Primal Heat 05 - Darkness Reborn

dialed again, and it went right into voicemail. "No!" She screamed her denial, her anguish, her protest useless in the empty cab of the truck.
    Her damned curse, her blessing, her fate, whatever name you attached to it, had stolen everything. And now it was going to take her grandmother, the woman who had held Sarah's broken body, refusing to let her die after the man Sarah loved had attacked her and killed their child.
    Sarah couldn't do it without her grandmother. She knew she couldn't. It wasn't simply her life that her brother had been trying to take from her last night. It was her soul, her hope, her faith, the very things that gave her power.
    Nonny was the only light left in Sarah's life, the only beauty, the only sign that there might be something good in this God-forsaken existence she'd been cursed with. Without Nonny, there was nothing left inside Sarah. No hope. No faith. Nothing.
    The darkness closed in around Sarah, and a sudden chill rippled down her arms, a knowledge so ingrained in her that it told her exactly the moment the sun had set.
    It was now.
    She had a sudden vision of her stubborn grandmother strutting out of the village, her chin raised defiantly and her leather sandals whispering silently across the ground as she headed into the nightmare of claws, demons and hell beyond what anyone should endure.
    Dammit! She would not let that happen. "No!" Sarah slammed on the brakes, and the SUV skidded across the asphalt. She shoved the door open and leapt out, her battered bare feet aching as they hit the pebbles. She raised her arms to the sky, and closed her eyes, tapping into the very depths of her soul.
    She pictured her brother, and she let her heart bleed with the pain of his betrayal. She allowed her heart to fill with her love for the little boy she'd raised after their parents had been killed. She recalled the tone of his voice, that deep tenor that was so like their father's had been. She imagined herself standing above his bed while he was a sleeping teenager, praying he would be spared.
    She opened her connection and her soul to Jacob, begging him to find her before he spotted their grandmother, tapping into the blood bond they shared and her immense love for him. Jacob. I'm here. Come find me . I'm almost to my destination, and you'll never get me then. You have no time to waste. Come find me, now!
    A cool breeze teased over her skin, the hoot of an owl drifted through the woods, but there was no response from Jacob. He hadn't noticed her yet. What was he doing? Killing Nonny? Jacob! She screamed his name—
    Suddenly, his face appeared in her thoughts, and she felt the cold ripple of his presence in her mind, utterly devoid of the jovial warmth that had been a part of him for so long. She stared into his vibrant blue eyes. The anguish and wisdom in them was so heartbreaking that she knew she was looking into Jacob's eyes in that very moment, and that there was still awareness and humanity in them. Dear God, it was after sunset and his eyes were still blue. "Jacob?" Desperate hope leapt in her chest. "You're okay?"
    Then his eyes began to glow red, that violent, punishing crimson of death and hate, and she felt her heart shatter again at the loss. Dammit. She should know better than to hope, because losing it was far more devastating than never feeling it in the first place.
    Jacob let out a roar of fury. Violent heat burst over her, and she knew he'd targeted her location. He was coming after her. The race had begun.
    He wouldn't notice their grandmother now. He would be focused only on hunting Sarah. Yay. Happy day. There was nothing like forcing an assassin's attention onto yourself to reinforce the fact that it's just not a good day.
    Sarah shut him out of her mind, determined to block their connection enough to make it difficult for him to track her. Last night, she hadn't been ready to block him, and he'd found her the moment the sun had set. But now, she was ready.
    Sarah closed her eyes and carefully reinforced her mental shields, trying to block her location from the brother that she'd been so connected with her entire life. It felt cold and empty not to have his warmth a part of her, but it was also a relief, a realization that maybe she had some control over how this played out.
    How long could she hold him off? Not three hours. Not when they had always been so close. But maybe there was hope up ahead, around the next bend. Every minute gave her a chance, every minute gave