Once Bitten, Twice Burned

by Cynthia Eden

  Ryder ignored the pain and reached for her again.

  “Stop him,” Wyatt ordered. Ryder realized the guards were back on their feet. “Shoot him until he stops moving. The bullets won’t kill him, but they can put him down for a time.”

  Then the bullets exploded, popping like firecrackers over and over again as they sank into Ryder’s body. His chest. His arms.

  He hit the floor. Blood seeped from his wounds. Pooled around him on the stone floor.

  “Enough!” Wyatt lifted his hand. His eyes went from Ryder to Sabine.

  Her head had turned and her eyes—wide open, still alive—were on Ryder. He could see the life in her gaze. She was trying to come back to him. Trying. She just needed more of his blood.

  Her hand had lifted. Was she reaching for him? Ryder gathered every single ounce of strength that he had. “My . . . blood . . .” Only a little more, and she’d be fine. He could save her. Her death—unlike all the others—wouldn’t be on him. He started crawling to her through the blood.

  “She’s gonna live,” one of the guards muttered. “I thought he was supposed to kill her.”

  He could be more than a killer. She could be more than a victim. Blood soaked his clothes. The power he’d gotten from her rich blood was gone, stolen away by a hail of bullets.

  “He did kill her.” Wyatt’s voice was flat. “We just have to wait for her to die.”

  No! “Can . . . help . . .” He was almost to her side.

  “Chain him,” Wyatt ordered. “He’s too weak to fight you. Chain the vampire and let him watch.”

  Their arms grabbed him. Jerked him away from her. But he wasn’t as weak as they thought, not even with the bullets lodged in his organs. Ryder fought them, clawing and snapping with his fangs. Half a dozen guards had to jump on him and yank him back to the far wall. Then they locked thick chains around his wrists, trapping him. The guards hurried back as soon as those locks snapped in place. They were bloody now, too—from the wounds he’d given them.

  When they moved away, he saw her again. Her chest was struggling to rise. Her eyes were still open.

  “Don’t . . . do this,” he growled as he strained to break free.

  Wyatt walked around her, staring down at Sabine as she sprawled on the floor. “Why do you even care? Shouldn’t she just be food to you?”

  Ryder didn’t speak. He wouldn’t tell this bastard anything about himself.

  “I think one of the bullets must have ripped into your heart”—Wyatt didn’t sound particularly concerned—“you’re bleeding far too much. Hmmm . . . I should have considered . . . will that wound to the heart kill you?”

  No. It wouldn’t. He was healing already.

  “I didn’t intend for them to shoot you in the heart.” Wyatt frowned at the guards. “Errors like that cannot be tolerated here.”

  The guy was psychotic.

  A bullet to the heart wasn’t normally an error. It was murder.

  “You’re just . . . gonna watch . . . her die?” Ryder yanked at the chains and didn’t care when they cut into his wrists. He’d heal. He always healed.

  She won’t.

  “Yes.” Wyatt nodded and offered an almost-absent smile. “Yes, yes, I am.”

  Her eyes were on Ryder—her eyes . . .

  He saw the life leave them. Actually saw a veil of nothing sweep into her stare. “No!” He yanked at the chains, twisting his hands, breaking his wrists as he fought to get free. He smashed his fingers as he tried to jerk his hand through the ring that bound his wrist. He didn’t feel the pain as he struggled.

  Dead.

  “Exit,” Wyatt snapped, “now.”

  The guards started hauling ass. They were leaving her like that? Just sprawled on the floor like a broken doll?

  Maybe there was still time. His right wrist shattered. Maybe.

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t move,” Wyatt advised Ryder with a quick frown as he paused by the door. “This is her first change. I have no idea how powerful it will be.”

  Ryder didn’t understand the bastard. He was moving, all right. Won’t give up. Won’t—

  The door slammed shut behind Wyatt and his men. And . . . the scent of smoke teased Ryder’s nose.

  What the hell?

  His gaze snapped back to Sabine. Her eyes were still open, only her eyes weren’t dark brown any longer. The brown was changing, turning to a gold, then seeming to burn red.

  Red like fire.

  The scent of smoke deepened around him. Ryder pulled his broken right hand free. Now the other—

  Her body began to burn.

  He yelled then, roaring her name, but the fire didn’t stop. It blazed hotter, higher, and swept over Sabine’s slender form. The white-hot heat from the blaze rushed over his skin, almost singeing him. Sprinklers erupted with a powerful spray from overhead, and the water drenched him but did nothing to stop the blaze that consumed Sabine.

  His breath rasped out. Ryder stopped fighting for his freedom. There was nothing to be done now. No one could come back from those flames.

  So there was nothing for him to do in the end but watch the fire burn, to hate himself for the monster that he was, and to wish that Sabine Acadia had never had the misfortune to walk into his prison.

  But then something began to move within those flames. She moved, and Ryder realized that Wyatt’s experiments were just getting started.

  Because even though she’d just died right in front of him, even though Sabine was burning, it sure looked like she was trying to rise from the fire.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The flames were all she knew. Burning so hot, but not hurting her. She saw fire—red and gold, so bright. She tasted ash.

  The flames grew higher.

  Pain and rage and fear and hate began to churn within her. Something had happened to her. Something bad. She knew it, but she couldn’t remember exactly what had happened.

  She couldn’t . . . remember much of anything.

  Just the fire.

  But then the flames began to die away. Slowly, the fury of the fire became just a flicker, then faded to mere wisps of smoke around her bare feet.

  She stood in some kind of room. With heavy, perhaps stone walls. She instinctively knew the walls were made of stone—but she didn’t know where she was.

  Fear made her heart beat faster. Her gaze searched the small room, flying from the left to the right and she saw . . . him.

  Against the back wall, stood a bloody man, blisters on his skin, his eyes—a wild green, bright and fierce—locked on her. There was disbelief in his eyes, shock carved into the hard, chiseled planes of his face.

  And there was a chain around his wrist.

  “How the hell,” his voice rasped out, deep and rumbling, and sending a shiver over her skin, “did you do that?”

  She just stared at him. He seemed familiar. Her head tilted as she gazed at him. They were alone in the room. He was hurt. She was . . .

  Naked?

  Frowning, she glanced down at her body. Maybe she should cover herself, but she didn’t. The fury inside her left no room for modesty.

  Destroy.

  Burn.

  Whispers that came from within.

  She took a step closer to the man.

  He lifted a hand toward her. A broken, twisted hand. “I thought you were dead.”

  I was. The same whisper in her mind.

  “Sabine, what happened?”

  The name echoed in her mind. Sabine. An image flashed in front of her. A man, with dark red hair and a wide grin, chasing a little girl near a river. Sabine, you’re too fast for me! I can never catch you.

  Her head began to throb. “Who are you?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You don’t remember me?”

  She shook her head. “Why are you chained?”

  “Because they wanted to stop me from getting to you.”

  She stilled. The ache in her head grew worse. Swelled higher. The rush of blood within her veins felt like the burn of
fire.

  The man stood just a few feet away from her. He was tall, muscled, and covered in so much blood. She glanced down at her own body. Not a drop of blood was on her skin. Her gaze rose back to meet his. “Where are my clothes?”

  Surely she hadn’t just been . . . naked . . . with him.

  “They burned away.” His shoulders straightened. He was a big one, tall, with thick shoulders and a muscled chest. A bleeding muscled chest. “You died, then you burned.”

  A shocked laugh came from her. “You’re crazy.” She wasn’t dead. And he . . . his intense gaze caused the faintest flickers of fear to grow in her belly. As she stared at him, her body started shaking, a small tremble that seemed to come from her heart and reverberate through every muscle. Sucking in a deep breath, she spun away from him and rushed toward the door. The guy was chained up, and he had to be that way for a reason. Since he couldn’t move, it seemed to make pretty good sense that she get away from him. Her hand lifted and she pounded her fist against the door.

  Fire immediately swept out from her hand and blazed a path up the door and toward the ceiling.

  Screaming, she leapt back, even as the sprinklers erupted overhead.

  “There they come again.” His dark mutter.

  The icy water drenched her. She tried pounding on the door again. More fire, fire that didn’t so much as singe her fingertips, but the door didn’t open.

  Trapped.

  She shook her hands, trying to stop the fire. Flames couldn’t be coming from her fingers. That wasn’t possible. This was just a nightmare.

  She looked at her hands and saw—more fire.

  Nightmare.

  She screamed and spun around to stare at the man. Except he wasn’t a man. His fangs were bared—fangs!—and he was straining as he ripped his left wrist out of that cuff-like chain. She heard the crunch of bones and she flinched, but he just gave a growl and wrenched his broken hand free.

  Then his gaze met hers.

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  “Ryder.” He lifted his right hand. Pressed it to his bloody chest. Bones snapped and popped. Then he used that right hand—nausea rolled within her—to snap his left hand and its fingers back into place.

  She raised her own hands before her. The fire flickered above her fingers—freaking her the hell out—but she shouted, “Stay away from me!”

  He wasn’t coming toward her. He was digging something out of his chest. Clawing at his chest and pulling out something small and black. He clawed at his chest again and again. The objects that he pulled from his flesh—at least seven of them—looked like bullets.

  Ryder dropped them. “Hope you’re getting a good show, Wyatt.”

  Who was Wyatt?

  The throbbing in her head was driving her crazy. Burn. The fire above her fingers flared higher. She slammed her hands against the nearby wall and the flames shot up the stone instantly, heading to lick at the ceiling. “What is happening to me?” she whispered. A scream seemed to echo inside her head.

  “Sabine.”

  His voice cut through that scream. Her head turned toward him. Their eyes met. He was stalking toward her. Closing in. “Stop the fire,” he told her, his voice quiet.

  “I-I don’t know how!” Tears leaked down her cheeks. Her hands stayed on the wall. She was afraid that if she lifted them up, she’d shoot the flames right at him.

  Part of her wanted to hurt him. Part of her wanted to just hurt and destroy everything.

  But another part . . . another part was lost. Help me.

  The flames continued to rise up the wall. The man— Ryder—kept coming toward her. He had to feel the heat from the fire, but he didn’t look afraid.

  Powerful. Dangerous. But not afraid.

  Since flames were shooting from her hands, shouldn’t she be the dangerous one?

  Her nails dug into the wall.

  “Stop the fire, Sabine,” Ryder told her again, and her breath heaved out.

  “Don’t you think I would, if I could?” Her head shook frantically. The scream in her mind was back. Was that her scream? “I can’t! I—”

  His fingers curled around her chin and stopped the shaking of her head. She was afraid that the fire would spread to him, so her fingers shoved harder against the wall. His body surrounded her. She kept her hands on the wall. He was touching her, and she was too terrified to touch him. “Get away from me,” she whispered.

  She couldn’t even begin to guess at the emotions in his eyes as he gruffly said, “I want to help you.”

  “Why?” She understood nothing that was happening. “Why are we here? Where are we?” The flames seemed to burn hotter, while his touch on her skin felt curiously cool. Almost soothing. “You know me, right? We were here together?”

  His fingers stroked her skin.

  “Tell me!”

  “I know you,” he said. His head lowered to her. “Don’t let your control break. Fight this.”

  Fight the fire? The scream inside? What?

  His lips took hers. The kiss was the last thing she expected, and her gasp of surprise slipped into his mouth. The kiss was soft, gentle, even as the fire raged on the wall near her. The sprinklers kept pouring water on them. Water that dripped over her face and held her frozen against him.

  No, it wasn’t the water that kept her immobile.

  His mouth pressed lightly to her lips. His tongue stroked inside, caressing her, tasting.

  Her heartbeat drummed in her ears, but the scream in her mind began to quiet down. Still afraid, her nails dug deeper into the wall.

  His fingers slid down her neck.

  A memory nagged at her. An image.

  His head, bending toward her.

  “Please . . . don’t . . .” Her voice. She knew it was. Her memory.

  “Let me help you.” His whisper against her lips. “Trust me. I won’t hurt you . . .” Ryder’s words were rough, ragged.

  Did she imagine it or had he said . . .

  I won’t hurt you . . . again.

  But he wasn’t even close to hurting her now. His lips were light on hers. So soft and gentle and she wanted to kiss him back. To taste him. To forget the fire and just feel him.

  “I know what you are.” His lips feathered near the edge of her mouth. “I know.”

  Slowly, his head lifted. The water had soaked his hair dark. Droplets clung to his thick lashes. Slid down his cheeks. High cheeks. Such a handsome, sexy face. A face made to tempt a woman to sin.

  Her gaze followed those drops of water. Fell down to his lips. Sculpted, sensual. But then—then—“You have fangs.”

  Did his lips curl in a faint smile? The smile was so brief it was hard to tell for sure. Then he said, “And you’re burning the room around us.”

  She blinked up at him.

  “Pull it back, love,” he told her. “Pull it back.”

  She didn’t know how.

  He kissed her again. “Focus on me.”

  She wanted to, but it was hard with the giant wall of flames just inches away. “You should move away.”

  Ryder shook his head. “I won’t leave you. I won’t watch.”

  She didn’t even know what that meant.

  “Breathe,” he told her. “Slow. Deep.” His hand moved to rest over her heart. “Too fast,” Ryder told her. “Breathe. You’re safe with me.”

  She wanted to believe him. The scream in her mind—it had quieted so much, but her nails still dug into the wall. She focused on getting her breaths to match his. In. Out. In. The fire appeared to be shrinking. The flames were flickering.

  “Good.” His voice seemed to rumble inside her. His touch—his hand—it was cool against her overheated flesh. The edge of his thumb slid over her breast, and she gasped at the contact.

  The flames flickered again.

  She wanted to grab his hand and yank it away from her flesh, but she was afraid to touch him. If he burned like the wall did, he would be dead instantly.

  But he was tensing before
her. His head tilted even as his gaze flew toward the door. “They’re coming.”

  They?

  He dropped his hand.

  The water kept falling on them.

  “Stay behind me,” he ordered. “No matter what happens. Stay behind me.”

  She yanked her hands away from the wall. Fisted them and shoved them behind her body.

  The door was opening with a screech of metal that hurt her ears. There were men there. Men who wore thick, heavy white suits and giant masks that covered their heads.

  What in the hell?

  The men had guns in their hands, and their weapons were aimed at Ryder.

  “Do you really want to dig out more bullets, Ryder?” a low voice asked. A voice that came from above them. Her head jerked up, and she saw a small speaker in the middle of the ceiling.

  “Not really,” Ryder drawled, “so I think I’ll just kill these bastards instead.”

  And he lunged forward, moving in a flash despite the blood that still covered him. He was injured, hurt so badly, and—

  He killed a man while she watched. Yanked the gun from the guy’s hands. Turned the weapon back on the man in white and shot him. Blasted him in the heart and then aimed the gun on the others. “You should move faster,” he told them.

  They were trying to fire. Shooting with their weapons, and she lifted her hands, wanting the nightmare before her to stop.

  Flames flew from her fingers and headed right for Ryder and the others.

  The flames licked over Ryder’s back. He didn’t even stop attacking.

  I’m sorry!

  The flames hit the other men. The men in those heavy white suits, but the fire didn’t hurt them.

  “You’ll have to burn hotter than that,” the voice on the speaker said. “Their suits are reinforced, and your temperature is far too low.”

  What?

  “But if you keep the flames going, you may very well kill Ryder,” that droning voice told her.

  She dropped her hands.

  Ryder had another guard on the floor. The man’s neck had been broken.

  Ryder glanced over at her.

  She screamed a warning at him. More guards were coming. They fired at him.

  But the new guards weren’t using regular bullets because no blood appeared when he was hit.