Once Bitten, Twice Burned

by Cynthia Eden

  The guy turned with a snarl, his features tight, animalistic, as he prepared, no doubt, to go for Ryder’s throat again.

  Sabine raised her hand and sent a blast of fire out from her fingertips. The fire came to her so much easier now. As if it were always waiting, just beneath her skin.

  Ryder leapt back, avoiding the blast of those flames. The fire circled the now howling werewolf, closing in on him. The guy swiped out with his claws, then whimpered when the fire bit into him.

  He would soon be doing more than just whimpering. Sabine focused on her flames and prepared to tighten the net.

  “No!” a woman shouted as she rushed from an open door. The same office that Cain had exited. The woman was slender, with long, dark hair, too pale skin, and desperate eyes. The woman from the photo. Eve Bradley. I’m supposed to let her live. The woman’s eyes were on Cain O’Connor. “You can’t do this to him!”

  Cain grabbed her arm. “It’s not my fire,” he said.

  No, it wasn’t. The flames are all mine. Sabine slowly walked around the beast and stalked toward Ryder. He was close to the other phoenix, too close for her peace of mind. So she headed for them, and, within her circle of fire, the man’s head jerked up. He snarled—a true animal cry—and just . . . charged at the fire.

  Fine, if you want to die, then be my guest.

  But the werewolf leapt right over the flames. Flames that had to be at least six feet high. He jumped right over them.

  “Get out of the way!” Ryder yelled at her.

  Sabine realized she’d made a mistake. She’d tried to move closer in order to protect Ryder, but she’d just put herself right in the path of the beast-man.

  Maybe she could send her fire—

  Claws sliced into her stomach. Deep. Brutal.

  She fell, slamming into the floor and feeling the wet warmth of her blood soak the tile beneath her. For a moment, the entire world seemed to stop. Or maybe that was just her heart.

  “Sabine.” Ryder rolled her over. This time, he was the one who gasped. She didn’t need to see the damage to know that her wound was fatal. She could already feel death coming for her. After dying so many times, she recognized death’s touch. Recognized it and hated it.

  Her lips trembled. Sabine shook her head. “Don’t . . . want to die again.” It hurt too much. When she came back, what then? Would she be lost once more? Would she wake with no memory? Knowing only the taste of fire on her tongue? She didn’t want to be lost again.

  She didn’t want to be dead.

  I don’t want to be a monster.

  “Help . . . me,” Sabine whispered.

  Ryder pulled her into his arms. Her blood soaked him, too. “I will. I swear, I will.”

  Her gaze slid to the left. There was fire. Shattering glass. The werewolf had just jumped through a window. Good. She hoped he broke his neck when he fell. If he didn’t . . . “Kill him,” Sabine whispered.

  Ryder pulled her tighter against him. “We can stop the blood. You’ll be fine.”

  No, she wouldn’t be fine. Neither would Rhett. What if I forget him?

  She could hear that cold, female voice telling her . . . I’ll make sure that a bullet finds its way into your brother’s head.

  “Kill the phoenix,” Sabine whispered. Her hands grabbed Ryder’s shirt. “Kill him for me.”

  Ryder frowned down at her.

  “Wyatt—”

  His nostrils flared. “That bastard is already dead.”

  Then so was Rhett. She’d failed.

  Her lashes started to sag. She struggled to keep them open, for just a few moments more. The world spun around her. Ryder—he’d lifted her up, stood, had her cradled in his arms. “Hold on,” he told her. “You’ll be okay.”

  “Can you handle her?” a deep voice called out. She forced her eyes to focus. Cain. He was staring at them. Frowning at the gaping wounds on her stomach.

  You know I’m dying, don’t you?

  Ryder turned away from Cain and headed back toward the stairs. “Always,” he said.

  A lump rose in her throat. “Don’t want to . . . forget you . . .”

  They were in the stairwell. “Don’t worry, love, I won’t let you.”

  She wanted to believe him.

  But she couldn’t.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  Ryder kicked open the heavy, gleaming silver door, figuring that the room inside would be a lab. A narrow bed waited in the middle of the room under bright lights. Not so much a bed as an exam table. Trays of instruments were scattered around the room.

  Handcuffs?

  I hate this place.

  But he had to take care of Sabine and he had to do it now.

  Carefully, he put her on the bed. His teeth clenched as a pain-filled gasp slipped from her lips. The werewolf—yeah, that guy who’d attacked her had been a freaking werewolf, just one not quite like any shifter that Ryder had ever seen before—had done a number on her. She was bleeding out right before his eyes.

  “I want you to drink my blood,” he told her. Ryder caught her chin. Forced her gaze up to his. That gaze was so weak. No flames. Just darkness. “Sabine,” he snapped out her name, trying to force her focus back to him.

  Only she didn’t focus on him.

  She didn’t focus on anything. Her eyes began to roll back into her head. No! He used his teeth to tear open his wrist, then he shoved his hand toward her mouth.

  “Vampire . . .” A woman’s voice sighed out the title. “This didn’t work before. Why would you think it would save her now?”

  His head whipped to the left. A redhead stood in the doorway. A female with cold, perfect features wearing a white lab coat. Correction, a bloodstained white coat.

  The woman sagged against the wall. Then she tried to push forward as she took a step toward him.

  “Who are you?” Ryder demanded even as he kept his wrist at Sabine’s mouth. He wasn’t giving up. He’d never give up on her.

  “I’m Vivian . . . Dr. Vivian Sutton . . . and I can save your phoenix. You . . . help me . . .” Vivian offered, breath heaving and her face tightening with a flash of pain, “I’ll help you.”

  Ryder’s gaze fell back at Sabine’s still face.

  “The tears . . . are they still on her cheeks?” The doctor tried to keep her voice flat, but Ryder heard the crack of emotion. Desperate hope. “I saw . . . the footage from the security camera. She cried for you.” Her footsteps shuffled closer. “Are the tear tracks . . . still there?”

  He didn’t answer. He knew what the woman wanted.

  The tears were the cure. Wyatt’s words.

  And Sabine’s tears—they healed me. When he’d been in that hallway, it hadn’t been her blood that had brought him back. It had been her tears. So that part of the phoenix story was true, too. The tears of a phoenix could heal.

  He glanced over at Vivian. “You’re dying,” he said to the doctor. There was so much blood pouring off her. She probably only had minutes left.

  Her chin lifted. “So, is . . . she . . .”

  Sabine’s lips feathered over Ryder’s palm. Maybe she isn’t.

  “The tears . . . they can’t, won’t heal a phoenix’s own injuries, but they can heal me.” The woman came closer, leaving drops of blood in her wake. “They can heal me . . . then I can heal her.”

  The fingers of his left hand slid over Sabine’s cheek. So soft. Sweet silk. He’d missed her so much. A constant ache had filled his chest.

  It wasn’t about Sabine being some kind of second chance at redemption for him. It was about Sabine being—

  Mine.

  “The male . . . he would never cry—”

  “No matter how many times you killed him, huh?” Ryder threw at her.

  Sabine’s lips moved against him again. Then her teeth—sharper than he remembered, bit into his wrist.

  Yes!

  But he didn’t let the doctor see his relief.

  “She was different . . .” Those
footsteps kept shuffling closer. “Sabine cried each time she died.”

  The fucking bitch dared to tell him that?

  “She begged for us to save her . . . Sometimes, she’d even beg for you.”

  His teeth snapped together. The woman was digging her own grave with her clinical, sadistic words.

  “Then she’d cry when she rose.” Her breath heaved out. The scent of blood deepened. “Maybe it’s because she was so young. The first phoenix we captured, hell, we can’t . . . even tell how old he is. The Immortal,” Vivian whispered.

  The Immortal? Was she talking about Cain?

  “He didn’t break. Subject Thirteen . . . didn’t break, either . . .”

  Fuck. Cain was Subject Thirteen. So that meant, hell, there was another phoenix lurking around someplace?

  “They didn’t break. Sh-she did. And I need her tears . . . need more of them . . .”

  Ryder kept his hand at Sabine’s mouth, but he sensed the attack coming from the doctor. He waited, waited, then he twisted his body. His left hand came up and caught the stake that the bitch had tried to shove into him. “I’m not drugged,” he gritted out. “I’m not in a cage. So you can’t control me, and you sure as hell can’t kill me.”

  He snapped the stake in his hand. His gaze drifted over her as his nostrils flared. “You took a shot in the chest, huh? From one of the monsters or from your own guards?” Because they’d broken. He’d seen them. Shooting at anything or anyone who got between them and the red exit signs.

  When the prisoners broke free and you’d been the one playing jailer and executioner, you had to know your ass was about to get tortured before death. Run, run, humans. Run.

  But wherever they ran, the monsters would find them.

  “You’re already dead,” Ryder told her, because the wound to her chest was too deep. “And it’s an easier death than you probably deserve.”

  He pushed her away.

  But she shook her head. “Th-there’s a syringe. A formula . . . it can stop the fire from consuming her!”

  Desperation shook the words. A desperate woman would say anything, especially if she thought her lies would help her to keep living.

  “Give me your . . . blood!” Vivian’s voice was weakening. “Give it to me . . . and I will give you . . . the formula . . .”

  Ryder stared at her, barely holding back his fury. If Sabine didn’t need to keep feeding from him . . .

  His jaw locked and he managed to growl, “The fire won’t take her.”

  Vivian shook her head. “It will! Your blood . . . won’t stop her change, it won’t—”

  “Three times,” he said.

  She shook her head again.

  “For humans, it just takes one blood exchange for the transformation.” For a human to take a last gasp of air as a mortal, and to awake as a vampire.

  Her eyes widened. “You didn’t—”

  “For Sabine, since she was far from human, it took three exchanges.” Maybe because her DNA was so strong. The vampire blood had needed time to sink into her cells. To bond. But the proof was unmistakable. When he glanced over her body, he saw that her wounds were closing. She was drinking his blood. She had fangs. Her teeth were sharper because they weren’t normal canines any longer. His Sabine had transformed with this blood exchange.

  He hadn’t managed to stop her from dying that first terrible night in his cell. But Sabine would never die again.

  His blood guaranteed it.

  He didn’t expect Vivian to charge at him. But she did. With an infuriated scream, the redhead slammed into him and tried to pull Ryder away from Sabine. “Stop!” Vivian shrieked. “You’re ruining her!”

  With his left hand, he shoved her back, and never took his right wrist from Sabine’s mouth. “I’m saving her. She doesn’t want the fire.” And how did Vivian have this strength? With that bullet wound to her chest, she should be barely managing to stay upright.

  Not attacking.

  “You’ll make her . . . less . . .” The last word was a hiss.

  He stiffened. “You have five seconds to get out of here, or I’ll kill you.” He never liked hurting women, but that Vivian—she’d hurt Sabine. The doctor was already dying.

  “Bastard!” But Vivian’s feet stumbled toward the door. “You’ll regret this! She’ll…hate you! She had the power of a god . . . and you’re turning her into just another . . . bl-bloodsucker!”

  His head turned. His gaze met hers. “You should be on the ground. Choking on your own blood.” The wound had slowed her, yes, it was bleeding, almost gushing blood, but . . . Calculation had his eyes narrowing. “What are you, doctor? Are you an experiment, too, like Wyatt was?”

  “W-was?” Her lips trembled. Grief flashed in her eyes.

  He offered her a cold smile. “Guess you didn’t watch that part on the security footage, huh? Go upstairs. See him for yourself.”

  She turned and fled. Still moving too damn fast.

  But he didn’t care about her. He only cared about Sabine. He looked back at her. Im-fucking-possible, because he’d never seen a vamp heal so quickly, but her wounds had already closed. Her cheeks were pink.

  The third time had been the charm. She was locked with him now. Tied—body, blood, and soul.

  He wasn’t ever going to let her go. He didn’t think that he could. Ryder’s need for her had grown too strong.

  As he stared at her, Sabine’s eyelashes flickered.

  “Look at me, love,” he whispered as he leaned over her. “Let me make sure you’re still with me.”

  Her mouth pulled away from his wrist. He didn’t even glance at the wound. Her lashes lifted, and her dark eyes stared back at him.

  No fire was in that gaze.

  Just a darkness that seemed to see into his soul. The dark had never looked so warm or beautiful.

  “Ryder?” She whispered his name. “What—where are we?” Then her eyes widened as she jerked upright. Her hand flew to her stomach. “He—he gutted me!”

  Ryder wrapped his arms around her. Pulled her close to his chest. “You’re safe.”

  But she shook against him. “I know this place . . . they used to experiment on me here.”

  Fuck that. He lifted her into his arms. “We’re getting the hell out of here. No one is ever going to experiment on you again. I won’t let anyone hurt you.” A vow.

  Her hands curled around his neck. “I feel . . . strange.”

  Because her body was transitioning. He’d heard of a few shifters being transformed over the years. Once they’d become vampires, they’d never been able to call up their beasts again.

  Some said vampirism was a virus. An infection that spread with the exchange of blood. Humans were easily infected. Other paranormals just weren’t as susceptible to the virus.

  “You’ve lost a lot of blood,” he told her, not wanting to explain what he’d done. Not then. “But you’ll be okay.”

  Her head rested over his heart. “The fire was coming for me, but you stopped it.”

  His hold on her tightened.

  “Thank you.”

  After all that had happened, the last thing she needed to do was thank him. When she realized that she was a vamp, Ryder knew she wouldn’t exactly be thrilled.

  Not when Sabine just wanted her human life back. How many times had she told him that she just wanted to go home?

  He didn’t speak as he carried her from the room. There was a thick blood trail in the hall. As if someone’s bleeding body had been dragged away. There was also no sign of Vivian.

  Growls and shouts could still be heard coming from the building. Smoke drifted in the air, and the crackle of flames grew louder.

  Maybe the other phoenix had decided to burn this place to the ground. It seemed a fitting retribution.

  Ryder held tight to Sabine and made his way from the wreckage and the hell. No one stopped him. No guards appeared with their guns. The guards who hadn’t died had all run by now. And the paranormals left knew better than
to fuck with him. Especially when he had his mate in his arms.

  She is mine. To him, the truth was undeniable. Always.

  Now, he just had to make Sabine realize that she needed him, too.

  The vampire came at her, with his deadly claws and his too-sharp teeth. Vivian screamed, but there was no one to help her. No one to care.

  When he opened his mouth and gave a guttural cry, she saw the vamp’s teeth—every tooth was razor-sharp. Not just his canines. Every. Single. One.

  She kicked and she punched, but he just held her with hands that bruised and knife-like claws that cut.

  Vivian knew what he was. He was one of the freaks. One of the “bad experiments” that should never have seen the light of day. Wyatt had told her that most of the primal vampires had died in a recent fire, but this one—

  “We wanted to help you!” she yelled. Not we, but Wyatt. He had wanted to help them . . .

  The primal vampire’s teeth sank into her throat.

  The pain made her body jerk and shudder. She was going to die. She knew it. Her body could only survive for so long. She wasn’t a vampire. Not a shifter. She just—

  The vampire fell away from her, choking.

  Vivian’s hand went to her throat. Her blood trickled down her neck.

  The vampire’s face had twisted. He had his hands on his stomach, and he was the one screaming then. In agony.

  Her breath rushed out. It had worked. Wyatt had told her . . . he’d said his blood was poison to the primal vampires. He’d said—

  She lifted her hand. Stared at the bright red blood on her fingertips. I’m poison, too.

  Wyatt had never appreciated the power that he possessed. She’d watched him. Seen so much.

  He didn’t die from gunshot wounds. Could move so quickly. Was so strong.

  She’d found the records on his experiments. She hadn’t been able to duplicate them perfectly, but she’d come pretty close with her own formula.

  A tightness filled her chest. The gunshot wound was finally closing.

  Vivian stared at the drops of blood on her fingers. It looked like she had gotten closer to that duplication than she’d realized.