Playing With Fire

by Cynthia Eden

  Usually was the keyword. Dante had been through so much in the last few years that his memory was a very brittle thing. So was his sanity, a situation that made him a walking, talking nightmare for many.

  “You must have been attacked,” she whispered. Attacked . . . and killed. Because death was the only way—

  He lifted her up and tossed her over his shoulder.

  Cassie yelped, totally not expecting that move. She shoved her hands against his ass—um, a very nice ass—and pushed herself up so she could see around her.

  Some of the club’s patrons were looking at her, amusement on their faces. They weren’t exactly the kind to help a lady in distress. The redheaded vampire was staring her way. Glaring her way, rather.

  And Dante was stalking away with her, his grip on her legs unbreakable.

  Okay, so that was one way to get his attention.

  She heard the sound of shattering wood. Had he just smashed a door? Sounded like he had. Cassie tried to crane around and see where they were going. It looked like they were headed inside some kind of back room. Stacks of boxes and bottles of alcohol lined the shelves.

  “Get the hell out of here!” Dante’s snarled order.

  Three bodies ran past her, fast.

  The world spun a bit, and Cassie found herself sprawled on top of a wooden table. Dante held one of her wrists in each of his hands as he stood between her legs.

  Oh, wow.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “My name won’t matter to you.” She barely breathed the words. “If you rose recently—”

  “Your name!”

  “C-Cassie Armstrong. Cassandra . . .”

  His eyelids flickered. “Cassandra.” He said her name as if he were tasting it.

  Please, remember me. There had been so many times over the years, when she was sure that he did remember her, but then the tortures would start again. Torture and death.

  He’d lose the memory of her, and she’d have to try so hard to get close to him again. To make him remember.

  An endless cycle that left her hurting inside.

  “I’ve dreamed about you,” he whispered. His hold was an unbreakable grip on her wrists.

  At his confession, her heartbeat picked up and hope blossomed inside of her. Finally, finally, he’d—

  “In my dreams”—a muscle flexed along his jaw—“you kill me, Cassie Armstrong.”

  Oh, hell. “I told you. I’m not here to hurt you.”

  “But you have killed me before, haven’t you?”

  Cassie knew she had to be careful. She wasn’t like him. Dante could die, again and again, but he would just come back from each death.

  He’d rise from the ashes and be born again.

  While she would just—well, die. There would be no coming back for her.

  With a thought, he could incinerate her. The heat that warmed her skin could turn into a blazing inferno at any second.

  “Last night, I dreamed about you.” His words were a low growl as he leaned closer to her.

  The noise from the bar drifted into the room. The blaring beat of music. The scents of sex, blood, and booze.

  “You stared right at me, then you stabbed me.”

  His bad memories weren’t going to make things any easier.

  “So maybe you should tell me why I shouldn’t just pay you back for that right now.” His breath blew lightly over the sensitive skin of her neck. “And end you.”

  She shook her head, sending her long hair sliding over her shoulders. “Please . . .”

  “Oh, I like it when you beg.”

  Actually, he did. But that was another story.

  “So you’ve had dreams.” Cassie started talking, fast, because she had seen him incinerate a man before. She didn’t want that same fate. “Well, I’m your key. I know you. Every dark spot in your mind? I can shine the light and show you—”

  His mouth was just inches from hers. Inches? More like an inch. “What are you going to show me?”

  “Everything,” she whispered, promised. “I can tell you the secrets of your life. I can tell you who you are, if you’ll just trust me.”

  His gaze searched hers. Some people thought that his eyes were just dark—mirroring his black soul, but they were wrong. There were flecks of gold hidden in his eyes. You just had to look hard and deep enough to see them.

  “Why should I trust a woman who’s killed me before?”

  “Because I’ve saved you, too.” She’d risked so much to save him. “Believe it or not, you actually owe me.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  Her lips trembled.

  His gaze dropped once more to her mouth.

  “Dante . . .”

  He kissed her.

  She hadn’t been expecting the move, and when his lips closed over hers, shock froze her for a moment. Then she realized—Dante.

  Her lips parted eagerly for him, and the wall that she’d built to hold back her need for him started to fracture. His tongue pushed into her mouth. Not sampling, but taking, and it was just like she remembered. He kissed her, she wanted. Lust tore through her, and her wrists twisted in his grip because she wanted to touch him.

  She wanted—

  His head lifted. His eyes blazed down at her, the gold starting to heat. “I remember . . . your mouth. Your taste.”

  She’d never been able to forget his kiss. He’d been the first man that she ever kissed. The first to make her feel like she belonged to someone.

  A someone who sometimes seemed to hate her.

  “You can trust me,” she whispered, desperate to make him believe her.

  He gave a hard shake of his head. “No, that’s the last thing I can do.” He moved away from her, leaping back.

  For an instant, she didn’t move. His eyes were on her, sweeping from the top of her hair down to her small sandals. He seemed confused. Yeah, well, so was she.

  Don’t kiss me and jerk away. She didn’t have the damn plague.

  “I woke up a week ago,” he told her quietly, his voice still making her ache. “In an alley that had been scorched. I was naked, and there were ashes all around me.”

  Her heart beat faster as she straightened on the table. “What happened to me?” he demanded.

  “Dante, I—”

  “Is that my name?”

  The memory loss seemed more severe than it had been in the past. “Y-yes. That’s what you told me to call you.” But was it really his name? She wasn’t sure. He’d never confessed too much about his life—at least, not his life before he’d come to be a prisoner.

  “How did I get in that alley?”

  She pushed away from the table. Her knees were trembling so she locked them as she faced him. “I don’t know. The last time I saw you, you were down in New Orleans.”

  A faint furrow appeared between his brows. He appeared to be a man in his prime, maybe close to thirty-four or thirty-five, but the truth was that Dante was much, much older.

  There was a reason he’d been called the Immortal at the facility.

  “New Orleans?” He yanked a hand through his hair. “What was I doing down there?”

  That was an easy answer. “Saving my life.”

  His hand fell. Suspicion was on his face as he asked, “Are you sure I wasn’t trying to kill you?”

  Actually, no, she wasn’t. But she was still breathing, and if he had truly wanted her dead, she’d be ash.

  His enemies had a way of ending up as ash drifting in the wind.

  “What happened to me in the alley?”

  Okay, if she was going to get his trust, she was obviously going to have to share with him. “I think you died.”

  He laughed. The sound was bitter and hard, just like the laughter she’d heard from him a dozen times. She’d tried for years to get a real laugh from him. That hadn’t happened.

  “If I died,” he asked, “then how am I breathing now?”

  That was the tricky-to-explain part. “Look, Dante—
”

  Shouts erupted from the other room. High-pitched, desperate screams that were immediately followed by the rat-a-tat of gunfire.

  They found me. Cassie’s heartbeat froze in her chest then she was the one leaping forward and grabbing Dante’s hand. “We have to go. Now.”

  She yanked him, hoping he’d follow with her.

  He didn’t move. Not even an inch. “I don’t run from anyone.”

  Well, yes, that was true. He didn’t.

  She did. When you weren’t a paranormal powerhouse, you learned to flee pretty quickly.

  More screams. More blasts from guns. “If they catch me,” Cassie said, voice soft, “they won’t let me get away.”

  His gaze held hers.

  “If they catch you, they’re going to toss you back in a cage, and you won’t see daylight again anytime soon.” Her heartbeat seemed to thunder as loud as the gunshots. He had to believe her. “They’ll keep you in that cage, and they’ll torture you again and again.”

  “How do you know this?”

  She licked her dry lips. “Because that’s what they did to you before.”

  His jaw hardened. “Then I think it’s time I faced these bastards.”

  Wait—what? Hadn’t she been trying to sell the guy on running?

  He pulled from her and rushed toward the broken door, heading right toward the sound of gunshots and screams.

  As she watched him run away, her heart iced. She’d followed Dante to Chicago because she’d needed him. She’d hunted for him, searching desperately . . . and she’d led his enemies right to his side.

  Dante, I’m sorry.

  But he wouldn’t believe that apology. He never did.

  Men wearing black ski masks had rushed inside of Taboo. The drumming music had died away, and only the screams of those still trapped in the club remained.

  Most of the patrons had run away. Those wounded on the floor appeared to be mostly vampires. It seemed they were fine with walking amongst the humans these days. There were shifters, too.

  Dante hadn’t felt even mild surprise when he’d seen a man shift into the form of a fox just the night before. Maybe it was because his memories were gone that he felt no surprise. It seemed that vampires and shifters were a normal part of the world.

  Or at least, they felt normal to him.

  “You there!” A male’s voice called out. “Stop!”

  A big, black gun was pointing at his chest.

  Dante. She’d said my name was Dante. The name had felt right in his mind. Just as the sexy brunette had felt right in his hands.

  “Are you a human?” the voice snapped out from behind a mask. “Or a Para?”

  He’d learned yesterday that Para was the slang for a paranormal being. He didn’t quite know what he was, so he just stared back at the man, not particularly feeling the urge to answer him.

  “What are you?” the man demanded as he came closer.

  “I’m someone you don’t want to piss off,” Dante said. A fair warning.

  “That’s him,” another masked man said, his voice breaking with excitement. “The one from the video feed. He’s the one who torched that den of vampires in the alley!”

  Dante stiffened.

  “Holy hell,” said the fool who still had his gun pointed at Dante. “It looks like we’ve got big game today.”

  “No,” Dante said very definitely. “You don’t.” He let his gaze sweep the club. Men and women were cowering under the upturned tables . . . but Paras were supposed to be stronger than that.

  No one makes me cower. The knowledge was there, pushing inside him. He feared no one and nothing.

  I make others fear.

  “Get out of here now,” Dante told the men. “While you still have a chance at life.” He counted a dozen men in the black clothing, complete with heavy, thick vests that covered their chests. They were all armed to the teeth. He didn’t care about their weapons. He’d learned that he had a weapon of his own. One that always seemed to be at the ready.

  He lifted his hands.

  And he let the fire burn through him. The power started as a warm pool within him, then it heated, going molten, and seeming to spread through his veins. Soon the fire was bursting from his fingertips, rising right over his hands, swirling in a thick ball. Red, gold, and orange, those flames flared higher and brighter.

  The men swore and jumped back. But they didn’t flee. Fools. They lifted their weapons. Aimed at him.

  He would incinerate them.

  He would—

  “No!”

  It was her scream. His head whipped to the right, and Dante saw the woman with the thick, dark hair running toward him. Her face was paler than it had been before. Her green eyes seemed huge, her red lips were trembling and—

  “Dante, get out of here! They’ll drug you!”

  The men fired their weapons. Except they didn’t aim at him.

  A bullet blasted and slammed into Cassie’s shoulder. Her eyes widened as she stumbled back. But she didn’t go down. “Run!” she yelled at him. “Get out of here!”

  He wasn’t running anywhere.

  They’d shot her.

  The fire raged hotter and fury had him snarling—and letting that fire go.

  They’d shot her.

  The flames flew from him and the fire raced right for the gunmen. They screamed—yes, now it’s your turn to scream—and dropped their weapons.

  Falling to the floor, the men rolled over and over as they tried to put out the flames that licked greedily along their clothing.

  “Dante . . .” A whisper. Her whisper.

  The woman who’d haunted him. Obsessed him.

  Enraged him.

  She was on her knees, struggling to get to him, and he . . . found himself running to her side.

  “I-it’s a drug,” she whispered. “They were . . . trying to take us in . . . alive . . .”

  The men weren’t taking anyone in. They were running out, dragging their wounded with them. The other paranormals were rushing for safety, too.

  “Go,” Cassie told him. “Before they’re back with . . . reinforcements.” Her eyelids were sagging closed. The drug she’d spoken of was knocking her out. “Go,” she whispered again.

  What was he to do with her? Leave her there? She’d just said the men would come back with reinforcements. When they returned, they’d take her.

  No. No one takes her from me.

  The thought made him tense. It was—though he did not know why—the first thought he’d had when he’d looked up and seen her coming toward him in Taboo.

  No one takes her from me.

  He scooped her into his arms. Rose with her held tightly against his chest. He worried—too late—that the heat from his hands might burn her.

  But there were no burn marks on her delicate skin.

  Her head fell back against his shoulder, but her eyelashes were still flickering, and Dante knew that she was fighting to stay awake.

  “What will they do if they take you?” he asked her.

  “C-cage . . .”

  An image flashed in his mind. Thick, metal bars. A flickering fluorescent light. A dirty, stone floor.

  He could taste ash rising on his tongue. He didn’t want to taste the ash. He wanted to taste her again. Sweet, light . . .

  Temptation.

  “You’re not going in a cage,” he promised.

  His arms tightened around her. This woman . . . he’d thought she was a phantom from his mind, someone else to torment him. Not real. Then he’d looked up and seen her. She’d come to him.

  Flesh and blood.

  Real.

  He strode from the wreckage of Taboo, hurrying into the night. Sirens wailed. Voices cried out.

  He ran faster. Held her even tighter.

  Cassie Armstrong was the key to his life. The key to finding out just who—what—he was.

  And he had no plans to let her go.

  No one takes her from me.

  Lieutenant Col
onel Jon Abrams marched into the wreckage of the paranormal club. Tables were overturned. Chairs smashed. The doorway still smoldered from the flames that had been unleashed on his men.

  “You had him here?” Jon demanded, turning to the men who stood behind him. Burned, beaten, those men were so useless to him. “You had him, and you let the bastard just walk away?” What part of priority containment had they missed?

  “He shot fire at us!” Kevin Lysand said, straightening his shoulders. “No one said the Paras could—”

  “He’s a phoenix. What did you think he was going to do, just stand there and let you drug him?” Jon spun away from the men, the fury nearly choking him. After all those months. To be so close . . . and have those idiots let his prey escape.

  “I . . . it was the woman.” Kevin’s voice was softer.

  Jon glanced over his shoulder. “What woman?”

  Kevin’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Th-the one from Genesis. Cassandra—”

  Jon lunged and grabbed the guy’s shoulders. He lifted him up, forcing Kevin to look him straight in the eyes. “Are you telling me that Cassandra Armstrong was actually here, in Taboo?” He’d been ripping the country apart looking for her.

  A grim nod. “That’s when the big guy attacked. When we shot at her.”

  They’d shot at her, but she wasn’t there. Hell, no one was there anymore. Those who hadn’t ran out before the infiltration had crawled out when his men had retreated.

  “He went wild when we shot at her,” Kevin told him with a quick nod.

  Jon forced himself to release the other man. “Did he take her out?”

  Kevin didn’t speak.

  Because he didn’t know?

  Fucking incompetence. Jon heaved out a sigh. “You didn’t see them leave, did you?”

  Kevin wet his lips. “I was on fire then, sir.”

  Like a little fire should have stopped him.

  Jon whirled away. “Tell me that you had a tracker in that tranq you fired into Cassandra.” A new little invention, one that Uncle Sam was rather proud of—a drug and tracking combination bullet all in one. Some paranormals could flee even after the drug hit them. They had the strength to run, for a time.

  But sooner or later, the drug got to them.

  And when it did, the tracker came into play. It would light up in their system and lead Jon and his men right back to their prey.