Primal Heat 05 - Darkness Reborn

their promises.' And then..." He swore and his voice broke. "I kill her, then turn and walk away. Jesus." He pressed his palms to his eyes, and Sarah felt his body shaking with grief, with the reality of his dream.
    "Kane, it's just a dream—"
    "How the fuck do I know that?" He sat up suddenly, his muscles shaking violently. He turned toward her, his face so stark and raw that her soul broke for him. "Do you have any idea what it's like to have that dream night after night, and to have no idea if it's actually a memory of who you once were? For over five hundred years, I've lived with that dream and wondered if that's who I really was." He called out his flail with a crack and flash of black light. Then he hurled it against the wall. It cracked the boards and sank into the wood, sending splinters all over the room. "I spent the last five hundred years trying to save every fucking innocent I could find, protecting them from rogue Calydons who were turning on their families. But the whole time I was doing it, I knew I might be the exact man that the Order was created to destroy."
    His agony was heartbreaking, so deeply entrenched in his soul that Sarah knew then, in that moment, that she could trust him. No man could feel that level of pain and regret and still lose his heart to the blackness swirling around the village.
    Kane was her man, and she could trust him. "Blood bond with me," she said.
    Kane swung around to face her, his eyes bleak with despair. "What?"
    She held up her arm, and as she did, she saw another line forming on her arm. "Trust," she whispered. "You trusted me with your deepest secret, didn't you? That was it."
    He stared at her mark. "I've never told anyone."
    Sarah pulled him close, his body so rigid he almost didn't even respond. "I trust you," she said. "Blood bond with me."
    Kane couldn't believe what she was saying. After the story he'd just told, the one that seemed to provide further evidence for the fact he was Los Muerte and had killed his own son, Sarah should be running away from him. Not offering herself to him. "I don't understand," he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. "Didn't you hear what I said? Don't you realize that it confirms that I might be Los Muerte? That the images I saw at the pit were real?" He swore. "For God's sake, Sarah, I had that dream before I heard any of this stuff. Because it's there. It's a part of me. And it's been there all along—"
    "If it has," she said, her voice strong and firm, "it's who you used to be, not who you are now."
    Her conviction plunged straight past his shields, right into the very depths of his soul, where something slowly, ever so slowly, began to flicker to life. Hope. Hope that he wasn't the bastard he'd seen in his dream for so long. "How is that possible?"
    She set her hand on his chest, over his heart. "Because your heart has become too strong."
    Kane pressed his hand over hers, as if he could burn it into his chest. "Shit, Sarah, I don't know—"
    "I do." She scooted over and straddled him, sitting low across his hips. Her eyes were clear and blue, blazing with fierce conviction. "This is what I know," she said. "We have to take out Luc tomorrow night, and we have to do it before Jacob finds me. After Luc is dead, maybe Jacob has a chance. Luc is...he's so powerful, Kane. Our only chance is for us to team up, truly team up, and do it together." She held up her hand, and Kane's flail worked itself free of the wall, streaked across the room and slammed into her palm with a loud smack.
    Without saying anything, she dragged the spiked flail across Kane's palm, drawing blood. Adrenaline and disbelief rushed through Kane. His throat thickened as he watched Sarah do the same to herself. "Shit, Sarah," he said, unable to keep the emotion out of his voice. "You shouldn't trust me like that."
    "You don't get to tell me what to do," she said, determination bright in her eyes as she lifted Kane's palm to her lips and pressed a kiss to the center of it. Daring him. Offering herself to him. Putting her entire soul and her life into his hands. This woman, who had no reason to trust him, and every reason to never trust anyone ever, believed in him.
    "What do you see in me? Don't you see the demons?"
    I see you, Kane Santiago. I see every single level of who you are, and I believe in you. She was still pressing a kiss to his palm, still waiting, still giving him that chance, those blue eyes so full of trust and love.
    She knew everything about