Primal Heat 05 - Darkness Reborn

whole truth. He had a bad feeling about the mutated Calydons, but as for Sarah? All good...except for the fact she'd taken off on him.
    That still bugged him. It was hell on a man's ego to give a woman the best loving he could, and then have her bail without a word. But her actions also intrigued him. She might be fighting for her life, but she had the courage to do what she felt was right, and he liked that. A lot.
    He was fired up as hell to find her again. What answers did she have? Would she be his salvation, or bring him to the doom that had been stalking him for so long? He rubbed his hand over the smooth spot on his chest, wondering whether the missing scars were a good sign, or a bad one.
    He needed to know, and he was going to look forward to getting the information from her. He grinned, adrenaline racing through him at the challenge Sarah had presented to him by bailing on him. What would she say when she saw him walking up to her? Would that same passion and desire still be there?
    Or would it be even stronger?
    He had a feeling he knew the answer. What had ignited between him and Sarah was only the beginning.
    Thano raised his eyebrows. "What's that shit-eating grin for?"
    "You'll never know, rookie," Kane said as he raised his arm for his teammates to grasp. "Let's go. I know where to start the search." Thano and Ryland set their hands on his arm, and he dematerialized, taking them right to the truck that Sarah had been driving when he'd found her.
    Unless the truck was unregistered, he would know everything he needed to know about her within about five minutes.
    Two minutes later, as he stared at the spots where a license plate should have been on the back of her truck, Kane had his answer about how hard it was going to be to track her down.
    The game of cat and mouse had begun.

Chapter Six
    She was almost there.
    Almost there.
    She could make it.
    Come on, Sarah.
    Fighting for consciousness, Sarah maneuvered her rented Jeep onto the well-hidden, dirt road to her village. The trees blurred in and out of focus, and the sounds of buzzing filled her ears. Dammit. She'd waited too long to come back.
    She needed to come back at least once a week to restore her powers, but she'd waited almost two weeks since the night of Jacob's attack and Kane's rescue before coming home. She'd refused to abandon the hope that she could find help outside the village, and she'd been avoiding coming back to a town that didn't have her brother or her grandmother anymore.
    She'd been so devastated when she'd finally made it to Nashoba and found a burned out village that had been long abandoned. There was no sign of a fountain of water to restore her, and the houses were boarded up. She'd visited three other sites where earth angels were rumored to live, and they were all burned out, stripped of the magic that could keep her alive.
    Her powers dwindling fast, she'd had to return to Akara to recharge. Her drive home had been burdened with the grim possibility that her village might be the last functioning enclave left. She didn't know of anywhere else to find resources. Her trip had been a bust. She'd failed in her quest, and now it was almost too late to save herself.
    The vehicle bounced over a rut, and the Jeep careened toward a tree. She yelped and yanked the wheel back to the left, barely avoiding a head-on collision with a massive pine. "Concentrate, Sarah."
    She gripped the steering wheel and leaned forward, trying to concentrate on the winding road. The pavement seemed to blur in and out of focus, and she fought for control, straining to see the white marker for the turn-off...
    There! She hauled the Jeep to the right, bouncing over the rocks as the vehicle shot down the road, relief cascading through her. She was almost to the village, almost to the fountain, almost home. See? She'd timed it perfectly and had everything under perfect control. The fact she was dizzy, weak and hallucinating because she needed to restore her powers so badly? It was merely an indication of how she had efficiently maximized her resources to get the most out of her trip, not an indication that she was desperate and spiraling out of control. Not at all.
    Yes, so she might have utterly failed to come up with a secondary source of support while she was trekking around the countryside, but she was an efficiency goddess in knowing exactly how long she could push it. Go her.
    She hit the gas, the tires spewing gravel as she peeled around the corner