by Cynthia Eden
“He wanted me addicted to her.” A hard rush of breath escaped Ryder. “I am. And I’m getting her out of there. I’m not going to let Wyatt keep hurting her!”
“How do you know she wasn’t at Genesis when it burned?” Eve asked him. How do you know Wyatt still has her? Maybe the woman had escaped—from Wyatt and from the vampire who’d killed her.
But Ryder was adamant. “He had two labs. I know he did. I heard him talking . . . he was transferring her to the second lab for more study.”
Study or torture? Eve figured they were the same thing in Wyatt’s twisted mind.
“He wants you,” Ryder said, focusing on her with a sudden intensity that made her breath catch. “He’ll keep coming after you. He won’t stop. Once he gets you, we can follow him back to the second lab and—”
Cain punched him in the jaw. The vampire flew a good five feet back and slammed into the side of the fireplace. Two bricks fell to the ground.
“She’s not bait.” Cain’s deadly growl.
No, she wasn’t. The vamp needed to get that bit clear, yesterday.
“He’s hurting her,” Ryder snarled back at him. He pushed to his feet then, voice ragged, said, “I hurt her. I owe her. I have to get her out of that hell.”
Eve knew the vamp would be willing to trade her life in an instant, if it meant he could get his phoenix back. He was like a drug addict, desperate for his next hit of magic blood.
“You aren’t using Eve,” Cain snapped at him. “Think of another plan, because she isn’t your ticket inside Wyatt’s lab, got it?”
The vamp had better get it.
Ryder’s gaze darted between them. “You’re just gonna leave her with him? She’s like you! She’s one of yours!”
Yours? Eve stiffened a bit and glanced at Cain from the corner of her eye.
Cain was staring at her. “Did you know he had another phoenix?”
She didn’t like the suspicion in his gaze. She’d been the one helping his ass the whole time. So why was he looking at her like she might be the enemy? Some trust wouldn’t kill him. Nothing really does. “I didn’t even know you were a phoenix!” Being in the dark sucked. “When I first found you in Genesis, I didn’t know what the hell you were.” She still didn’t fully understand it. Was he a shifter at his core? With a beast that transformed at his death? Or was he both . . . a blend of man and myth?
She shook her head. Was she supposed to be the all-knowing Oz? Jeez. “I knew there were shifters and a vamp at the facility, okay? I didn’t have intel on anyone or anything else.” Cain had come as a total shock to her. When he’d burned the first time, she’d flipped out. She figured that was a pretty normal response.
Cain just kept staring at her.
Eve straightened her shoulders. “I tried to get everyone out when the explosions started. I was trying to help as many people as I could!” He shouldn’t need the reminder. He’d been there. He’d seen her fighting to save those paranormals.
But her efforts hadn’t been enough. People had died. Wyatt had escaped. And she still hadn’t been able to break her story.
Because she hadn’t broken Wyatt. The asshole was stronger than her, moving freaking pieces on a chessboard while the world went to hell around him.
“Help her,” Ryder demanded, voice ragged.
Cain finally glanced back at the vamp. “You sold us out to Wyatt.”
Ryder shrugged, apparently unconcerned with that not-so-little issue. “You’re both still alive, aren’t you?”
Eve lunged for him, but Cain grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her stomach and hauling her back against him. “You asshole!” Eve screamed at the vamp. “He burned me! He locked me a damn room and he burned me!”
The vamp’s eyelids flickered. His gaze swept over her. “Yet you look surprisingly . . . unharmed.”
Cain tensed behind her. “Get out of here,” he ordered, voice clipped. “Get the fuck out of here now, or you’re dead.”
Some of the desperation had faded from the vampire’s eyes. Eve didn’t like the way he was looking at her. His stare was too similar to Wyatt’s. “Interesting.” Ryder smiled, but backed toward the door.
Why were they letting him get away? She still had her stake ready.
“I guess you don’t need to save my phoenix”—a trace of cold bitterness had entered the vamp’s voice—“when you have your own.”
What? Eve frowned. “I’m no—”
Cain’s hold tightened on her and she shut up.
“Your mistake,” the vampire whispered. Hate hardened his eyes and his face. “One I’ll make sure you never forget.”
Then he was just . . . gone.
Crazy. That guy was in-freaking-sane. Eve blinked, chest heaving. She’d been holding her breath at the thick tension in the room. But one minute, the vamp was there, the next—magic act time.
“He’s old,” Cain murmured. He didn’t release her. If anything, his hands pulled her closer against him. “Powerful.”
Eve had made it a policy to learn as much as she could about vampires. Know your enemy. The older a vampire was, the stronger he was. Vamps didn’t usually move at human speed. More like amped-up superhero speed. In a blink, they could run a mile. They could crush steel with their hands. Rip the heart right out of their prey.
Be general nightmares to the human population.
Ryder was a nightmare, no getting around it.
He was also their enemy.
A second lab.
She turned, as much as Cain’s hands would allow, and gazed up into his eyes. No fear there. Just a steady darkness that stared back at her.
How did he feel, knowing another phoenix was out there? One of yours . . .
He didn’t exactly look overwhelmed by the news.
“Cain, did you know?”
He shook his head. “I thought that was the only lab. Not like Wyatt let me out to see—”
“No.” She shook her head and her hair brushed over his chest. “About the woman. Did you know Wyatt had captured others like you?”
His gaze drifted behind her. He tilted his head as if listening. To see if the vampire was still close by? But after a moment, his eyes turned back to her. “I thought I was the only one left alive.”
Simple. Hollow. Cold.
She shivered. What would it be like to think you were the last of your kind? The only one left on the whole earth? Lonely.
But the vamp had said there was another like Cain. A phoenix female.
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “I’ll have to kill her.”
Shock rippled through Eve. “Why?” His response was the last thing she expected.
“There’s a reason there haven’t been many of my kind in this world.” His hands fell away from her as he headed toward the open door. Sunlight fell inside, but the light just made the angles and planes of his face appear even harder. “Who else knows our weaknesses?” Cain murmured. “Who better to attack . . .”
She rubbed her arms. “You’re telling me that the reason there aren’t a lot of. . . of phoenixes running around is because you guys kill each other off?”
He didn’t glance at her. “Only the strong survive.”
That didn’t make any sense to her. Even vamps didn’t hunt each other to extinction. “What about the old phrase that there’s strength in numbers? I mean, come on, Cain. It’s not like you killed your own mother or anything, right?”
His shoulders stiffened. “My mother wasn’t a phoenix.” Slowly, he shut the door and turned back to face her. “And I didn’t have to kill her. My father eliminated her when I was a boy.”
Eliminated her. His words were cold. Callous. Was her face supposed to be feeling so icy? “Why?”
“Because the beasts within us have two drives.”
She didn’t speak. Just waited. Beasts within . . . the phoenix was a type of shifter. A beast held inside the body of a man. Trapped inside—until the beast broke free.
The fire frees him.
“To mate,” Cain said.
Her breath heaved in her chest.
“And to kill.”
“You kill what you love?” she asked through lips that seemed numb.
He shook his head. “We don’t love.”
So certain. So chilling. Did he hear the too-fast beating of her heart?
He gave her a smile, and she knew that he did hear that telling beat. “Didn’t you realize it, baby? I truly am a monster . . . the worst one walking the earth.”
He wanted to scare her. He’d succeeded. But Eve made herself walk toward him. One foot in front of the other. He could probably smell the fear rolling off her, but she didn’t care.
“If you are so evil”—as he kept telling her—“why’d you come for me? Why not leave me to die with Wyatt?”
“Wyatt wasn’t going to kill you. Death would have been too easy.”
She flinched. She’d never thought of death as particularly easy.
Cain moved toward her, stopping less than a foot away. His hand lifted and curved around her cheek. “When we rise, we’re at our most dangerous.”
Eve believed that. She’d seen the beast stare back at her when he rose.
“My mother tried to kill my father when she learned that he . . . wasn’t human. She attacked him. Stabbed him in the heart.”
That wouldn’t have been enough.
“When he rose, the beast had power. The beast was in control.”
Cain kept talking about a beast and she was understanding that . . . well, despite all his power and fire, maybe deep down he was just another type of shifter. A very, very deadly type.
Trace had often talked about his beast as if he and the wolf were two different beings. Maybe it was the same for Cain. Maybe there was the man. And there was the phoenix. The one she’d seen staring back at her from eyes that burned.
“My mother tried to attack again.” His voice roughed. “She realized that I was like my father, and she tried to kill me.”
A child? Her own child?
“Humans can’t love monsters,” he said, frowning at Eve as if she should understand that fact. “Not even the ones they bring into the world.”
“Cain . . .”
“She didn’t move fast enough,” he said and shrugged.
Shrugged?
“My father’s fire killed her.”
There were chill bumps on Eve’s arm. The fire had never hurt her, but she felt cold all too well. She was freezing, but the cold seemed to be coming from inside her. “What happened to him?”
“Another phoenix ended him about a century later.”
“A century?” she repeated, stunned.
Cain had turned away from her. “The vampire is out there, either selling us out to Wyatt right now or planning to attack and separate us.”
She grabbed his arm. “Hold on!” Eve forced him to look at her.
“We need to leave. If we don’t, Wyatt’s men will surround the cabin. They’ll try to take you. I’ll kill them all.” One dark brow rose. “I have no problem killing them, but you seem to get upset when others die.”
He was playing the unfeeling bastard, but he wasn’t like that.
Softly, Eve said, “I know you.”
That brow stayed up. “Do you.” Not a question.
He’d revealed a bit of his past to her, and now the guy was shutting down. She shook her head again. It wasn’t going to work like that. “You won’t scare me away from you.”
He laughed at that. Actually laughed. A deep, husky laugh that made her feel strange. He’d never laughed before, had he? His lips were still curved in a smile. “Oh, Eve, I already know the truth about you. . . .”
No, he didn’t. She had a few secrets of her own.
“You’re fucking terrified of me.” His hand pressed against her chest. Over the swell of her breast and over the heart that raced too fast. His head lowered to her. His lips brushed over her ear. “But part of you likes that fear, don’t you?”
“No,” she gritted out. He didn’t understand her at all.
“Then why do you want me to fuck you, even now, even with all I’ve said . . .”
Two drives . . .
To mate.
To kill.
His breath blew lightly on her ear.
She wasn’t going to deny that she wanted him. It was like her body was tuned to his. One touch, and she needed. But the guy was seriously mistaken about her motives. “I don’t like the fear.” She felt it. Wouldn’t lie. “But I want you”—Eve’s lashes lifted, and she stared into his eyes—“in spite of that, not because of it.”
He blinked, and for an instant, seemed lost.
“So remember that,” she muttered and grabbed his head. She pulled him down toward her and pressed her lips against his. The kiss was fast, hard, frantic, and meant to prove a point.
Fear doesn’t make me want you less.
She slipped her tongue into his mouth. Tasted him. Felt the press of his fingers against her ass. She let the kiss linger, savoring for an instant, but . . . Eve pulled her lips from his. “All humans aren’t the same.” It was a lesson he needed to learn. “I’m not going to come at you with a knife in my hand.”
Another smile from him, but this one . . . this one made her heart hurt. “Yes, you will.” He pulled away and headed for the stairs.
Eve stared after him. She’d thought that she was the one with the trust issues. It looked like they both had to learn how to deal—fast.
Cain’s hand was on the banister. “We’ll leave in ten minutes.”
Looked like sharing time was definitely over. “Where are we going?”
Another step. “You’re going to a safe house. You’re out of the game.”
She wasn’t going to rush after him. “This isn’t a game.”
“I’ll take care of Wyatt.”
While she what? Sat in the corner like a good little girl? He obviously had her confused with someone else. Wyatt had come after her. He’d killed her friend. She wasn’t walking away from that guy. “I can help you.”
“You can get captured again. Tortured.” Cain turned back to her. “The fire doesn’t hurt you, but from what I can tell, everything else out there does.”
She swallowed. He was right.
His gaze raked her. “You know what I am. I didn’t keep that secret.”
No, he hadn’t.
“But baby, what the fuck are you?”
Eve stiffened. That hurt.
“If you die, will you burn and come back?” he asked her. “Are you like me?”
A phoenix. She lifted her chin. “If I am, does that mean you’ll want to kill me, too?”
He didn’t answer. Maybe that was an answer.
She tried to sound calm. “I’m not a threat to you, Cain.”
“Yes,” he bit out, “you are.”
“Why?”
“Because a phoenix can only die—truly die—in that one moment when the fire rises and pulls us from the ashes. When we’re coming back and the flames surround us . . . we’re vulnerable.”
But those flames burned so hot.
“Most can’t touch us then. Most . . .”
Eve understood. Other phoenixes would be able to reach through the fire.
“In that one instant,” Cain said, “we can truly die. And not come back.”
A vulnerability. He shouldn’t be telling her this. Why was he telling her this?
“That’s why we kill our own kind. Phoenixes . . . we’re the only ones who can stand the fire. The only ones who can reach through the flames to kill.”
But . . . but she could reach through the fire, too.
“Are you like me?” he asked again, staring down at her. “If you die, Eve, will you rise again?”
She could only shake her head. I don’t know. She’d never known what she was. Maybe that was why she spent so much time looking for the truth about others.
I can’t find it for myself.
Cain said, “You can’t help me fight W
yatt. You’ll just slow me down.”
Well, crap, the guy sure wasn’t pulling any punches. But she had an ace up her sleeve. “Before you go tossing me into some safe house, there’s one thing you should know.”
“And what’s that?”
Eve offered him a smile that showed lots of teeth. “I wasn’t totally honest with the vampire.” So sue me. “Thanks to my little abduction last night, I know how to find Wyatt.” She kept her expression determined. “As soon as we rendezvous with Trace, I’ll tell you both everything I know.”
The wolf shifter wasn’t at the meeting point in Charlotte. Cain’s fingers tapped on the steering wheel. Eve was curiously still beside him. The woman had never been this quiet before, not for so long.
They’d been waiting twenty minutes already. There was no sign of the wolf.
Cain cranked the engine.
Her hand flew out, and her fingers wrapped around his. “We aren’t leaving,” she told him, her voice almost a growl.
He turned his head toward her. Met that bright blue stare. “Yeah, we are.” He was definite on this. The longer they stayed there, the more danger they could face.
She had to see the writing on the wall. She had to. Trace wasn’t meeting them because the wolf couldn’t meet them.
Eve hadn’t been the only one taken last night, but she had been the only one rescued.
Two vamp bars. Two traps. One missing wolf.
Cain frowned. He should have known that Wyatt would have a backup plan in place.
They’d picked the old park as a meeting point because it was isolated. Private. But it looked like the meeting wasn’t going to happen.
Cain eased the vehicle—another stolen ride—away from the curb.
“Take me to the bar,” Eve whispered.
From the corner of his eye, Cain saw her hands clench in her lap. He knew which bar she meant.
Thirty minutes later, they were in front of Bite—the vamp bar that Trace had visited the night before.
There wasn’t much left of the place. Charred bricks. Ash. The shell of a wall in the back. Humans—probably arson investigators—were combing through the wreckage and yellow lines of tape marked off the area, keeping the gawkers back.
Hell.
“Wyatt has him,” Eve said. There was no emotion in her voice.
