Primal Heat 05 - Darkness Reborn

thousand times worse than Mason and Jacob?
    She'd been wrong about the two men she'd known her whole life. How could she possibly see Kane's true self when she barely knew him? The sheva bond would obscure her ability to do anything but tumble into his arms and under his spell.
    She couldn't take the chance. She had to separate from him while she still could. Her need for him tearing at her heart, Sarah forced herself to turn away from him and grab her clothes. She had to get away from him before he sucked her in, before she made the same mistake for the third time, the fatal time.
    "I won't die," she said fiercely. "Not even for you, Kane." She yanked her clothes on, grabbed her grandmother's talisman and then took off into the forest, running for her life, running toward the one chance she had left: the village of Nashoba and a community that could save her.
    And while she was heading toward Nashoba, she was fleeing from the male that had already touched her heart, into whose safekeeping and strong arms she wanted to throw herself. She'd turned away from the first man in seven years that she'd wanted to trust.
    * * *
    Kane bolted upright, leaping to his feet as he sprang back to consciousness from his healing sleep. The moment he'd awoken, he'd known Sarah was missing, and panic had instantly assaulted him. The woods were bright, the sun high in the sky, as he spun around and searched the woods for Sarah. Jesus. Where the hell was she? How had he not woken up when she left? "Sarah!" he shouted.
    There was no reply. Just the chatter of chipmunks, the twitter of birds, and the sound of the breeze through the trees. Sarah. He reached out to her with his mind, and found nothing. Not even a sense of her energy.
    She was gone.
    Wrongness and loss plunged through him, so intently that his weapons appeared in his hands, ready to attack. The dark void swelled inside him, clawing at him, trying to take him. "Fuck off," he growled.
    He didn't know what was after him. He had no damn clue what it was, but he knew that Sarah had held it at bay. Sarah had been his anchor, his salvation. He had to find her. He would find her. Fierce commitment surged through him, a need to find the woman who had plunged through the emotional void he'd had for so long. He wanted more of her. He wanted to feel her spirit tangled with his. He needed to know who she was, what was after her.
    Kane immediately tapped into his preternatural instincts, searching his surroundings for the residual taint of violence or conflict, but there was none, which meant Sarah hadn't been hurt or taken from him. Excellent. She'd left on her own...
    Damn.
    She'd left him on her own? He didn't like that. He didn't like that at all. Why hadn't she felt the need to stay wrapped around him, breathing in the fullness of their connection until life finally forced them apart? Wasn't she feeling what he was feeling? She had to be. There was no way it was one-sided. He'd been intimately connected to her last night, and he knew damn well that he'd rocked her world.
    So why had she left? The instinct to find her and keep her safe was urgent and compelling, and it sent life and purpose surging through Kane. She was why he was alive. He knew it in his soul. He'd spent five hundred years protecting humanity, but his mission as a member of the Order of the Blade had never coursed through him with the rightness and strength that he was feeling right now.
    Sarah was his mission. Sarah was his past, his present and his future. Sarah was his, and he was going to claim her now—
    Then he laughed softly, realizing that he had no idea which way she'd gone. Her spirit still lingered, and a faint white haze drifted through the trees. Her signature, covering her trail so he couldn't track her. I will find you, sweetheart, and I promise you, it won't take long.
    He inhaled deeply, breathing the white mist into his lungs. It drifted through him, loosening the grip of the darkness trying to consume him. He had a sudden memory of that white light slicing through the blackness in his chest, and he looked down at it, expecting to see a white mark on his skin.
    Then he went utterly still in shock. On the left side of his chest, just above his heart, was a two inch circle of unblemished skin.
    The scars were gone.
    Stunned, Kane ran his fingers over the skin. The skin was so hot he jerked his hand off, his fingertips instantly charred.
    But there was no doubt: the skin was smooth in that spot.