Playing With Fire

by Cynthia Eden

  Easy.

  “Tell me,” he demanded without looking back. If the dumb bastard hadn’t done his job and gotten a track on Cassandra, Jon might just shoot the fool himself.

  “There was a track in there,” Kevin said, his tone growing more confident. “She won’t be getting away from us.”

  Hell, yes. But Jon didn’t smile, not yet. The tip that he’d received about the phoenix—and Cassandra—had been right. He’d have to be sure and reward his informant. First, though . . . “Burn this place to the ground.”

  Taboo was far enough away from the hub of the city that most folks wouldn’t have heard or seen the attack. Just in case, he was used to covering his tracks.

  The paranormals might be out in the world, trying to blend with humans, but they were also still hunted. Still targets, especially the walking, talking nightmares that stalked the earth.

  Nightmares like the phoenix.

  Some beings were too dangerous to live.

  Some needed to be stopped, by any means necessary.

  In this instance, the means was one Cassandra Armstrong. A weapon had never looked so innocent.

  “Burn it.” The fire could always be blamed on the phoenix. “Then get me the track on Cassandra.”

  She’d led him on a chase for months, but he’d have her soon. She wasn’t getting out of the program. She was too vital.

  Too useful as a weapon.

  He began to whistle as he walked out of the club.

  Kevin and his men were pouring out alcohol and smashing the bottles, soaking the scene for one fine blaze. They wouldn’t make a fire that burned as hot as a phoenix’s flames, but they’d come close enough.

  Close. Enough.

  Jon kept whistling. I’m coming for you, Cassandra. She’d run from him, but their little cat and mouse game was almost at an end.

  Cassandra should have known there would be no escape. Her father had brought her into the program years ago.

  And once you were in, death was the only way out.

  CHAPTER TWO

  She was . . . not beautiful.

  Dante told himself that even as he leaned toward her and let his fingers trail over the curve of her nose. A few freckles rested on the bridge of that nose. His finger slid to the side, tracing the curve of her cheekbone. Her face was oval, pale, and he didn’t like the dark shadows under her eyes.

  She wasn’t beautiful.

  He told himself that again . . . and realized he was such a liar. This woman, the woman who’d killed him in his dreams, had him staring at her like some kind of lovesick fool.

  He pulled away from her and clenched his hands into fists so that he wouldn’t touch her again. They were in some two-bit, pay-by-the-hour motel room. She was spread out on the bed and he was beside her.

  She was still out cold, and he was far too distracted by her body.

  Far too—

  Her eyelids began to flicker. His stupid heart beat faster.

  Who is she to me?

  There was something between them. Death, yes. Hate? Betrayal? Maybe.

  Something.

  She moaned softly, and he didn’t like the sound of pain on her lips. He found himself leaning forward and tucking the pillow beneath her head.

  When he bent forward, she screamed. The sound was high and desperate and absolutely terrified. She tried to bolt from the bed.

  He couldn’t have that, so he caught her arms and—as gently as he could—pushed her back against the mattress. “Easy.”

  At his voice, her scream died away. Her eyes widened as she stared up at him. Her gaze wasn’t clear as it had been before. Instead, her green gaze was hazy, a little lost.

  “Dante?” Cassie whispered his name. Smiled. “I missed you.”

  His heartbeat seemed too loud. That smile of hers . . . yeah, she was fucking beautiful, all right. And dangerous.

  She was also trying to lean up and kiss him.

  What had been in that drug?

  “You left me,” she told him, voice husky, “and I thought you were supposed to—” Cassie broke off, blinking. Then she groaned and shook her head. “Where the hell am . . . I?” Her voice wasn’t quite as husky, but he still found that he liked the sound.

  “Not hell,” he told her as he eased back a bit. “Just a cheap motel.”

  When he moved back, Cassie bolted upright, then winced. “My shoulder . . .” Her right hand lifted and touched the wound. “They shot me.”

  Yes, they had. And they’d almost died for that crime. He didn’t know why the fury had blasted through him so hard, but it had.

  “They shot me,” she whispered again, then she shoved against his chest. “Get away from me!”

  He rose slowly. “You’re welcome. Maybe next time, I’ll just leave you on the floor.” The words were deliberately cold and brutal, but she didn’t even seem to have heard him.

  She was climbing from the bed, nearly falling on her face. He locked his body and refused to go to her. If she was so desperate to get away from him—

  Wait. Why would she want to leave? She’d been the one to seek him out. He frowned.

  “They’re coming . . .”

  He heard her whisper as she ran into the bathroom. Then there was the sound of drawers being opened. Slammed shut.

  He glanced toward the motel room door. She’d told him to get away from her. There was no need for him to stay with her any longer.

  Yes, there is. She knows about my past.

  “I want answers,” he said, raising his voice so that she’d have to hear him over her mutters—

  And the sound of breaking glass.

  What was happening in the bathroom? He hurried to it and saw that, no, it hadn’t been glass shattering. It had been the mirror behind the sink. Cassie had driven her small fist into it. Blood dripped from the knuckles of her right hand.

  “What are you doing?”

  She didn’t answer. Just picked up a big, triangular shaped chunk of the mirror—and shoved the sharp edge into her left shoulder.

  “Cassie!” He grabbed her hand and yanked the chunk back out.

  She whimpered at the pain and tried to fight him.

  He just held her tighter. “Is it the drug they gave you? Is it making you do this?” The scent of her blood was driving him crazy. Pissing him off. “Dammit, stop.”

  Her breath heaved out. “They’re coming.”

  Yeah, he’d heard her say that before.

  “There’s a tracking device in me. When they shot me”—she sucked in a deep, pain-filled breath—“it implanted. I have to get it out, or they’ll get me.”

  “So you decide to do emergency surgery on yourself with a chunk of glass?”

  “I don’t . . . have a lot of options.” Her lips trembled and twisted into a faint smile. “Don’t worry, I’m a doctor.”

  That smile shouldn’t have made his heartbeat kick up. It did.

  He could only shake his head. “You’re an insane woman who is bleeding all over the place.” Grabbing a washcloth, he shoved it against her shoulder. “You’re probably going to get an infection and—” He broke off. How did he know about infections? He knew how to drive a car, how to talk in French, how to beat the hell out of anyone who tried to give him a rough time.

  But he had no actual memories of his life. Well, except for those dreams of her . . . killing me.

  “D-don’t worry. I never get infections. I can’t.”

  Such a lie. Humans could catch anything. They’re weak. The knowledge was there, inside him, coming from the man he’d been before that dirty alley.

  She wasn’t fighting him anymore. “Please.” Her whisper. “I don’t have much time. I need to get this thing out of me.”

  He understood now. “That’s why you wanted me to leave you. Because you think they’ll track you here.”

  A broken laugh came from her. “You’re pretty big game to them. If they think you’re with me, then, yes, they’ll be coming for you, too. And I promised you that I’d ne
ver let them lock you up again.”

  I don’t remember that promise.

  “Too bad you don’t remember that,” she said, seeming to echo his thoughts. “Or me.”

  His hands fell away from her. The bloody cloth slid to the floor.

  Cassie squared her shoulders and reached for the chunk of mirror once more. “You don’t . . . you don’t have to watch.”

  He was watching. Leaving her didn’t seem like an option.

  She stared at her reflection in what was left of the mirror and slowly made a deeper cut on her shoulder. Blood slid down her skin, soaking the shirt. Her breaths seemed loud in that small space, and he hated the pain that flashed across her delicate features.

  But she didn’t cry out.

  Her finger slid into that wound.

  His back teeth locked.

  A tear leaked down her cheek. But she didn’t cry out.

  “G-got it . . .” Her bloody fingers slid from her wound and she dropped a tiny computer chip into the sink. It hit with a clatter. Then her hands curled around the edge of the sink, and she seemed to steady herself. “A tear or two would make this so much easier,” she muttered.

  He frowned at her bent head. She was crying. The woman realized that, didn’t she?

  She glanced over at him. “But I’m guessing you don’t remember that part, either, do you?”

  He just stared at her.

  “Right.” She took in another deep breath then ripped away the bottom of her T-shirt. He saw the smooth flesh of her stomach as she twisted and tied the fabric around her shoulder.

  His hands lifted, taking over the task as he realized she was trying to bind the wound.

  “Th-thank you.”

  A woman in a torn, blood-soaked top wouldn’t exactly go unnoticed in the city. But at least she wasn’t dripping blood everywhere anymore.

  “I have to get back to my safe house,” she said with a nod. “I’ve got . . . supplies there. I can stitch the wound. Change. Regroup.” Her gaze held his. “You haven’t left me yet.”

  The woman was stating the obvious.

  “You haven’t killed me, either.” Again, she seemed to enjoy the obvious.

  “Why?”

  He glanced down. Saw that her blood was on his hands. The sight seemed familiar.

  Don’t die, Cassandra. Don’t leave me.

  The words pushed through his mind. His words. Another time. Another place. An image came to him. Her body had been broken and bloody, and her eyes had gone glassy as she—

  Died?

  “Dante?”

  He hunched his shoulders and jerked on the faucet, sending water surging into the sink. The blood on his hands washed away even as the hazy image faded from his mind. Surely he’d never held the woman and begged her to live.

  He stared down at the red water and the bits of broken mirror in the sink. “You said you were my key.”

  “I—”

  He turned off the water and glanced back at her. “You don’t escape me until I get all of those secrets that I was promised.”

  She nodded.

  He hated the smell of her blood.

  “We should hurry,” she told him as her gaze darted away from his. “They’re fast trackers.”

  “Who are they?” That was the first secret he wanted. But before Cassie could answer he heard . . .

  The squeal of tires. Engines growling.

  Cassie began, “They’re—”

  “Here.” In the last week, he’d discovered that no one had senses quite like his, and he’d heard the approach long before she had. “They’re here.”

  Her eyes widened.

  Fine. If they wanted a battle, then he’d give them a war that would rip their lives apart.

  “No.” Her hand grabbed his. Her knuckles were still bleeding. “There are too many humans around here. Your fire . . . you can’t always control it. We need to get the hell out of this place.” She brushed by him and eyed the small window on the side of the bathroom. “Think you can fit?”

  No. But he stepped forward and drove his fists into it. The whole window frame flew backward and slammed into the ground.

  “Right. Super strength,” she whispered. “Handy.” Then she was jumping from that window, even though they were on the second floor. He tried to grab her, but it was too late. Her body curled in and she hit the ground with a thud.

  Teeth locking, he leaped after her. His knees didn’t even buckle when he landed on the ground.

  The thunder of footsteps told him that their pursuers were rushing toward the front of the motel.

  And he and Cassie were running toward the back parking lot. She jumped in the driver’s seat of an old, beat-up Jeep and slid under the dash even as he climbed into the passenger seat. In the next second, the engine kicked to life, and Cassie shoved her foot down on the gas.

  The Jeep rocketed out of that lot, heading into the waiting darkness.

  Dante glanced back, but saw no sign of the men who’d been after them. The fools were probably going into the motel room. It would take them precious moments to realize that he and Cassie had vanished.

  “They can’t follow me without the chip,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the engine and the whip of the wind as it beat against the open Jeep. “We’ll be safe.” She paused. “For a while.”

  Maybe she hadn’t meant for him to hear that last part.

  If she knew him as well as she claimed, the woman would understand that he could hear even the faintest whisper from fifty yards away.

  He’d clearly heard her words and the fear that trembled in her voice.

  “Did he attack her?” Kevin asked as his gaze swept over the blood-stained bathroom. “I thought you said he wasn’t a threat to the woman.”

  Jon shouldered his way into that closet of a bathroom. His gaze swept over the blood—and the two bloody handprints on the sink. “Get a team in to analyze the blood.” But he already suspected he was staring at Cassie’s blood, not Dante’s.

  Cassie wouldn’t risk hurting Dante. She needed him too much.

  “What did he do to her?” Kevin whispered.

  Ah, Kevin was making a mistake. Most people did when they looked at Cassandra Armstrong. Small, delicate, human—they automatically thought that she was weak.

  Jon knew she wasn’t. Cassandra Armstrong was the most dangerous adversary that he’d ever faced.

  She was also the woman he’d once wanted to marry. When he saw that much power, he wanted to possess it.

  But Cassie had wanted someone else.

  His fingers skimmed over the edge of the sink. He touched the miniature tracking device. She would have known to look for it, and she wouldn’t have minded a bit of pain if it meant she kept her freedom.

  Clever Cassie. Always so clever.

  “She did it to herself.” He inhaled. Cassie’s blood smelled . . . different from most humans. It was a scent that he easily recognized. “We don’t need the tracker to find her.” Not while she was bleeding.

  The blood would create a distinct trail of its own.

  Either his team members would find her . . . or someone else—something else—would find her. Cassie’s blood was too sweet, a lure designed by science. She should have known better than to run away with an open wound.

  She was going to attract all manner of beasts.

  Beasts who wanted only one thing—to drink that blood and drain her dry.

  “This is your safe place?” Dante’s voice was heavy with doubt.

  Cassie glanced over at him with a frown. “Look, I didn’t say I was hanging out at the Ritz.” The rundown warehouse on the edge of town was the perfect crash spot for her. She tucked the Jeep behind the building, making sure it was out of sight, and led Dante toward what looked like a boarded-up door. The windows had that same, boarded-up look.

  Appearances could be deceiving.

  She pushed a panel, and the door slid open. Inside . . . the lights immediately flashed on, revealing an apartment.
“Sometimes, this place can almost be as good as the Ritz.”

  She could tell by Dante’s hanging jaw that she’d caught him by surprise. Score one for her.

  “I have a friend,” she said, though friend might be stretching things. Patient? Yes, that was a better description since they hadn’t exactly had lots of meaningful conversations. “The guy’s a computer genius. He’s rich as all hell, and he’s got a few of these . . . safe spots around the country.” Since he couldn’t currently use them, they were sure coming in handy for her.

  She headed toward the bathroom. “Just give me a minute, okay?” A minute to stitch up her wound and get the blood off her skin.

  Cassie didn’t look back to see if Dante was waiting. If the guy had planned to ditch her, well, he would have left her butt back at Taboo. Since he was there, she knew he wouldn’t leave. Not until he’d gotten what he wanted.

  If only what he wanted was her.

  The T-shirt bandage was soaked red with her blood. Great. Gritting her teeth, she peeled the wet cloth away, prepared to see the jagged sight of—

  Healed skin.

  Her breath rushed out and she angled her head down, trying to peer at what should have been a gaping wound. But she wasn’t bleeding any longer. The skin had already sealed closed.

  She hurriedly slammed the bathroom door shut behind her and barely managed to stop herself from sinking to the floor in shock. Unbelievable. Her skin was healing on its own. The wound just vanishing.

  Her fingers slid over the skin. It was still a little pink, but there was no blood. “Amazing.”

  The door shook behind her. Dante’s hand was pounding on the wood. “Cassie?”

  She stripped away the remains of the bloody shirt. Tossed it to the floor. Her bra was stained red, too. Fabulous. “Give me a . . . ah . . . minute.”

  Silence, then almost grudging, “Do you need help?”

  You’ve already helped me. He was the reason why her wound had closed. Why her whole life had changed.

  A human didn’t just magically heal herself.

  He’d altered her down in New Orleans. Everything had changed for her in a blood-soaked instant of time.

  When she’d opened her eyes, ready to thank her rescuer, Dante had been gone.