Chapter 36

AUTHOR'S POV [ADLER]

He felt her fear, her trembling, but it didn't surpass his when he called repeatedly, and nobody picked.

It didn't surpass his when he had let Kyra find Salvatore while he and Rune searched for her, tracking Salvatore's landline while struggling not to cause a major accident on the road as he drove past red lights and incoming trucks.

The terror he felt when he came to the sight of the car, in the middle of nowhere, shut with no one in it, the urge to yell into the air, was so evident. Had they gotten her? Was she dead?

Until he heard the silent sniffle coming from the car trunk, knocking against the windows, hoping to listen to it again, hoping it wasn't his hallucinations playing tricks on him.

Now that he held her in his arms, breathing in her scent, it was hard to explain the feelings. They seemed to cascade out from him; when he thought he could explain one out, it became stronger.

Only her mattered right now, this human, wettin