Burn For Me

by Cynthia Eden

  A werewolf.

  “He’s inside.” Cain had tilted his head to the right.

  She’d been wondering just how good the guy’s hearing was. Now she knew. They were at least twenty yards away from that building.

  “Sounds like he’s tearing the place apart.”

  Eve sucked in a breath and they headed for the rundown building. Cain knocked the rest of the window’s glass out of the way and climbed through the opening first. Then he reached for her, holding her carefully to make sure she didn’t get cut.

  And he thinks he’s a monster?

  She heard the sounds of destruction as soon as her feet touched down inside the building. A crash. The shattering of glass. A wolf’s howl.

  She spun around, and through the darkness, she saw his eyes. Far too bright. Trace’s eyes had never been that shade of green. Not while he’d been in human form. But as a wolf, his eyes had always glowed with power.

  Part of her—a very big part—expected him to charge through the darkness and attack her. Cain must have expected that, too, because he positioned his body in front of her.

  But Trace didn’t attack. Instead, she heard the scrape of claws over metal, and Trace growled out, “Help . . . me . . .”

  Tears stung her eyes. He’d finally spoken again. The words had been hoarse, rusty, but he’d spoken. Trace was coming back to her. Slowly, but he was fighting. “We’ll help you,” she promised as she stepped around Cain.

  He tensed.

  Eve made no move to approach Trace. She knew better than to charge at a wounded animal, and that was exactly what Trace was. “Do you know me?”

  “Eve . . .”

  Good. “Then you know I’d never hurt you. We’re family.”

  Silence. Then more of that horrible scraping. She didn’t flinch, but goose bumps rose on her arms. “Trust me, Trace. Cain and I can help you.” They’d find a way to help him. They wouldn’t give up.

  He came from the shadows. Too big. Too strong. Muscled. A man’s body but a beast’s eyes and claws and fangs. His steps were so slow. Tortured. “Help me . . .” he said again.

  “I will, Trace,” Eve promised at once as Cain remained silent. “I will—”

  “Kill me,” Trace’s words cut through hers.

  She could only shake her head. No, that was the last thing she’d ever do.

  “Or I’ll kill . . . you . . .” he rasped.

  “The hell you will.” Cain was talking. “You better dig fucking deep inside, wolf. Get your control. Because you aren’t hurting her.”

  Trace’s shoulders shook as he sucked in heaving gulps of air, but then he tensed. His gaze flew behind them to that broken window. He leaped forward.

  Cain was turning then, too. Whirling around to face the threat they both had sensed.

  When Eve turned, she saw Detective Roberts coming inside. His gaze found hers, then flew to the werewolf coming at him. He lifted his gun to fire.

  “No!” Eve screamed.

  He emptied his gun in Trace. Kept firing until Cain grabbed him and yanked the weapon away from the cop.

  Trace had fallen to the ground. Eve rushed to his side. His eyes were open and the smell around him—

  Silver bullets.

  Not just normal silver. Some sort of liquid silver that was leaking out of Trace. Where had the cop gotten bullets like that?

  Cain had hurried back to Trace’s side. Jaw locking, he glanced up at Eve. She knew he thought Trace was dead.

  Because I think he is, too.

  Gut twisting, she whirled back to confront the detective.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her, shoulders slumping, “but I didn’t have a choice.”

  She didn’t think he was just talking about Trace.

  “The bullets won’t kill him. They’ll just keep the werewolf immobile until all the silver drains out of him.” The detective’s hand reached under his coat, and Eve wasn’t surprised to see him produce a second weapon.

  Or to find that weapon aimed at her.

  “Bad mistake,” Cain told him.

  Roberts frowned and shot a glance his way. “Let me guess . . . Subject Thirteen?”

  Cain flashed a vicious smile. “The last man who called me that wound up with a stake in his heart.”

  “Yeah, and his old man’s real pissed about that.”

  Cain tensed and his gaze flickered to the broken window. Eve frowned. A few moments later, she heard the thud of approaching footsteps.

  His old man’s real pissed about that . . .

  Her mouth had gone bone dry. “According to my sources, Jeremiah Wyatt is dead.” She threw the words out deliberately, looking for a reaction. Richard Wyatt had said otherwise, back in that nightmare at Beaumont. He’d told her that his father was alive. So the news stories about his death? Faked. “So it doesn’t really matter how pissed he is in hell.”

  “If only.”

  That had been the reaction she’d expected. More confirmation—Jeremiah Wyatt was still alive, and the detective knew it.

  “There’s a cure, you know”—Roberts straightened his shoulders—“for whatever the hell they did to him.” A jerk of his gun toward Trace’s prone body. “They have some kind of injection that can make him right again.” Softer, “Make her right again.”

  “They’re coming for us,” Cain said.

  Eve looked at him and saw he’d already begun to stir fire near his palms.

  Roberts shook his head. “No, they’re only coming for you, Thirteen. Only for you.”

  The doors of the building opened with a long creak. Armed men raced inside.

  A trap.

  “I knew you’d come for the werewolf,” Roberts said. “Well, actually, he knew.”

  Thud.

  Thud.

  Thud.

  That wasn’t her heartbeat.

  About five men had entered the building. Not cops. Not even guys in military uniforms. Men in battered jeans, thick coats—all holding guns.

  Like the guns would do them much good against Cain’s fire.

  “You’re making a mistake,” Eve told them. “I’m clear of all charges. The FBI is backing me up. The media is—”

  Thud.

  Thud.

  One of the armed men stepped back. When he moved, Eve saw an older guy with stooped shoulders, gray hair, and—and Wyatt’s green eyes. “The government might have cleared you, Ms. Bradley. I haven’t.”

  She was staring at a ghost. “Jeremiah Wyatt. You’re supposed to be dead.”

  “So I am.” His lips pursed as he studied her. “But it’s your mother who’s really dead. Your father. I know—I sent the men who killed them both.”

  Pain stabbed into her, but before she could speak, Cain attacked.

  His fire flashed out. One man down. He ripped the gun from another. Aimed and shot at a third. Before that guy had even fallen, Cain had hit a fourth in the leg with a bullet. The men were falling like flies around Jeremiah Wyatt as he just stood there, smiling, while they screamed.

  A big coat covered most of his body. From his neck to his feet. “You and your fire . . .” Jeremiah whispered. “Richard thought he could control you. Such a foolish mistake.”

  The guards were on the ground. Some were crawling away. None were trying to fight.

  “That the best you got?” Cain demanded.

  Jeremiah shook his head. “No.”

  No? Eve rocked back on her heels. Roberts was still there, sweating. When the fire had started flashing, the guy had looked so scared.

  But he stepped forward, pale but determined. “I got them here—I did what you wanted—now give me the cure!”

  Frowning, Jeremiah turned his focus to the cop. “Ah, yes . . . your sister, wasn’t it? Richard had thought she’d be such a prime candidate for the program.”

  Eve got a crystal-clear picture of just why the cop had sold her out.

  Family. She’d been right. It was hard to turn your back on them.

  “The cure,” Roberts snappe
d, his gun aimed at Jeremiah Wyatt.

  How is that bastard still alive? He’d reportedly died of a heart attack ten years before. After Richard’s snarled words at Beaumont, she’d dug up pictures of Jeremiah Wyatt on her computer at the hotel. Grainy photos had showed his funeral.

  His casket must have been empty.

  And the man should be pushing ninety, but . . . he looked about seventy. Maybe sixty-five.

  Experiments.

  “You want the cure?” Jeremiah drawled. He didn’t seem concerned that his men had abandoned him. That he was pretty much the sitting duck right then. A phoenix to his left. A gun carrying cop to his right.

  And a pissed-off reporter glaring dead center at him.

  This was the man who’d ruined her life. Taken away her family. Left her lost and alone.

  She’d never known so much hate.

  “Kill her,” Jeremiah said, shrugging.

  At first, she thought Jeremiah was giving Roberts an order. My execution. Cain must have thought the same thing because he lunged for the cop.

  But Roberts wasn’t aiming the gun at Eve. He still had the barrel pointed at Jeremiah. “What?”

  “There is no cure. Your sister’s rabid. Just like him.” A wave of Jeremiah’s hand toward Trace’s prone body. But Trace wasn’t exactly prone right then. He was trying to roll over. To crawl toward Wyatt.

  “You said—you told me there was a serum! A drug she needed!” Roberts was shaking. The barrel of his gun trembled. “You told me to lure Eve here, to get her inside this warehouse, and you’d give me the cure!” His teeth snapped together. “Give me the damn cure!”

  “I did.” Jeremiah’s voice was calm and easy. “Kill her. Cut off her head or burn her. That’s the only way you’ll ever free her. Once the wolves go rabid, they don’t come back.”

  “You’re a sick freak,” Cain snapped.

  Jeremiah’s gaze turned toward him. That green stare narrowed to slits of ice. “You killed my son. He was such a good experiment, and you killed him.”

  “Richard Wyatt wasn’t an experiment!” Eve yelled at him. “He was a person. A twisted psycho of a person, but he wasn’t just an experiment!”

  Jeremiah’s lips tightened. “We’re all experiments.”

  The guy was deranged. No big shock. Not considering the way Richard had turned out. Like father . . .

  Jeremiah’s lips relaxed. Eased into the twisted semblance of a smile. “I made Richard stronger. I made him better. When I started my work, the boy actually wanted me to stop. Told me I was hurting him.”

  Thud.

  The cane pounded onto the floor.

  “There is no growth without pain. No life without suffering.” That faint smile was still on his lips when he pointed his finger at Cain. “You’re about to suffer.”

  “Old man, I’m not scared of you.” Cain turned away from him. He reached for Eve, but she pulled back.

  “Get Trace.” They’d take him to a hospital. He’d get help. Did Jeremiah really think he was the only one who worked in the field of shifter genetics? There were other experts out there. Others who didn’t torture and kill.

  Maybe there wasn’t a cure yet. But there damn well could be one.

  Cain hefted Trace over his shoulder.

  Roberts hadn’t moved. “You son of a bitch,” he said to Jeremiah. “I risked my badge for you . . . I want my sister back!”

  “That bitch is as good as dead.” The words were snarled, and before Eve could even blink, Jeremiah had lunged across the room. He opened his mouth—

  And sank his teeth into the cop’s throat.

  Vampire.

  No wonder the man didn’t look ninety. He’d stopped aging. Maybe that had been him pictured in that coffin after all. Still and pale . . . a newly transformed vampire.

  Eve grabbed Jeremiah’s arms and yanked him away from Roberts—even as Roberts fired his gun.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  Two bullets blasted into Jeremiah’s chest.

  One went right through his body and hit Eve.

  A roar filled the building as Eve staggered back. She lifted her hand to her chest, and blood soaked her fingers.

  Roberts stared at her with wide, shocked eyes. “I didn’t mean—”

  She tried to nod. Managed to stagger back. Cain grabbed her. Wait. Where was Trace? Where—“Trace.”

  “Screw Trace. I’m getting you out of here.” Cain’s gaze was burning, flickering with flames. He pulled her into his arms. “It’s all right, you’re going to be all right . . .”

  “No, she’s not.” Jeremiah’s cold voice. He was still standing? “Because she’s not getting out of here alive.” He laughed, even as he swiped away the dripping blood on his chin. “I thought I’d slowly drain Ms. Bradley and kill her, make her suffer for what she did to my boy, but she’s already dead . . .”

  No, she wasn’t. Eve wanted to scream at him, but she couldn’t talk.

  “Only a few moments left, then that heart of hers will stop. That bullet—it killed her.”

  “I’m so sorry . . .” The detective’s voice. Eve couldn’t see him.

  Cain was running toward the door with her in his arms, but then he staggered to a stop.

  “You aren’t leaving,” Jeremiah snarled. “Not yet.”

  Eve forced her eyelids to stay open. Jeremiah had dropped his act. Ditched his cane, and moved with that super vampire speed. And . . . as she watched, he reached into his big overcoat and pulled out a small, black box.

  Her breath choked out. She’d seen a box like that before. On another story that she’d worked on. A box like that had been found in the aftermath . . .

  “I taught my son so much,” Jeremiah said as he lifted the box in his bloodstained hands. “About genetics. About life. About the possibilities before us . . .”

  In the aftermath of an explosion that had wiped out a home. A family.

  “I also taught him about destruction. About how easy it can be to kill.” His fingers hovered over the small switch on the side of the box. “With just one . . . touch . . . of a finger . . .”

  He’d wired the building. Eve could only shake her head. He’d wired this place, the same way that his son had wired the chocolate shop.

  No wonder Jeremiah had wanted Roberts to lure them to this warehouse. Get them in . . .

  Then watch us explode.

  “Bombs are all around us,” Jeremiah said. “This is the end.”

  “Get the fuck out of the way!” Cain snarled, but he wasn’t sending out his fire to blast Jeremiah. If he did, Jeremiah might hit that switch.

  The whole building could explode then. Would explode, because she didn’t think the guy was bluffing. Eve didn’t even know how powerful the explosion could be. There were humans close by. How many would be hurt?

  The pain in her chest was easing. Numbing. She could barely feel anything. Even her fingertips.

  Her hands slumped down, dangling uselessly, but she made her eyes stay open. Open.

  “They’ll think your fire destroyed this place,” Jeremiah said as his fingertips caressed the small, black case. “Subject Thirteen strikes again. He just couldn’t let the woman he loved go—obsession drove him.” His hand lifted, his fingers curling around the detonator. “And he killed . . .”

  “You’ll kill yourself!” Cain yelled at him. “The fire won’t kill me. It won’t kill her! Just you, bastard!”

  “I’m ready to die.” But he wasn’t pushing the detonator.

  Eve tried to pull in a deep breath. Couldn’t.

  “The vampire blood should have made me younger, given the years back to me.” Jeremiah shook his head. “Not trapped me like this! And now that you’ve taken Richard . . .”

  Thud. Thud.

  It sounded like the old man’s cane. But he wasn’t using it. That too-slow thud was Eve’s heartbeat. “Cain . . .”

  He spun away from Jeremiah and raced for the other side of the building.

  “Now I’m ready for death.�
� Jeremiah’s voice followed them.

  So did the explosion. A fast, driving blast that lifted Cain and Eve into the air even as a furnace of heat swept over them.

  The walls and the roof shattered. Debris rained down on them. The hungry flames consumed everything in sight.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Cain crawled from beneath the rubble. A slab of concrete had broken his leg. Gritting his teeth, he shoved the heavy stone aside. He was bleeding. Pain swept through him in driving waves of agony.

  Internal injuries.

  The fire hadn’t killed him, but he’d be dead soon—the impact of the explosion was too much for his body to handle. His right arm was shattered. His head concussed. And inside . . .

  His organs were fucking mush.

  Focus on her.

  Eve was in his arms. He’d used his body to protect her as best he could. He’d taken the hits, the full force of the explosion, for her.

  But she wasn’t moving.

  He couldn’t walk, so he dragged her with him. Cradled her as best he could. “Help!” He screamed out at the night not because he wanted to be saved, but because he needed someone to come and help her.

  Eve couldn’t die. If she did . . . she won’t come back to me.

  His body was shutting down. He felt it. Felt the surge of the fire inside him. No. He couldn’t leave her yet. She needed him.

  He put his hand on her chest, trying to stop that blood flow. The bullet had torn through her delicate body. So much blood. It soaked her shirt. Poured through his fingers.

  Beautiful Eve. She looked broken. A cut sliced across her forehead. Her eyes were closed, her lashes casting heavy shadows on her cheeks. She was so . . . still.

  “Don’t do . . . this,” he grated out as he kept dragging her. They were almost clear of the wreckage, and he could hear sirens in the distance. Help was coming for her. She just had to hold on for him. A few more moments . . .

  But she didn’t stir at his words.

  Another few desperate inches. Glass cut into his legs. Dammit. He hadn’t just broken one leg. He’d fucking nearly lost the second leg.

  Jeremiah had known what he was doing after all. It hadn’t been the fire that hurt Cain. It had been the destruction. The heavy blasts that had sent walls tumbling onto him.

  At least that bastard is dead. Blown into a thousand pieces. No vampire could come back from that.