Darkness Reborn (Order of the Blade #5) (23 page)

Sarah stared at her, the responsibility of what she was facing welling up like a great weight. "I don't have any heart left," she finally said, her voice raw with the agony of so much loss. "It died so long ago." It had died that night with Abigail.

"Find it," Ana said fiercely. "
Find it.
Open your heart so widely that if it breaks, it will rip you to shreds, because if you don't, the man I love will die, and that is just not acceptable to me." Tears gleamed in her eyes. "Don't be a brave warrior, Sarah. Be a woman, with all the emotions and vulnerability and tears that make us the rock that keeps our men alive." Then, she spun away, striding across the rubble toward the men.

Elijah looked up, and he held out his arm as she approached. Ana instantly slid into his embrace, tucking herself against him. Sarah saw Elijah's body visibly shudder and then relax as he wrapped his arms around Ana and rested his chin on her head. Neither of them tried to hide their need for each other, and their vulnerability was evident to anyone watching. But no one seemed to mind the badass warrior needing his woman so badly. The battle discussion didn't break stride, and none of the men even seemed to notice Ana's arrival. She had simply become part of Elijah, and they all accepted that.

Sarah hugged herself as she watched Ana and Elijah together, an aching sense of loneliness welling up inside her. "I don't know how to be like that anymore," she whispered, unable to keep the tears out of her voice.

"I know." Grace wrapped her arm around Sarah's shoulder and squeezed. "I had no idea how to be all soft and vulnerable. I'd been on my own fighting for far too long."

"Me, too." Lily moved in close to Sarah's other shoulder. "And I had reasons not to trust Gideon. Personal, deep reasons that were very real and very true."

Sarah looked over at Lily. "Really? What were they?"

Lily smiled gently. "No," she said. "That is Gideon's past, and it is no longer who he is, so it doesn't matter anymore. Even though I had no reason to believe that he was a different man than he'd once been, I did believe in him, and that's why we were able to defeat the
sheva
destiny that the male will go rogue and destroy everything they both care about, until they both die." She hugged Sarah. "Who he once was doesn't define who he is today...not necessarily."

Not necessarily.
Which meant that Kane might or might not be the same man who murdered his family before. And she was supposed to figure it out?

Sarah bit her lip as she watched the men finalize their plans. She already knew the plans, because she had helped Kane and Ryland figure them out before Kane had left. Kane was leading the discussion, and his authority and strength were evident in the way the team listened to him. He had an aura of indomitability about him...one that he hadn't had when she'd met him.

He had changed.

He was still changing.

Kane looked up at her and caught her gaze. Simmering in those dark eyes were violence and danger, and it was getting more and more turbulent with each passing moment. Her heart tightened for the suffering she saw in his face, for the tension emanating from him. His fear of what he was and what he might do. But she also felt his fierce determination not to succumb to the darkness within him. His steady commitment to protect her and their baby.

His voice filled her mind as he reached out to her.
I will not fail you, Sarah. I swear it.
The sheer force of his promise, his unyielding focus on who he wanted to be, pulsed through her like the thud of a bass drum, like the slow beat of a massive heart coming to life.

She knew that she was staring into the face of a man more powerful than any she'd ever met, a warrior capable of destroying an entire town...and of saving one. He may have once been the man who did the former, but today? Who was he today?

Sarah set her hand over her belly, and for the first time in seven years, she tried to open her heart again. The moment she did, she felt the anguish of her daughter's death and Mason's betrayal consume her, driving into her with such destructive force that she couldn't breathe. It swept through her mind, ripping away at her shields, stealing from her the hope and faith that was so necessary to keep her alive.

Instinctively, she started to fight it, to shut it down, to shove it back into that locked box where it couldn't hurt so badly, where it couldn't tear away at the fabric of who she was...and then she saw Ana look over at her.

And Sarah knew what she had to do.

Instead of fighting the pain, instead of trying to survive it, she dropped her shields and let it destroy her.

* * *

Sarah's emotional devastation blew through Kane with brutal force. Before he'd even registered what he was feeling, he was on his feet and sprinting over to her. He caught her in his arms just as her legs gave out, and she started to fall to the ground.

He swept her up against his chest, his soul vibrating with the depth of her anguish. "Sarah. What's wrong?"

She had no words for him, but she wrapped her arms around his neck, holding desperately to him as the sobs wracked her small frame. He pulled her closer, burying his face in her hair, trying to offer her comfort.
Sarah. I'm here. I've got you. It's okay.

She still didn't answer, but she gripped him tighter, as if he were her only anchor holding her down. Her anguish rolled through him, and he saw flashes of what was going through her mind. A small girl with blond pigtails, smiling with such radiance he felt his own heart stop as he looked into those blue eyes. It was the same girl he'd killed in his dreams, only she was much younger. Not even a year old. But there was no mistaking her impish expression, the radiant blue of her eyes, and the shade of her hair.
Sarah.
He could barely keep the tension out of his voice.
Is that your daughter? Is that Abigail?

Yes.
Her grief washed over him, and suddenly the world began to blacken and darken around him. His skin burned. Pain crawled down his legs. And a deep-seeded, brutal violence began to burn inside him.

That's the girl in my dreams. The girl I murdered.

Sarah sucked in her breath and jerked her head up, her tear-streaked gaze pinned to his face. "That's impossible. You said the girl in your dreams was five."

"She is. But it's the same girl." Kane's body began to vibrate, violent energy racing though him.

She tightened her grip on him. "I don't understand. How could you see her in your dreams? You never met her. She was never that old."

"I don't know." But shit, what did it mean? That he was going to kill her daughter? That he'd somehow contributed to Abigail's death— "Jesus." He set Sarah down suddenly, stepping backwards. "What if I'm the one who's causing all the Calydons to go rogue? What if I'm the catalyst? What if I already killed your daughter once, through Mason?"

Sarah's face was ashen as she stared at him. "That's impossible," she whispered. "It can't be—"

"Why not? We were already assuming Luc was turning the men in this village rogue. What if we were wrong? What if it was me all along, even though I wasn't actually here at that time?"

Sarah's mouth opened, but nothing came out, and he felt the true depths of what she'd suffered through the loss of her daughter and Mason's betrayal. Her pain was so brutal, so extreme, he couldn't believe she was still standing. Sudden, fierce protectiveness rose inside him, beating away the darkness. "Fuck that, Sarah." He strode over to her and caught her wrist in his hands. "No more," he promised. "No more suffering for you. Not ever." He meant it with every fiber of his being. His oath pulsed past the darkness trying to consume him, as they both battled for dominance within him. "I swear it, Sarah. I won't let you suffer like that again."

Sarah stared at him, her eyes red and puffy as she searched his face. He felt her reaching out for him with her mind, and he let her in, allowing her to see every part of who he was. Her warmth wrapped around him, and he closed his eyes at the sensation of being connected with her. It felt so right, so perfect. He knew it was where he was meant to be.
Sarah,
he whispered into her mind.
This has to be right. I'm not meant to destroy the beauty of your soul.

I know.

Kane opened his eyes and saw the warmth and trust glowing in her blue eyes, and he felt his heart stutter at the depth of her love. It was even more powerful than the love his mother had offered him...just before he'd killed her.

He hadn't been worthy last time.

This time, he wouldn't make the same mistake.

Sarah had made her decision to trust him, and he wasn't going to let her down. He didn't give a shit who he might have once been, or who Luc Acostos wanted him to be. Kane had one mission, and that was to be the man worthy of his mate, and he would accept nothing less. He took her hand and squeezed it. "Are you ready?"

She took a deep breath and nodded. "Let's do it. We have only a few hours until the sun goes down. Not much time."

"Not much time," he agreed. And then, because he wanted to and because he didn't give a shit what anyone else thought, he wrapped his arms around Sarah and kissed her.

It wasn't a kiss of ownership, to tell his team that she was his. It was the only way he knew of to show her how committed he was to being stronger than whatever curse would try to bind him. And when she threw her arms around his neck and melted into the kiss, he knew that she'd accepted his promise.

Which meant he was bound.

Good. That was exactly how he liked it.

As he drew back, he pressed his lips to the brand on her arm, the one that was almost complete.
Only one more stage, and then we're bound forever.

Sarah's eyes widened.
The death stage, right?
At his nod, she shook her head.
I really, really hope that I don't have to kill to save your life, or offer my own to save you.

She didn't need to explain further. He knew the cost to her of taking a life, and with the river inaccessible, she had no way to restore herself if she did it. And as to offering her own life? He laughed softly and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. "Sweetheart, there is no chance I'm putting you in that position." But even as he said the words, his soul vibrated with the need to complete the bond and seal her to him for all eternity.

Which he would never do. There were too many risks and costs associated with that final step, and they had enough to deal with already. Today was about victory, not about succumbing to his ages-old instinct to make her his forever.

He tucked her against him and surveyed his team. "Ready?"

As a unit, the members of the Order of the Blade nodded. They were ready. Luc Acostos was going down before sunset. He wouldn't even have a chance to come back to life and destroy them.

It ended now, because now they were going right into that pit and pulling the damned plug.

They were being hunted.

Kane kept Sarah close between him and Ryland as he led his team down the embankment toward the pit that had sucked down Thano. The sun was streaming brightly through the trees, dappling the ground, illuminating even the darkest shadows, and yet Kane's weapons were burning his arms and his senses were on fire. Beneath the smell of fresh earth and trees was the ever-strengthening scent of death, rot and sulfur.
Anyone smell that?
He reached out with his mind to his team, able to connect with them all because they were close.

He got a negative from everyone, and he swore under his breath. If no one else could smell it, then it was up to him to track it. It was daytime. Nothing should be out in these woods except nature...unless
he
was the evil he was scenting.

Oh, man, because that was a good thought.

He took Sarah's arm, bringing her more tightly against him as they reached the edge of the pit. He hadn't known what to expect during the day, whether the seething cauldron of hell would still be there, but he hadn't expected this.

Quinn let out a low whistle as he walked up beside Kane. "I've never seen anything like that before."

Stretching out below them was a seemingly endless stretch of green grass that seemed to descend into the very depths of the earth itself. It looked almost as if something were sucking the field straight down into the center of the earth.

"Last night it was hell," Kane said, recalling that Sarah had said her brother and the other males in the town had claimed that the pit was only grass and flowers. Apparently, that's how it really appeared during the day.

"I bet it still is," Quinn replied. "I'm not buying the grassy fields for one second." He gestured to the team, and as a unit, everyone called out their weapons. Everyone except Drew, who called out two swords, a battle axe, a spear and a dagger.

Kane shot a surprised look at the youth. "Five?"

Drew shrugged, giving Kane a cocky grin that showed exactly how little he understood about what he was dealing with in the aftermath of the evil that had tainted him a few months ago. "I still have the ability to call Ezekiel's twenty-one weapons," he said.

Kane looked at Quinn, who nodded. Ezekiel was the bastard of pure evil who had given birth to the entire Calydon race two thousand years ago, and he'd tried to take them down a few months ago. Drew had been caught in the cross fire and he'd absorbed a lot of the ancient evil that had bled through Ezekiel, as well as the warrior's affinity for twenty-one different weapons. It wasn't a good sign that Drew was still carrying so much of Ezekiel in him, not when he was so young and didn't have the defenses against taint and temptation that the rest of them had.

I had to bring him,
Quinn said.
Vaughn went off with Ian.

Let's hope he uses them for us and not against us,
Kane said.

He's my responsibility. I'll manage him. Lead on.

Kane gripped his weapon and looked back at his team. Ryland was right next to Sarah. Gideon and Elijah were covering the rear, armed and ready. Zach and Gabe were covering Kane's right flank, with Quinn and Drew on the left. Lily was back at Nonny's house doing information management, researching each detail they found and then replying to Gideon with anything she could find on it. Grace and Ana had stayed behind to provide protection for Lily.

Although Ana and Grace's Illusionist talents made them formidable in battle by being able to create offensive illusions that were so deadly that they could kill people simply because people believed they were real, neither of their soul mates was all that fond of putting them on the front lines. Given that Jacob and the others could teleport directly into houses past the spotlights used to guard them, in this particular situation, even Nonny's house wasn't safe, so they'd all seen the wisdom of keeping them back to protect Lily.

But Quinn, Gideon and especially Elijah were on edge about leaving their women behind when they were so close to the action. Kane knew they had to be back before nightfall, or the trio would be too distracted to work. Kane checked his watch. Less than an hour until sunset, and the monsters came to life. In and out in sixty minutes.

"Can you teleport us down there?" Ryland asked. "It'll save time."

Kane studied the grassy hills below, the ones that had been a roiling tomb of rot the previous night. He could see a spot at the very bottom, where the valley seemed to disappear into the earth that seemed clear. "Yeah, I can..." he said, not moving to do it yet.

"Kane." Sarah came up beside him.

"Hey, sweetheart." He tucked his hand on the back of her neck, searching with all his senses to try to get a lay of the land below them. When he teleported, he had to know where he was going, or he could wind up lodged in a tree with his cells fused with the bark. It looked clear below, but it didn't feel right. "What do you see, Sarah?"

"I see meadows, but I don't believe it."

He glanced over at her. "Yeah, me neither." He'd had too much experience with illusions lately to automatically assume that what he saw was reality. "I can smell the sulfur."

Sarah nodded, her hand tight in his. "I feel nauseous, and I can't breathe. Like last night."

Kane ground his jaw. "So, we're standing on the edge of that same damn pit we saw last night. It just looks all pretty during the day."

"Maybe," Sarah said, "but we can't be sure."

"Well, let's figure it out." Ryland turned and hurled his machete into a nearby tree. It sliced off a branch that crashed to the earth with a thud right next to Gideon. "Toss that to me, will ya?" Gideon lobbed the massive branch to Ryland as Ry called his machete back to him. Then he turned toward the meadow. "Let's see what we have going on here." He took the branch and heaved it into the air, launching it way out into the middle of the meadow.

It spun around in the air, twirling around as it fell down past the level of the ledge they were standing on. The moment it fell below the edge, into what would have been the pit last night, it exploded mid-air, shattering into thousands of fragments that showered over them. Kane held out his hand and caught some. The wood was burning with a flame that was green, black and brown. A noxious stench was emanating from it.

"Well, shit." Gideon said. "That's not very polite. We could have gotten hurt."

Kane snorted, and then realized it was the kind of snarky comment Thano would have made, and his amusement faded. "Thano's in there, and so is Luc. You guys ready?"

The team moved closer, and heavy hands descended on Kane's shoulders. He let out his breath and gripped Sarah's hand, locking her down against him. He was going to take them down there, but hell only knew what they were going to land in. It wasn't going to be a meadow and flowers. That much he was sure about.

"Jesus, man." Ry said quietly. "What the hell are we going to meet down there?"

Kane met his gaze. "Hell, I think."

Ryland nodded. "Me, too." He looked at Sarah, and his eyes darkened. "I don't think the angel should go down there. Why bring her?"

"Because we can't leave her behind," Kane said.

"I'll stay behind with her," Ryland said. "It feels wrong to take her in there. I'm feeling it."

Kane scowled, his adrenaline rising to a fast peak at Ryland's interference. "It's not your call, Ryland—"

"I'll make it mine." Ryland stepped back, holding out his machete. His eyes were gleaming back. "The angel should not go down there, Santiago. I know it."

Kane was about to argue, when he felt a pulse of darkness in his mind, a nudge of violence that told him to resist Ryland, to shut him down. It was his thought, but at the same time...it wasn't. He hadn't thought that. Something else had tried to put the thought in his head. Son of a bitch. What the hell was going on? All he knew was that something or someone wanted him to bring Sarah down there, and that was enough of a reason not to. Ryland was onto something. He was sure of it. "Fine. Sarah stays."

Sarah shook her head. "No, Kane—"

"Yes." Kane quickly scanned the crew, dividing them in half. He gripped Sarah's arm and pulled her close.
You swear to me that you will use your powers to kill anything that gets you. I'll come back for you, so don't restrain yourself. Got it?

Sarah gritted her jaw. "I need to go with you, Kane. I'm the one he wants."

"And me."

"Both of us," she acknowledged. "It doesn't make sense to split us up."

Kane ground his jaw. "He's got to be hiding down there right now, Sarah. He can't come out until sunset. I don't want you down there now, but I swear I'll be back before it gets dark."

Sarah bit her lip, but finally she nodded. "Keep your mind open to me, and come back if I call you."

He nodded and pulled her close, giving her a long kiss. She melted into him, and Kane let himself get lost in her kiss. He didn't want to let her go. He really didn't. But he had to, and it wasn't simply because of what he'd told her.

The truth was, he didn't know what he would become when he went down into that hell, and he didn't want Sarah anywhere near him when he arrived in it. He met Ryland's hard gaze, knowing that the warrior had some kind of connection to Sarah that would keep her safe with him. "Ryland, you stay here with Sarah. Quinn and Elijah, you come with me. The rest of you stay."

Quinn shook his head. "Drew stays with me."

"Yeah, fine." Kane met Ry's gaze and understanding passed between them. An understanding that Ryland would unleash that same monster as before if necessary to save Sarah. Kane had no clue what Ryland had turned into last night, but he knew that it had been called out in defense of Sarah. Ryland wasn't Sarah's soul mate, but there was something he had going on with the angels that Kane couldn't deny.

He was going to have to trust that, and trust his woman with the man that no one on the damn team trusted to do anything except to go rogue.
Keep her safe.

Ryland's eyes narrowed.
I will.

Kane nodded and looked down at Sarah. She lifted her chin and met his gaze. "Kane," she said, touching his arm. "I just thought of something."

He raised his brows, unable to tear himself away from his woman. Dammit. He didn't want to leave her behind. "What's up?"

"How are you planning on killing Luc? Your weapons didn't work on him before."

He shrugged. "We'll find a way—"

"I can kill him. My light can kill demons. You know it can." She sighed, and met his gaze. "I have to go. There's no other choice."

Kane swore. "No—"

"This isn't your decision," she snapped. "This is my town, and it's my child I have to protect. I'm going in, and you can come or not."

"It's my child, too—"

"Then make the right choice." Then she tore herself free of his arms and sprinted down the slope into the grass.

Kane swore as noxious smoke rose up around her, sucking her out of sight instantly. "Jesus!" He immediately opened his blood bond connection with her and locked down on her location instantly. "Come on," he shouted. "Now!"

Everyone grabbed him, and Kane teleported, his entire being focused only on one thing: the woman who made his heart beat. The woman who was going to get herself killed.

* * *

Sarah's body was screaming with pain as she landed on the seething earth. The rocks were glowing with orange heat, black with burned ash, and the air was so thick she could barely breathe.

Her skin was on fire, and she stumbled with dizziness. She immediately unleashed a quick pulse of her white light, and it cleared an air pocket around her. There was dark smoke swirling around, and shadows undulating in and out of focus. Dark trees were waving over her head, the branches slashing as if there were a brutal wind trying to tear them out of the earth. It felt like she was in a place of eternal night where darkness was a constant protection for the evil festering beneath the earth.

"Oh, no," she whispered, realizing that's exactly where she was. Nothing was asleep down here. Nothing was resting until sunset. Down here, the atmosphere was buzzing and humming with the lethal energy that would be unleashed onto her village when dusk hit.

Cold pain wrapped around her ankle, and she looked down to see smoky black tendrils creeping up her leg, the same thing that had grabbed the men last night. "No," she said, and she lit up her leg. The white light burned the smoke off, freeing her. Sweat beaded across her brow, and she knew she was draining herself each time she used her powers, but she didn't care.

She was at war now, and she would fight until the end. She pressed her hand to her belly, and sent warmth into the life she was supposed to protect. "This time, it's going to work out okay," she whispered fiercely. "This time, I'm going to get it right—"

"Sarah!" The air pressure shifted, and suddenly Kane and the rest of his team materialized around her. He grabbed her arm, his face frantic with worry. "You're okay?"

His fear for her safety was so intense it brought tears to Sarah's eyes. She nodded, and remembered Ana's advice. That somehow, she had to look past the exterior and
know
the truth about who he was. But as she looked at him, as she opened her heart to him, she saw his eyes turn black and a wave of darkness flooded her.

Kane dropped his hand and turned away from her, staring into the woods. "He's here," he said, his voice low and guttural, unlike she'd ever heard it before.

"Who?" Gideon moved close to Kane, his weapon out. All the men were scanning the woods. No one was moving until they had a sense of what was going on.

Kane moved restlessly. "Luc—"

The earth suddenly erupted below them, turning from solid footing into a seething, bubbling swamp of noxious fumes. Sarah screamed as she fell in, and all the men were sucked in with her. Kane lunged for her hand, and her fingers touched his as it sucked her down, closing over her head.
Kane!
Her fingers slipped out of his grasp, and then she was sucked away.