Free The Screaming Stone: The Otherworld Series Book 2 by N.K. Vir

restraining grip disappeared and was quickly replaced by a different sort of imprisonment.  She felt his arms cage her in with her back to the wall and her front brushing almost intimately against him she was exposed and incapable of any sort of defense as she was forced to face what she had been trying to run away from.
                  “What do you need?” he whispered his breath tickling the delicate nerves embedded in her lips.  Her last defense threatened to buckle under the gentle assault as her delicately shielded eyes threatened to open and surrender.
                  Her lungs burned as she struggled to keep every muscle still, willing her physical body to disappear into the peeling wallpaper at her back.  They screamed in protest and succeeded in turning her eyes into a prize for her attacker.  She sucked in a deep breath, like a drowning victim who suddenly surfaces and all sense of emotion rises to behold the beauty of life.  Her eyes popped open, her heart began to beat rapidly, her ears began to listen and her hands began to feel.  Her voice struggled to be heard and finding no words settled on a sound somewhere between regret and want.
                  His tortured exhaled breath signaled a truce as he slowly moved away from her and gave her a little room.  He was willing to lose as much as she wanted to win.  She seized upon the opportunity and found her voice to press the small advantage she had gained.  “I need to know what is real ,” she finally replied.  Internally her eyes rolled at the husky needy sound of her own voice.  Damn if she wasn’t every weak-willed, overly hormonal woman who had ever found creative life in a cheesy romance novel.
                  Slowly her mind began to overrule her heart as it sought to rationalize the irrational.  Her sight hardened as her eyes were drawn back to her side.  They bore into the beautiful face that hovered inches away from hers.   They looked past the full mouth that had parted in anticipation of delivering a killing kiss.  They looked past the flaring nostrils that threated to inhale the last remnant of sweet resistance and settled on to his most dangerous feature; those tortured stormy eyes.  In the otherworldly depths of those irises she saw he was struggling with the same demons, the same doubt.  The only difference was he fought it differently.
                  A sarcastic laugh danced a joyous jig as it dribbled out of her.  “You see, even you don’t know,” she accused pushing him easily away from her.  She watched him fall stunned into the wall that barely held his massive form upright.
                  “My own thoughts have been dark, even my dreams haunt me.  I’ll no’ claim ta have all the answers, but I know what’s real!”  The raw pained sound of his voice made Annie regret her decision to attack when she should have retreated.  The moment she realized her tactical mistake she tried to turn and run again, but he was much faster.  Years of battle sharpened reflexes sprang into action as his hand quickly seized her wrist preventing her from fleeing.  “Ye forget one thing princess, I know what it’s like ta be two beings stuffed into one casing.  I walked that line all these years for you.”
                  “For her,” she spat back as she tried, without success, to pull free from his grasp.  She was outraged that he would claim that he had done everything he had done for her.  He fought, he still fought for his goddess, and he just refused to admit it.  He was terrified of her stepping on the screaming stone because it might cause Aine to disappear again, making him start his quest all over.  And just where did that leave her?  With a broken heart and shattered self-esteem because she lost the one guy she had ever really been interested in to a faerie princess.  Oh yeah, she was the pathetic anti-heroine in that