and ran.

Ran from the fear and the pain and the confusion.

From this man I had known better than falling for.

I needed to find Maci. Get to her and get her out of here. She had to be terrified. Scared and wandering and alone.

“Emery!” Kane’s shout carried on the gust of wind that whipped through the trees, and I gasped, pushing myself harder.

“Emery!” Desperation filled my name, and I could feel the pound of his boots as he began to chase me.

With each step, the ground rocked beneath my feet.

An earthquake.

A landslide.

A black hole that I’d known I’d be sucked into.

“Emery, please. Please don’t run from me,” he begged.

Breaths wheezed from my aching lungs as he neared.

The energy thrashed. Thrashed and whipped through the howling branches of the trees.

The connection wailed.

Bowing between us in a force that I couldn’t fathom.

He was right behind me.

All around me.

His aura surrounding.

I dropped to my knees.

He couldn’t stop his momentum, and he stumbled into me from behind, his arms wrapping around me as he took me all the way to the ground, pinning my stomach to the earth.

Gently, though it felt as if I’d been hit by a truck.

The crashing and grating of our bodies.

“How could you? How could you?” It was a sob that erupted from my soul. The grief I’d held for so many years burst free of the boundaries where I’d tried to keep it shored. “How could you? How could you?”

Kane’s heart battered at my back, and his breaths jutted violently from his chest. “Emery.”

“How could you?” I fumbled around, trying to push out from under him, my feet kicking up and my fingers sinking into the soggy soil beneath me as I struggled to get away. “How could you?”

Kane gripped onto my calves, and a low moan of agony rolled out of him. “No, baby, no. I?—”

“You took her. Where did you take her? Jana… Oh, God, Jana.” The cries hurtled out. Caught up in the storm that raged around us.

“Emery, please, listen to me.”

Kane gripped onto me with those hands, crawling up so he could wrap his arms around me.

Trapping me.

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