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

cheesy romance novel.  The one everyone felt sorry for and the one who ended up having to put on a brave face for true love.
                  “For you,” he repeated softer.  “If I were so eager ta toss ya away I’dve raised no objectin ta ya standing on that stone.”  He was upset, his brogue always got thicker and harder to understand when he was upset.  He was barely containing his anger as his hands had found their way to her shoulders and squeezed them tightly before giving her a slight shake for emphasis.  “Ya’ve been too close ta death too many times already; but none have ya physically ran towards,” he finished shaking her again as he tried to press home his point.  He exhaled, raised his head to the ceiling seemingly praying for divine guidance before letting his balled up hands drop back down to his sides.
                  “I don’t want to be two people stuffed into one casing,” she replied throwing his words back at him as she cautiously took a slow step backwards towards the door.  “Sometimes I sound like her, hell I know sometimes I look like her,” with each step she made towards the door, towards her escape her words took on added strength.  “But damn it know this, I am Annie Locke.  I was born of this side of your veil; and I am just as real as your precious goddess.  I will step on that stone and forget all about the Fae as your princess retakes her throne and -,” she stopped herself from going any further as she felt tears well up in her eyes.
                  She turned to make her escape in earnest but his last words halted her, hand hovering just above the screen door handle, she waited and listened.  “Tara scares me Annie.”  She refused to turn around, refused to look at him afraid of what she might see.  Somehow this seemed easier for both of them; he was free to talk and she was free to listen. “I’ve never been there.  I’ve never seen its hills that have eyes all over Ireland.  I’ve never seen the hedge rows that outline its borders.  I’ve never smelled the grass nor heard the sheep that graze in its shadow.  But I’ve been there ,” he ground out.  “I’ve felt the power of that stone and it scares me.”
                  She had gained her space, had won the freedom, had won her escape, and before any fickle emotion could draw her away she took her chance and ran away as fast as her new found strength would take her, leaving Duncan and his confession behind her.  Because what she could not say, what she would never admit to him was that that stone scared her too.
     
     
     

     
     
     
                  Tears refused to blur her sight.  She should have felt some form of emotional angst but it would not surface.  The adrenaline and the quick run had bled any emotion out of her.  Her physical body had stopped moving the instant it felt the cool wet touch of the ocean.  Her shoes were stuck in the muddy shores of the Wharf.  Of all the places she could have run to this should have been the last.  Its grassy shores still retained the fresh screams of a battle barely won, but somehow she felt clean.  The salty Atlantic water had quickly and thoroughly cleansed her emotions leaving her clean, but empty.  The feeling allowed her to think more clearly and without the unwanted distraction of Duncan and the goddess that purred every time he was near.
    Her eyes grazed across the darkened waters and imagined what lay beyond the sheltered harbor.  Somewhere this lapping ocean water had once touched the distant shores of the one place that held her past, present and future; the one place that truly held her freedom.  Only then could she be sure if she was really feeling what she was feeling.  Only then would she discover if she could escape this bizarre love triangle with her heart still in one piece.  Before the battle that had raged on these shores she had been told, convinced even,