Darkness Reborn (Order of the Blade #5) Read Online Free PDF Page B

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 small moan. He instinctively reached for her, but she tried to scoot away from him.
    "I'm here to help you." Refusing to allow her to reject his aid, he gently grasped her shoulders. What was she seeing when she looked at him? He was a damned hero to most people. The only ones who looked at him in terror, like this woman was doing, were the rogue Calydons when they realized Kane was going to cut them down. But he wasn't going to hurt her. There was simply no chance, no matter who she was. The urge to keep her safe was more powerful than anything he'd ever felt. It reverberated all the way to his soul, his need to protect her. She was safe with him, and he knew it, but she was still looking at him as if he were there for the sole purpose of killing her. "Why are you fighting me?"
    She closed her eyes, and he felt the pulse in her energy as she fought for her life. "Because you'll have to kill me if you stay."
    "Fuck that. I don't kill women." But the moment he said that, he knew it was a lie. He'd killed women before. Not many. Not with pleasure. But because the mission that drove him was bigger than the life of a single innocent, and as an Order member, he'd made an oath to protect humanity at any cost. But he wouldn't hurt her. Never her. Never this woman in his arms, whose blue eyes looked at him as if she saw to the very depths of who he was, in a way that no one else ever had.
    "I'm different. You won't be able to stop yourself." Then another tremor shook her, and she gritted her teeth against the pain.
    "Son of a bitch." Fuck her resistance to him. There was no way he could leave her like this. He could help her. He knew he could. He felt it in the very fiber of his being. He had a connection to her, one that went past his scars to the part of him that held his secrets. Something in the depths of his soul recognized her, but he didn't know what or why or how. All he knew was that he would lay down his damned life to protect her. The need to keep her safe was beyond anything he'd ever felt in his life.
    Carefully, so gently, trying not to scare her, trying to make her understand he was there to help, he lifted her onto his lap, supporting her against his chest. "Tell me what to do," he demanded. "Tell me how to help you."
    She shook her head, her eyes beginning to glaze. Desperation filled him, a sense of gaping loss consuming him. He was losing her. He knew he was. Because she wouldn't trust him to help her. "I'm not a damned murderer," he said. "Tell me