Once Bitten, Twice Burned

by Cynthia Eden

  Ryder forced his muscles to remain loose and relaxed.

  “They were soldiers . . .” Was Wyatt just talking to himself now? Looked that way—crazy jerk. “Their minds should have been strong enough. Their bodies strong enough. Vamp and Lycan DNA—they were going to be stronger.”

  Hold the hell up. “You spliced vamp and shifter blood?”

  “Wolf shifter blood,” Wyatt snapped. “Lycan—”

  “And you created some crazy-ass monster that you can’t control? How can you be surprised by that?” That was what happened when you played God. You created the devil.

  Hell came to earth.

  “You can be the cure.”

  Ryder shook his head. “You kill your test subjects left and right. Why the hell haven’t you just taken these guys out? Failed experiments, right?” He tossed back at the guy. “I’d think you’d just get rid of them—”

  Wyatt’s shoulders straightened. Behind the thin frames of his glasses, his eyes hardened. “Normally, I do.” The words were cold. Crisp. Ah, so he was trying to pull back his control. Crazy. “But these beings are immune from disease. They don’t age. They can kill savagely, perfectly. They can communicate on a psychic level—”

  This just got better. But Ryder said, “Bullshit,” because the story was too impossible. He hoped it was.

  “You’ll see.” Wyatt turned away from him. “Soon enough, I’ll show you what was created.”

  The guy was heading for the door. “You said ‘us’ before,” Ryder called out.

  Wyatt paused.

  “You wanted a cure for ‘us,’ ” Ryder reminded him, focusing on the word that had first caught his attention. “So you’re one of the freaks, too?” I already knew that.

  Wyatt glanced over his shoulder at him. “When my father realized the mistake he’d made with these experiments, when he saw how quickly they could infect others with their bite, he had to create a being who would be immune to them.”

  His father?

  “If a human gets so much as a single bite from these vamps, the infection takes over that person’s body.”

  That wasn’t the way vamps were made. Never so quickly. And it took an actual blood exchange between the vampire and human, not just one single bite.

  “The infection is in their saliva,” Wyatt said, rolling his shoulders a bit. “Humans don’t have an immune system or DNA strong enough to resist the transformation.” His lips twisted in a humorless smile. “Human DNA is actually designed to speed up the process.”

  “But you’re immune, right?” That was what Wyatt had just said. “If you’re immune, then why don’t you just make up some vaccine from your blood so all the little humans in the world are safe?” The words were snarled, but Ryder actually meant what he said. If Wyatt wasn’t just bullshitting in an attempt to push Ryder into cooperating with his experiments, then this—shit, this really could be hell on earth.

  “Because my blood’s poison.” The words were growled from Wyatt. “To the vamps and the humans . . . flawed. He made a mistake.”

  He? The guy’s father? They were just a whole family of screwed-up assholes.

  “Where are these vampires?” Ryder asked. If the guy was telling the truth, he wanted to know where these primal vamps were being held. Because I’ll kill them.

  “They’re contained.” Wyatt opened the door. “I won’t let them out. Not until I’m sure of their control.”

  The story could be a lie. “Show me one of them. Prove what you’ve got.” What you’ve done.

  “No.” Wyatt didn’t look back this time. “They don’t get out. They never get out.”

  They aren’t real. “This is bullshit!” Ryder yelled. “You don’t have them—you’re just trying to get me to cooperate.” He yanked on the chains. Felt more rage building in him. They’d taken Sabine. More experiments. More hell. The chains were embedded in the stone walls. The stone began to crack as he yanked with all of his strength. “I’m not cooperating! I’m going to fucking kill you!”

  The door closed behind Wyatt. He’d gone.

  Ryder kept pulling at the chains. Pulling . . .

  “You can try to kill me.” Wyatt’s voice drifted through the speaker. “But I told you, I’m poison.”

  Then they’d both die.

  “Now I have to go see about your lovely phoenix. If you won’t cooperate”—Wyatt sighed—“maybe she will.”

  Then there was only silence. The frantic beat of Ryder’s heart, and the knowledge that Sabine would be hurt. She’d be killed. And all he could do was sit in this cage and wait.

  The rage built within him. Grew. With every second that passed, the man he was lost more and more control.

  I can be fucking primal, too.

  Wyatt was about to see just how primal the first vampire could be.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  They left him alone in his cell for three weeks. Ryder counted the moments as the hunger grew within him. Sabine had tried to help him by giving him blood, but it hadn’t been enough. Wyatt had taken too much from him during all of those long, desperate¸ draining hours.

  Need more.

  His fangs burned in his mouth. His gut clenched with a hunger that wouldn’t stop, and he began to wonder . . .

  When he’d been out, just what had Wyatt done? Taken blood, yes, but had the bastard injected him with something? The hunger was stronger, so much more intense than anything he’d felt before. And it certainly wasn’t the first time that an enemy had tried to starve him.

  But it was the first time that he’d hungered so completely for the blood of one person.

  Need Sabine’s blood. He was salivating, wanting it—her—so badly. He’d yelled for her. Roared. But the jerks in white lab coats hadn’t come near his cell.

  He’d tried to reach Thomas’s mind, and he’d made contact, right before a guard had blasted a bullet into the guy’s head.

  So much for Wyatt’s talk about Thomas becoming an experiment. They’d exterminated him quickly enough.

  Ryder paced back and forth in his cell. Rage and hunger built. Sabine. He thought of her too much. She was consuming him, just like the hunger. She was—

  He heard the faint rustle of footsteps. With his teeth clenched, he whirled toward the observation mirror. Not watching. No one was in there. Ryder stared back at his twisted reflection as a faint odor drifted to him.

  His nostrils twitched. That scent . . . “Fire,” he rasped. Sabine? His phoenix?

  Then the footsteps were rushing away.

  Ryder’s wild gaze darted to his door. The chains were gone. He’d smashed through them. There was a faint click and hiss from outside of his cell. The lock.

  He lunged forward.

  And a gun lifted. A woman stood in the doorway. Her blue eyes were big and frightened, and her dark hair tumbled around her shoulders. He ignored the gun as his gaze zeroed in on her neck.

  Hunger.

  “Don’t bite me!” she yelled.

  His gaze jerked back up to her face. A pretty face. Pleasing. But . . .

  I want Sabine. The woman before him was a means to an end. His ticket out. So he’d bite, he’d feed, and she wouldn’t stop him. Gun or no gun.

  “I’m here to help you.”

  His eyes narrowed. She sounded as if she meant the words, but he wasn’t buying her line. It was just another one of Wyatt’s games. Another lie. Like the twisted vampire story—primal vampires, his ass. “So says the woman with the gun aimed at my chest.” He tried to keep his voice even so she wouldn’t realize just how much fury surged in him.

  She blinked and made the mistake of glancing away from him as she looked at her gun. “Look, that’s just to—”

  He ripped the gun out of her hand and shoved her back. His hand fisted in her hair as he yanked her head to the side. The perfect position for feeding. “Hungry . . .” And he was. Starving. But he wouldn’t drain her. His control was there, hanging by a thread. He’d get power from her blood. Enough power to strengthen his
body and get out of the pit.

  “I’m . . . helping . . .” the woman said, sounding both angry and afraid. “Trying . . . to . . . help . . .”

  She could help plenty by giving up her blood. Only he hesitated, not able to sink his fangs into her because in his mind, Ryder could see Sabine. Sabine had been so afraid the first time she’d come into his cell. “Need . . . you . . .” The words weren’t for the woman in his arms. He couldn’t bite her, a knowledge that pushed through his rage and hunger. He needed Sabine.

  Only Sabine.

  Before he could free the woman, hard hands grabbed him and yanked him away from her. His body flew through the air and thudded into the far wall.

  “Too fucking bad,” a big, angry bastard snarled at him. “’Cause I saw her first.” The man’s dark eyes glittered with fury. And . . . fire?

  Ryder’s attention was caught by those eyes. He’d only seen that circle of fire once before—in Sabine’s eyes. As he watched, the man with the burning eyes turned and offered the woman his hand. Huh. The guy must be her protector.

  Except the woman didn’t take the offered hand. She glanced over at Ryder.

  “You have to get out of here,” the bruiser with the burning eyes said to her.

  Ryder rose. Took a step forward.

  The guy tensed. His gaze cut to Ryder. “Touch her again,” the male snarled, “and I’ll turn you to dust.”

  He’d like to see the guy try.

  The woman still hadn’t taken the fellow’s offered hand. Ryder knew now that she wasn’t working with Wyatt. Whatever was happening—these two were on their own.

  The dark-haired guy grabbed the woman’s wrist. He pulled her close. “Come on.” They turned for the door.

  But the lady was hesitating. “There are others.” Her words reminded him of Sabine. She’d cared about the other prisoners, too. “They’re trapped,” the woman said, voice shaking, “and—”

  An explosion shook the building, a blast that had cracks racing across the walls and ceilings.

  Ryder tensed, then he heard screams. Screams that echoed and reverberated, seemingly calling out from all around him. Was Sabine screaming? He had to find her. Ryder rushed forward, shoving his way past the bruiser and his woman.

  This time, no one would stop his escape. I’m coming for you, Sabine. A promise was a promise.

  More explosions rocked the building and the screams rose.

  Sabine stared up at the light above her. A small light, far too bright. At first, that light had hurt her eyes. In a room of darkness, it had been the only thing she’d seen. Her body was strapped down. No, chained down. Chained with a metal that could resist fire.

  Because she’d burned before. More than once.

  A whimper slipped from her lips. She knew her name because the voice that sometimes floated in the room—that voice called her Sabine. She didn’t know where she was. Why someone kept hurting her.

  She just knew the fire.

  She pulled at the metal bonds. They wouldn’t give. Her wrists were raw and bloody and she couldn’t get free.

  There had to be more than this for her. Why couldn’t she remember? She’d had a life.

  But it was gone. All she knew now were days and nights of fire and pain.

  And the urge to destroy. To attack and kill . . . those urges grew stronger in her every moment.

  Sabine jerked once more on the bonds. The coppery scent of her blood rose to fill her nose.

  An image flashed in her mind. A man. Blond hair. Chiseled features. A faint smile tilting his lips. For some reason, when she saw that image, Sabine thought . . .

  He likes blood.

  She shivered. Her skin was cold. They wouldn’t give her clothes. The clothes just burned away. Everything burned.

  Sabine heard the crackle of static drift in the air and knew the voice was going to come again.

  “This time,” the voice announced—a female voice. One that was always flat and so cold, clipped with a hard accent—“this time we’ve been instructed to use gas on you. I’ve been assured that the process shouldn’t take long at all.”

  The process. Sabine bit her lips. There was a hiss of sound and the air around her changed. Developed an acrid odor. The scent burned her nose.

  Her throat.

  A tear leaked down her cheek.

  She held tight to the image of the blond man. It was the only image that had ever come to her.

  He likes blood.

  That knowledge should have scared her, but she was long past the point of terror. As she choked and shuddered, Sabine just thought . . .

  Find me. Because somewhere deep inside, an instinctive knowledge told her that man was coming for her.

  Chaos. Fire. Hell. But . . .

  No Sabine.

  Ryder’s hands clenched as he watched Genesis burn. He’d taken blood—plenty of it—from the guards who were fleeing. But the blood tasted wrong to him. Sour.

  Sabine.

  The scream was in his head. She was the one he needed, but he couldn’t find her. Genesis—there was nothing left there. Everything would soon be ash.

  It was the second lab that he needed. Wyatt had transferred Sabine there. Ryder just had to find the place.

  But the guards he’d fed on, they hadn’t known about the second lab’s location. He’d ripped into their minds—they hadn’t known. The place was shrouded in secrecy and—

  The big, dark bruiser from before was back. Ryder watched as the guy stalked right through the fire. The woman was in his arms.

  The woman . . . she’d tried to help me.

  In his rage before, he hadn’t thought she was truly there to free him. But she had been. Not there to torture and destroy, but to help.

  So he owed her. For the moment. Ryder braced his legs and called out, “Let her go.”

  The man’s head snapped up even as his hold on the woman tightened. “I knew letting you live was a mistake.” Disgust and rage were ripe in the man’s voice.

  Ryder swiped away the blood that dripped down his chin. He’d gorged too much. So why am I still hungry? He bared his fangs as he advanced. “She . . . saved me.” Ryder managed to grit out the words. “I won’t let you hurt her.” Sabine wouldn’t want the woman hurt. The woman—she kept reminding him of Sabine.

  The guy frowned and gazed down at the woman. She appeared dead to the world, but Ryder saw the soft rise and fall of her chest. Still alive, just unconscious. Unconscious and in the arms of a phoenix who’d just torched Genesis. She wasn’t exactly in a safe place.

  Then the bruiser looked back up at Ryder, and fire burned in the man’s eyes. A fire just like Sabine’s. “I’m guessing you’re lucky number thirteen,” Ryder murmured.

  The phoenix glared at Ryder and warned, “You don’t want to tangle with me.”

  Actually, no, he didn’t. He wanted that phoenix to get far away from him, but the woman . . . “She’s human.” He gave a hard shake of his head. Then he lied and said, “I don’t know what the hell you are, and—”

  “She’s not.” The words were shouted at him. The guy’s grip on the woman just kept tightening. Cain. That was the name Wyatt had mentioned for Subject Thirteen. Cain needed to ease up or he might wind up hurting her.

  And she wasn’t human? Then what was she? She’d certainly smelled human to him. “Doesn’t matter,” Ryder said as the phoenix advanced on him. “I won’t let you hurt her.” Saving the woman had suddenly become too important. Why? Because I can’t save Sabine.

  No, no, he would save her. He wasn’t giving up on Sabine, not yet.

  Cain studied Ryder as if he were insane. Yes, buddy, I am. Don’t push me anymore. Then the guy said, “I wasn’t the one trying to eat her.”

  Ah, valid point. But that was okay. Ryder had a point of his own to make. “No, you’re just the one who wants to fuck her.”

  Cain’s eyes narrowed to fiery slits. This phoenix seemed to have more power than Sabine. Wyatt had already said that Number Thirteen was st
ronger. With vamps, age brought increased power. Was it the same situation for a phoenix? Sabine hadn’t known what she was. The first death and rising had stunned her. This guy knew the score.

  He also seemed to be able to control his fire. Wasn’t that intriguing?

  Before the male could escape with the woman, Ryder deliberately stepped into his path.

  The phoenix sighed and told him, “If you don’t move, you’re dead.”

  Like he hadn’t heard that a time or twenty before. Controlling the impulse to roll his eyes, Ryder advanced. “You can’t—”

  Fire seemed to surge right out of the guy’s hand. The flames flew at Ryder, spinning in a deadly ball. Ryder yelled and jumped to the side. The blazing ball missed him, but as he lay on the ground, a whip of fire circled him, caging his body within the crackling flames.

  Then the phoenix told him, “If you ever come at her again, you’ll feel the full force of my fire.” There was a deadly promise in the words. “And you won’t have time to scream then. You’ll just die.”

  Ryder stiffened. First up, he hadn’t screamed. Yelled in fury, fuck yes, but screamed? No. The very suggestion was insulting.

  And second, the bastard was just leaving him there. Leaving a vampire trapped in his worst nightmare. Flames that wouldn’t die.

  The flames were all she knew. Burning bright and hot in red and gold. Surrounding her. Seeming to come from within her.

  The fire terrified her. So did the screams that she could hear. Or was she the one screaming? It was so hard to tell for sure.

  She was supposed to remember someone. Something. A man?

  The idea was there, whispering beneath the screams, but then she forgot him.

  Forgot her own self.

  The fire burned and burned and burned.

  Fury cut through her. A killing rage. Destroy everything. Everyone. She wanted to hurt and punish.

  But though the fire burned so hot, she couldn’t move her body.

  Burn, burn, burn.

  The fire crackled. She started to laugh. Soon she couldn’t tell the difference between that crackle of fire and her laughter. Maybe there was no difference.