Primal Heat 05 - Darkness Reborn

pain.
    Jacob landed with a thud, then scrambled to his feet and bolted into the darkness, fleeing to preserve his life and attack her another day. She grabbed the warrior’s ankle as he started to fade to go after her brother. “No,” she gasped, terrified he would finish off Jacob. “Let him go.”
    He looked down at her, and she saw the aggression and violence in his dark eyes, a jolting reminder that he was a Calydon warrior, a male she couldn’t trust, an unpredictable enemy who would turn on her at any moment, the creature born to be her very downfall.
    Stunned, she let her hand fall from his ankle. How could she have forgotten what he was? How could she have forgotten the lessons she’d learned so brutally? How could she have let herself be consumed by the relief she’d felt at his arrival?
    The moment he sensed what she was, even on a subconscious level, he would kill her. There would be no way for him to stop himself. It was why he and all the other Calydons were created: to destroy her and her kind.
    His eyes were black now, but they would soon turn red. They always did.
    It was nighttime now, the kind of dark, moonless night that was the playground for his kind. She was alone with him in a stretch of forest, miles from humanity, still helpless from the punishment of using her powers against Jacob and the others. She had no defenses. No resources. No way to survive him when he turned on her.
    But as the aftermath of her powers began to take over her, and the fever set in, she knew that without him, she wouldn’t survive either.
    * * *
    She was dying.
    Kane could feel the ebbing of her life force as her hand fell away from his ankle. Urgency coursed through him, and he crouched beside her, his Calydon instinct to hunt down her attacker vanishing in the face of her fading spirit. He put his hand over her side and swore when she tried to jerk away from him. "No, no," he said quietly. "I won't hurt you."
    But there was terror on her face. Not random fear of what he was, a member of the Order of the Blade with a fearsome reputation. No, there was wisdom and a grim acceptance of reality in her blue eyes, as if she knew who he truly was. As if she had the answers he'd been seeking his whole life. Shock shot through him. "You know who I am," he said fiercely. "Who am I?"
    "You're a Calydon," she rasped out, her voice hoarse, as if she'd been screaming for days.
    A Calydon? That was all she saw? Disappointment coursed through him, the same loss he'd experienced so many times when he'd thought he had a lead on his past. How could he have been wrong this time? It felt like she was seeing right through him to his core.
    "Go away," she whispered. "Now."
    And leave her dying? He was almost insulted that she would even suggest it. He had no idea who she was, but he was consumed with the need to keep her safe, to protect her. "No."
    Kane pressed more firmly against her belly, trying to stem the flow of blood. She was burning up, and what looked like hairline fractures were streaking across her skin. Tremors were shaking her, and he could see the wildness of pain in her eyes. "Tell me how to help you." He wanted to pick her up, but she looked so fragile, like she would shatter into a thousand fragments if he moved her. Damn. He had no concept of how to be gentle. He knew how to fight the bad guys, not how to handle someone so delicate she looked as if she would disintegrate in his arms.
    She shook her head and tried to roll onto her side away from him, as if she were going to try to get up. "Just let me go. I think I can make it."
    No chance was Kane letting her go. He carefully grasped her shoulders. The heat from her skin burned his fingers, and he swore at the intensity of it. What the hell was happening to her? "I can feel your spirit fading," he said. "Don't lie to me."
    Her gaze flickered to him, vulnerability etched on her face, and for a moment, her shields fell. In that split second, he felt the true depths of her anguish, a torment that filled her soul, the burden of responsibility so great that it was destroying her. The black void within him surged in response, recognizing the pain within her, and he grimaced, struggling against the sudden onslaught of emptiness.
    Her eyes widened. "What's wrong with you?"
    "Nothing." He fought it back down as her body began to shake even more violently. She fell back to the ground with a thud that sounded like her skin had cracked even more, and she couldn't suppress a