Darkness Reborn (Order of the Blade #5)

by Rowe, Stephanie

  “Let me finish.” She put her hand on his lips to shush him, and sudden heat rushed over him at the feel. Lust. Desire. Raw, burning need for this woman in his arms. He began to rub her shoulder, sliding his thumb past the edge of her collar so he touched her bare skin.

  Sarah jumped and caught her breath. “Don’t do that,” she said. “I can’t concentrate.”

  “Can’t stop.” He bent his head, trailing his lips over her throat. “Keep talking.”

  Sarah leaned her head back against the wall, not trying to shove him away. “God, Kane, how can you be the same man? How can you be two different men like this? I should never respond to you like this—”

  “Yes, you should.” Kane fisted her hair and brought his mouth down over hers. Now that he knew he was going to get the answers he wanted, suddenly, the urgency was gone, replaced by a thrumming anticipation and a heady sense of power. He had what he wanted, and it was coming now. “Talk to me, Sarah.” He brushed his lips over her jaw, all too aware of how passionate they’d been together that night. “Who am I?”

  She pushed at his shoulders, trying to get space. “I think you might be Los Muerte.”

  “Los Muerte?” Kane paused in his seduction, rolling the name over in his head. It didn’t sound familiar. “Who is Los Muerte?”

  “Death. A Calydon in our village who killed his own wife and son and murdered over five hundred people, mostly angels. Los Muerte destroyed this entire town, Kane, in one murderous frenzy and wiped out almost an entire race of beings.”

  Kane went still, staring at Sarah as her words crashed through him like the black night of hell. Visions suddenly stormed through his head. Death. Bloodied bodies. A small boy cowering in the corner of a blood-stained floor… Jesus! He jerked back from her, denial racing through him. “That’s not me.”

  Her face was strained, shadows erasing her features as she kept talking. “They couldn’t kill Los Muerte. Everything they tried didn’t work. He healed every time and would come back. The last time they were able to incapacitate him, they carved the talismans in his body, symbols of protection against the demons, frantically marking up his skin before he could recover and attack again.” Sarah touched his arm, running her fingers over his scars, a touch so soft and so incongruous to the story she was telling. “They covered every last bit of his skin, trying to contain the demon within.”

  Kane shook his head, trying to clear the visions. “There’s no way that was me.”

  “They dumped Los Muerte in another city before he woke up, praying that he wouldn’t be able to find his way back,” Sarah said softly. “They were hoping that when he woke up, the markings would have contained the demon, so only the parts of his soul that weren’t a monster would remain.”

  Kane leaned back against the wall of the tunnel, trying to process Sarah’s information. The story fit with what he knew of his past, with the scars and waking up in an alley with no memory. Was he a murderer? Did he murder his own son? Disgust and revulsion pulsed through him, but Kane forced himself to look inside, to see if it fit him.

  It didn’t.

  He opened his eyes and looked at Sarah. “I’m not Los Muerte. It’s impossible.”

  “Your scars match the talismans carved all over the village,” she said. She touched his chest. “I can feel the darkness inside you, Kane. The violence. The evil. And that void—it felt like death, like your soul was dying. That could have been from the talismans keeping your true self buried. Maybe they were killing your soul.”

  “And it’s coming back to life because of you? That’s the darkness and the pain, my true self trying to come back to life?” He swore, pressing his hand over hers, knowing exactly what she was talking about. His need to attack Ryland. The darkness swirling inside him that had been getting worse and worse. The restlessness. “Shit.”

  Sarah moved closer, the water rippling between them as it streamed past them. “But I also feel the goodness inside you. I feel both, Kane.” She looked up at him, and there was wariness in her eyes, but also warmth and acceptance. “I don’t know what you are. I don’t know how you can be Los Muerte and still be the man who averted his weapon so quickly when I moved in front of it.”

  Kane braced his hands on either side of Sarah’s neck, pulled her close, needing to feel her against him. “Shit, Sarah, of course I’d move my weapon away from you—”

  “No.” She touched his mouth again. “There’s one more thing about Los Muerte, Kane.”

  Kane slid his hands over her hips, drawing her tighter against him. “What?”

  “He was created to wipe out the angels in the village.” She raised her chin to meet his gaze. “I’m the last one left, Kane. If you’re Los Muerte, then you’ve come back to this town to kill me.”

  Kane stared at her, and for a split second, a vision flashed in his mind of Sarah dead, her body floating on the river, eyes closed, stretched out like the angel of death had wiped her out. Panic hit him, raw uncontrolled fear at the thought of her dying, and he yanked her close. She barely had time to yelp before he slammed his mouth down onto hers and kissed her.

  *

  Kane’s kiss was frantic and desperate, almost violent, nearly consuming Sarah from the intensity of it. It was nothing like the kiss the night they’d met, which had been about emotional connection and trying to uplift each other’s souls.

  This was raw, untamed possession. Desperation. And it crashed through all the shields she’d been trying to hold so tightly to protect herself from him. With a frantic moan, Sarah threw her arms around him and kissed him back, just as desperate as he was for the kiss, for the connection, for the feel of his mouth on hers.

  She didn’t know how he could affect her this way, how she could dig her fingers into his scars and not feel unbridled terror, but she didn’t. She just felt the raw strength of his body surrounding her, the steel of his arms as he locked her down against his solid frame, and the burning need of his soul for hers.

  His hands gripped her hips and he pushed her against the rock wall, his body pinning her against the rough earth. He was so dominant, so powerful, and her entire being wanted more. She wanted to feel his mind the way she had before. She wanted that connection. She wanted to feel him burning his way into her soul and igniting the light buried within her—

  “God, Sarah,” Kane whispered against her mouth. “You’re like this burst of white light into my soul.”

  She laughed softly. Well, I am an angel—

  Kane broke the kiss suddenly, slamming her against the wall. He loomed over her, his eyes dark and turbulent. “I’m not here to destroy you,” he ground out. “When I see you, I’m consumed by the need to protect you. These last two weeks have been hell, wondering where you were, terrified that those bastards had found you and I hadn’t been there to protect you.” He gripped her hair, his voice fierce and raw. “My only mission for the last five hundred years has been to find out who I am, until I met you, and then it became you.” He tightened his grip and lowered his mouth to hers, almost touching, not quite. “I need to breathe the air you breathe. I need to feel your skin against mine. I need to feel your mind in my head. I burn to make love to you until the very earth itself explodes from the intensity of our passion.” He lifted his gaze, his eyes blazing with fire. “Those are not the words of a man brought into this life to destroy you, Sarah. I will never, ever believe that I’m meant to destroy you. Never.”

  And then his mouth descended on hers and he took her as his own.

  Tears filled Sarah’s eyes as Kane kissed her, her heart aching as his words reverberated through her. How could he say those words? How could he mean them? How could she trust him? But it felt so right. It felt true. Her entire soul wanted to reach out to him and enfold him into her heart— “Stop!” She pushed him away, struggling to get free. “Don’t—”

  “What?” He didn’t let go, didn’t release her, didn’t give her space. His face was stark and raw, and she felt his horror at what she’d told him, at the
possibility that he was who she’d said. “Why are you so scared of me, Sarah? What do you see in me?”

  Sarah heard the desperation in his voice, and suddenly she just wanted to cry. She didn’t want to hold this man at arm’s length anymore. He’d saved her life three times already, between her brother, her fading light, and now the fountain. He’d averted his weapon when she’d moved in front of it. He’d touched her heart. And he’d said the most beautiful things to her, the kind of things that made the aching wound in her soul want to heal.

  But how could she trust him? How could she trust another Calydon again?

  “Sarah.” His grip was desperate. “You’ve been inside my soul. As God is my witness, what did you see in there that makes you so afraid of me? Did you see Los Muerte? Did you?”

  “No!” she blurted out. “I saw my husband!”

  Kane sucked in his breath, and his fingers dug into her arms. His voice went deathly cold. “You have a husband?”

  “No.” She closed her eyes, fighting against the memories trying to consume her. “I did. He killed my parents, our daughter, and almost me.” She tugged her shirt up and showed him the eighteen inch scar across her abdomen. “I was in the hospital for eleven months,” she said. “He came as close to killing me as anyone has ever come.”

  Kane felt shock roll through him as he stared at the raw, brutal wound transgressing Sarah’s torso. There were a multitude of lines, crisscrossing in several different directions. Claw marks. Swearing, he spread his palm over her belly as if he could take away the memory and the pain. “Shit, Sarah. What happened?”

  Sarah looked at him, and he saw the immense pain in her eyes. Not just pain. Betrayal. The same as she’d felt with her brother. “Mason and I lived next door to each other in the village as kids,” she said. “Back then Akara was pretty populated, and it had begun to thrive again after the destruction.”

  Kane grimaced at her reference to Los Muerte, but he quickly shut it out when another wave of Sarah’s pain hit him. “Sarah—”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I want you to know.” Her eyes were shimmering with tears. “Mason and I had been best friends since we were kids. We were so tight. Connected in our souls.”

  Jealousy shot through Kane at the idea of Sarah being connected with another male, and he cupped the side of her face with his palm, needing to bring them together in the present. He was the one here now. Not anyone else. He was the one who’d made love to her until the earth had shifted. “What happened?”

  She set her hand on his wrist, wrapping her fingers around his arm to keep him from releasing her, pleasing Kane. “We fell in love when we were teenagers.” She looked at Kane, searching his face for understanding. “I knew that the Calydons were hunting us. I’d grown up having to bar my doors at night to keep them out. I knew that boys who were my friends could turn, husbands, brothers…it happened all the time. Sometimes, they didn’t. Sometimes they came into their powers and remained loyal, protecting the rest of us at night. Other times, they crossed that line into monsters. Sometimes it happened as soon as they came into their powers, and sometimes years later. We all knew not to trust our men.”

  Kane narrowed his eyes as he digested that information. “Did they turn rogue because they were bonded with females?”

  “No. There was never a reason we could find.” She closed her eyes, and he felt the sudden swell of her pain. “I knew I had to be careful, but I trusted Mason. I’d known him my whole life, and we loved each other. I knew I could believe in him, that our love would be stronger than the curse that had taken so many of the others.” She opened her eyes, and tears filled them. “After he came into his powers as a Calydon, we realized I was his sheva. We bonded, and it was amazing. I felt safe with him, Kane. He was my soul mate. He couldn’t turn on me, right?”

  Kane swore. “Fate requires that he turn rogue—”

  “No,” she shook her head. “That never applied in our village. The bond didn’t have that effect—”

  “What?” He gripped her arms. “You’re serious? How many times?” Then he saw the pain on her face, and suddenly it wasn’t about the details. It was about her. The village could come later. “What happened?”

  “We had a daughter.” Her voice broke, and Kane felt sudden emotion swelling in his own chest. “Her name was Abigail. She was so beautiful, Kane. Such a treasure.”

  Kane was stunned by the depth of love in her voice. He’d never heard anything so beautiful. He lived a life of violence and honor. He’d spent half a millennium cutting down males who had turned on their women. Kane had no basis for even understanding the kind of love in Sarah’s voice. He had no memory of his childhood or a mother, and nothing in his life had prepared him for the enormity of emotion in Sarah’s voice. Something inside him moved, something so deep and so buried he didn’t even know what it was, something that hurt almost unbearably. He touched Sarah’s hair, unable to speak, unable to respond. Sarah. The way you talk about her is beautiful.

  Then she raised her eyes to his, and he saw the most agonizing loss in them. Pain that went so deep it had torn her soul to pieces. She died, Kane. I couldn’t protect her. I saw Mason’s eyes when he came into the house that night. I knew that he had changed, but I couldn’t believe he would turn on us. I went right to him, intending to pull him back from the edge. I should have grabbed Abigail and run, but I didn’t. I believed I could save him. Her voice broke, and tears flooded his mind, drawing him into her story.

  And suddenly, Kane was in her memories, and he could see what she was remembering. A young man, early twenties, strong and strapping, his eyes glowing red, claws extending from his fingers. Around his neck was a talisman in the same shape as the ones on Kane’s body. He felt Sarah’s horror as viscerally as if he was living it. He felt the stab of pain as Mason jammed his claws into her belly. His body shook from the impact of Sarah being flung to the side, the crash of her body against the wall. Her anguish, her desperate cry as Mason strode across the room to the little girl, who was watching her daddy without the slightest bit of fear.

  Kane could smell the trail of blood as Sarah lunged across the room, throwing her body over her daughter as Mason reached for her. He felt the agony of his claws coming down and slamming all the way through Sarah’s body into the child she was protecting beneath her.

  “No!” Sarah screamed, her voice ripping Kane out of her thoughts. Caught in the memories, she was pounding on Kane, hitting him, fighting against the enemy that was long gone. “Abigail! God, not my baby—”

  “Sarah.” Kane enveloped her in his arms, pulling her tightly against him. “It’s over. You’re here with me now. You’re safe now.”

  “No, no, no!” Still she fought him, screaming for the child she hadn’t been able to protect, for the man who had betrayed her so brutally. She was lost in the memories of a hell worse than anything Kane had ever lived.

  He had no idea what to say to take away her anguish. He didn’t know how to help. He’d never trusted anyone enough to be betrayed by them, and he had no basis for how to help her, for what to say, how to take away her pain.

  He swore, holding her close, stroking her hair, whispering to her everything he could think of to make it okay. But as she trembled in his arms, sobbing desperately, he knew his words made no difference. No words would ever take away what had happened to her. No words would ever give her daughter back to her. No words would ever rebuild the emptiness of her heart. “Sarah,” he whispered, brushing his lips over her temple. “It’s not your fault.”

  “It is,” she gasped, trying to suck in air. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, the agony and guilt of her loss eating away at her. “Don’t you understand? I trusted him instead of going first to Abigail. If I’d grabbed her and run—”

  “It wouldn’t have made a difference.” He kissed her lightly, not for sex, but for comfort, for reassurance that she wasn’t alone in her grief, that he had her. “I’ve fought the men from your village. They’re tough a
nd strong. You couldn’t have stopped him—”

  “But I did.” She leaned her head against his chest, gripping Kane’s waist desperately, as if she were trying to ground herself. “I killed him,” she whispered. “I used my white light to kill him, but it was too late. I couldn’t believe he was beyond hope like that, and I waited too long.” Her guards were down and Kane was able to touch her mind.

  Again, he was back in that room, feeling Sarah’s agony as Mason yanked his claws out of her. Before she could move, two older people rushed into the room, and he knew instantly from Sarah’s memories that they were her parents. He felt Sarah’s horror as they attacked Mason, her scream of anguish when he cut them down with two quick blows, and finally, her absolute betrayal and loss when he turned toward her again, his eyes blazing red.

  “Sarah,” Mason said, his voice a growl of hate and death. “Now you die.”

  Kane went still, staring into his eyes as Sarah remembered them. There was something wrong with Mason’s expression. Something different. Something off. Then Mason dropped his head and charged Sarah. Instinctively, Kane’s weapon exploded into his hand, trying to protect Sarah even in her memories. He yanked her close, his soul screaming in defense of her as Mason swiped his claw at her—

  A blinding white light exploded through Kane’s mind as Sarah killed Mason. Kane recoiled from the pain as it ripped through him. It burned his eyelids, seared his mind, made his skin scream. He jerked his mind from Sarah’s, cutting the connection. The white light vanished immediately, but the pain didn’t. Swearing, he jerked his eyes open, and saw Sarah staring at him, tears pouring down her cheeks.

  Sweet Jesus. Her grief was unbearable. Ignoring the pain from Sarah’s attack, Kane pulled her against him, burying her in his arms. Sarah came willingly, her body pliant as she clung to him, her body shaking with the trauma. Kane pressed his lips to her hair, trying to absorb the trembling of her body into his, offering his strength. “It’s over, Sarah,” he said. “You did the right thing by killing him. You had no choice.”