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Hell.
Hades.
Purgatory.
Whatever torture you wanted to call it.
I was there. Drowning in it.
Massive arms suddenly shackled around me, pulling me up one second before my knees hit the floor.
Kane.
His scent and his presence and the turmoil he wreaked.
I thrashed against it as I wailed. As the pain burst free.
No walls or armor remaining to stop it.
The numbness I’d floated in had been stripped away, and it forced me to feel the brunt force of everything I’d tried to keep myself from for the last three months.
“Hey, hey, hey, I’ve got you, Little Warrior. Let it out.” He mumbled it low.
“You,” I cried again, his name condemnation.
Kane tightened his hold, tugging me fully against the heat of his bare chest.
Wrapping me so fiercely I couldn’t move.
No weight on my feet as he pressed his mouth to the top of my head. “That’s not going to happen, Emery. I promise you, that’s not going to happen.”
“You—”
“Fucking sorry that I gave you that threat, but I had to fight for her, too. But it’s not my goal or what I want. I have no intention of you not being a part of her life. Last thing I want to do is keep you or your mother from her. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to step aside and not become her father, either.”
I wanted to beat on his chest and call him a liar. Fight him. Hurt him the way it felt like his existence hurt me.
But I couldn’t get the sobs to stop raking from my spirit. Couldn’t do anything but give in to the crushing severity of them.
Cries came ceaselessly as he continued to mutter, “Let it out. Just let it out. Know you think you’re alone. That you’ve gotta be against me. But you don’t. Just let it out. I’m right here to stand for you while you can’t.”
I wanted to refuse it.
But I sagged against him.
“Why would you stand for me? You don’t even know me.”
The question lacked any anger. It was simply a plea.
“Because you’re my daughter’s family. Because you love her, andshe loves you. Because she’s always going to need you, and that’s never going to change.”
His arms somehow wound tighter. “And even if we didn’t have Maci in common, I’d still want you right here, in my arms. Because it was you who sparked something inside me that’s been missing my entire life. You who made me care in a heartbeat. And I want to hold it for you, Emery. This horrible thing I can feel that has you chained.”
Tears blurred my eyes, and I squeezed them tight as he clung to me. My blunt nails barely scratched into the heated flesh of his chest. “No one has ever gotten that part of me, Kane.”
The fact that he’d gotten as much out of me as he had was a miracle. Or maybe a tragedy. Because there I was, being swayed in his arms, spirit urging me to give it to him.
But I knew there was no chance of that. We could never be.