Primal Heat 05 - Darkness Reborn

breathe.
    He didn't sleep anymore, unwilling to relax his safeguards against the onslaught inside him. His only mission had been to find Sarah. He'd been consumed by the need to locate the woman who had wiped out some of the scars on his chest and made him feel alive for the first time in five hundred years. He'd felt pain when he was with her, yeah, and darkness, but she'd also made his soul come screaming to life, and that was worth all the pain and torture in the world.
    And now, after two weeks of frustration and dead ends, he'd found her. She was real. Real.
    Her hair was ash blond, like the color of sunshine breaking through a storm cloud. Her eyes were an even more radiant shade of blue than he'd remembered. But she looked delicate and fragile, so pale she seemed almost translucent. Her hands were trembling, and dirt was caked under her fingernails. He swore under his breath as the need to protect her raged to the surface, but he forced himself not to move toward her, afraid to spook her before he'd gotten her settled.
    She'd taken off on him once, and he could not allow that to happen again. He needed to handle the situation better this time. Right now, she needed his help, and he was going to give it to her. He needed to save her ass quickly, and then get her alone where he could solidify his position in her life so she didn't leave him.
    "Don't destroy the fountain," she said. "It has special properties."
    Kane grimaced at the several thousand pound tower of stone. Not move it? "You like to make things difficult, don't you, sweetheart?"
    She managed a small smile. "You wouldn't adore me so much if I made life easy for you."
    "Yeah." Kane eyed the fountain, trying to figure out a solution that didn't involve decimation. "True, but you're a serious impediment to my need to be violent and destructive."
    Her smile faded, and he felt a surge of fear from her. "Do you really feel that way? Violent and destructive?"
    At her sudden tension, Kane swung around to look at her, dropping the pretense. "It's part of who we are, Sarah," he said honestly. "It's what makes us able to save the damn world on a daily basis. I'm no angel, not by a longshot." He wouldn't lie to her about what he was, about the violence that was pulsing inside him, about the life he'd been leading for so long.
    She bit her lip, and he felt her sudden withdrawal. The moment she pulled back, the void inside him roared back to life, fighting to consume him. He almost staggered from the force of it. There was no pain this time, just a sense of utter blankness. Death? Son of a bitch. What the fuck was going on? One minute he was consumed with a void that felt like the steady approach of death, and the next minute, there was such violence and pain tearing through him that he wanted to rip off his skin and let the demon loose into the world. Death versus life? Life was a demon, and death was death? Was that what was going on inside him? Because if so, he opted for door number three, whatever that might be—
    Another wave of vast emptiness hit him, and it felt like his spirit was getting sucked into an arid dust bath, draining the life from his cells one by one by one.
    "God, I love that angel perspective," Ryland said reverently, pausing with his machete in his fist. "She wants to save every damned thing, doesn't she? Even an old fountain. Can you imagine living that way? Fucking beautiful."
    Thano raised his brows. "Dude, we need to get you some therapy. There's no beauty in your world. There's only violence and bad attitude. You don't even know how to notice beauty."
    Ryland glared at him. "Fuck off, rookie."
    Thano just grinned and held out his arms. "You can stop pretending you don't want to hug me. I can do the man-hug thing without losing my raw, manly sex appeal. Everything is beautiful, and all that, right?"
    "Thano," Kane muttered, bracing himself against the pain trying to tear him apart. "Stop fucking around."
    Thano and Ryland both turned toward Kane, and Thano's grin dropped off. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
    "I don't know." Kane's head was spinning, and he felt like he was losing his equilibrium. He braced his hands on the ground and bowed his head, straining to keep his balance and his focus. His skin felt cold, and his muscles felt like they were sluggish and heavy, like he was lodged in a pit of quicksand—
    Kane. Sarah's hand landed on his bare back, and a shock of energy ripped through him.
    Don't move, Sarah. Stay with me. He