Page 30 of At the Edge of Surrender

“That’s right, because she gots a really good friend for me,” Maci peeped as she slipped her tiny hand back into mine.

Mom’s gaze turned intense. Emphatic. What she’d been telling me all along.

We had to. We had to.

But I had no idea how to see this through. Not when it would be the hardest thing I’d ever done.

SEVEN

KANE

Stunned,I stared at the trail of dust they left behind them, bare feet pressing into the sharp, jagged rocks underneath.

Mind fucking spinning.

A riot as I tried to process what the hell had just happened.

Heart manic as I toiled through what could have brought her to my door.

As I wondered how the fuck she’d found me.

At my house that very few people knew about, and the ones who did would not be freely giving up that information.

We kept that shit under lock and key.

So that tiny detail was what I really should be freaking out about, but the only thing I could consider then was the fact that she’d been here.

The absolute panic that had been rolling from that tight little body.

The only logical conclusion I could come to was that she was in trouble.

Except…

I scrubbed a palm down my face, trying to see through the disorder that still billowed through the air.

There was something that didn’t sit right about that, either. I couldn’t shake the sense that she’d been caught off guard at finding me at the door. Like she’d been expecting someone else.

That middle-aged woman in the car and the little girl in the back.

My stomach twisted.

Fuck.

Emery was a mom, and if that didn’t have me itching in all sorts of different ways. Truth that I didn’t mess with that bullshit since the weight of Sovereign Sanctum was load enough.

The burden we carried.

The oaths we made.

All while the thought of leaving them unprotected sent a wave of possession rising so high and wide there was no escaping it.

She’d left running. Fleeing the scene with no intention of ever being found.

Panicked and afraid.

That was not something I could just leave alone.

This sense that her being here had been profound. Like my entire fucking world had just been flipped.

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