Page 78 of Ezekiel
“That’s not good enough, man. Your wife was running through my woods. Naked. In the middle of the night. At the damn end of February. She could have died! What. The fuck. Happened?” His words were more of a command than a question.
“We were in the middle of a scene. It was going well. Really fucking well, actually,” Zeke’s voice whispered.
“Doesn’t look like it from where I’m standing,” Kai’s accusation was gruff.
“No, it really was. One minute, everything was wonderful. Everything was perfect. Then she started to have an emotional break. I had her fully deprived of her senses and then she up and safewords out of nowhere.”
“Did you end the scene? Did you take her down?” Kai’s voice was harsh. Some disjointed corner of my mind cataloged the fact that it seemed all the brothers took kink safety seriously.
“Obviously, Kai. She was running in the woods. Can’t really do that tied up, now can you? Jesus fuck! Of course I did,” Zeke bit out roughly.
“But did you do it immediately? Did you question her? Did you hesitate?” Kai asked.
“Immediately. Shears in my back pocket. It was a matter of seconds, Kai. Seconds, I tell you. I had her. I was safe!” Zeke argued. The emotion in his voice was intense.
“Then why the fuck was she running naked in the woods, screaming like a banshee about the men getting her?” Kai basically spit out.
“Wait, the what?” Zeke questioned.
And I remembered.
Tears streamed down my face as I worked to steady my breathing. I didn’t want them to know I was awake. I didn’t want to be awake.
Their voices died down, walking away from the room. Away from me. I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad about that. I didn’t want any of it. I didn’t want to feel.
I slowed my breathing, praying that God would take it all away. Would take all this emotion away. Would take the questions away.
The visions danced before my eyes until I squeezed them tightly shut, hoping it would all just go away.
Unconsciousness tugged at me once more, my mind and body shutting down in the aftermath of… well, everything.
It wasn’t their voices that I heard now, Zeke and Kai’s. Their voices were not the ones ringing through my mind as sleep took me through the veil of tears that refused to subside. It was the sound of the men’s voices. The ones who stole me away.
The men who kidnapped me.
CHAPTER17
EZEKIEL
What in the ever-loving mother fucking hell was happening?
I paced the floor of Malachi’s living room back and forth, my hands fisting in my hair so tightly I was sure I would have bald patches by morning. Kai’s throat cleared roughly from where he sat on the couch.
“Don’t,” I warned him, holding a finger up towards him. “Just don’t.” I didn’t want to hear it. Whatever was rolling around in his dumbass brain, I just didn’t want to hear it. My anxiety was through the roof, the sounds of the house echoing loudly in my ears, even though they were likely quiet sounds.
I couldn’t get it to stop. The memory of Talia bolting through the back door of our home and out into the woods in the middle of the goddamn night. In the middle of our scene! What the hell had happened?
“Zeke, you need to breathe,” Kai spoke softly. He knew I was on edge. Hell, it was obvious as fuck.
“This…,” I cut off a derisive chuckle. “This is as calm as it gets right now, Kai.”
“I think we should call the brothers,” he suggested, and I scoffed in response.
“And tell them what, exactly? Hey, everyone come quick. Zeke’s wife just streaked through the woods yelling like a banshee because of… well, because we don’t know why. What fucking good will that do?” I was being harsh. I knew that, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t control the burning, aching fear that sat low in my belly and exploded outwards, threatening to shatter my very existence. Because that’s what this felt like. It felt like my entire world was crashing down because of something I could not fucking explain.
I wanted to take her home. Right now. I wanted to fix whatever mess had put her in that state. What the fuck had I done?!
“I don’t know what to do, Kai.” My voice was a barely restrained sob of helplessness. “I’ve replayed it a thousand times in my head. What the fuck could I have done to set her off like that? I’ve never… not once… I mean, it’s never been… and with Talia? Jesus!” Kai’s hand circled my wrist, pulling me down beside him on the couch.
