He reached down and grabbed her ponytail, yanking her head up so that her eyes were forced to meet his. He wore his beard bushy to cover his weak chin, and his eyes blazed fire like a madman’s. He’d been the demon in every one of her nightmares. He was the devil, evil incarnate.

He leaned close to her, pressing his foul-smelling mouth next to her ear. “I killed them all, one by one. I told them you wanted them dead in order to be with me. I knew that’s where I made my mistake. You didn’t cleave to your husband as you should have because the sins of your former life were too great for you to overcome as long as those sinners lived. You had to be shown the way. You had to be punished.”

He slapped her face hard, knocking her backward, bringing tears to her eyes. When she would have been driven back by the blow, his hand holding her ponytail kept her from falling. He rained blows on her, using his fist as well as his open hand.

Lexi barely felt the attack after the initial slap, managing to kick out with her legs, as she’d practiced over and over in the gym with her brothers-in-law. She hit him hard in one knee and a thigh with the heels of her boots. He cursed at her as he fell into the gate. She rolled, astonished that the move actually worked.

Slamming her fists as deep as possible into the soil, she directed the seismic energy straight at the man who had turned her life into a living hell. She put every ounce of fear and anger, helplessness, and despair he’d made her feel into the blow. All the pain. The grief at the loss of her family. All of it went into the terrible strike directed at him.

The earth shook beneath her fists, the ripples spreading out, rushing beneath the ground straight at its target. Caine struggled to his feet, dragging himself up using the fence post.

“You bitch. You’re going to pay for that.” He winced when he tried to take a step and his knee crumpled out from under him.

A vein appeared in the ground, zigzagging like a snake, widening as it approached Caine. Her eyes widened in horror and she pulled her fists out of the earth fast, but it was too late. The crack became an abyss, opening directly under Caine and the gate, dropping them both into the fissure. The crevice wasn’t extraordinarily deep, and it slammed closed on Caine’s legs, crushing them, trapping them in the ground. He screamed and screamed.