Playing With Fire

by Cynthia Eden

  “He was a human, one who was just trying to do the right thing.” Been there, done that. “He didn’t deserve to die.” Her gaze sought Dante’s. “Now come on. Get this thing moving.”

  He held her gaze a second longer. Then the Jeep jerked forward. Finally. They left that gas station with a squeal of their nearly bald tires. Left the shotgun.

  She was very afraid that trouble would be following close behind—trouble in the form of Lieutenant Colonel Jon Abrams. Jon was the leader of the group Uncle Sam had gunning for her—and Jon was also the man who’d once said he loved her.

  She hadn’t believed him. Despite the fact that he was a damn good liar.

  Once upon a time, he’d been a would-be fiancé. Now, he was the man who wanted her to make him an unstoppable army.

  Sorry, Jon, that’s not going to happen.

  Unfortunately, she knew from bitter experience that he didn’t give up easily. Especially when he wanted something badly enough.

  “And you’re sure the woman you saw was Cassandra Armstrong?” Jon asked as he stared across the counter at the shaken store clerk.

  The guy—Tommy Wells—gave a quick nod. “That was her. She—she jumped me. Took my gun before I could call the cops.” His head hung a bit in shame as he gave the confession.

  Jon lifted a brow. Considering that Cassie was all of five foot five and barely pushing past one hundred and thirty pounds, the confession couldn’t be easy for the guy. If she was a paranormal, the defeat wouldn’t have been quite so embarrassing, but since she was, in fact, mostly human . . .

  Tommy’s cheeks flushed an even deeper red and he muttered, “She had a guy with her. Big bastard who looked like he wanted to rip me to pieces.”

  “This bastard . . . describe him.”

  Tommy pointed to the height chart near the door. “Six foot three, freaking linebacker. Black hair, black eyes, a face that I don’t ever want to see again . . .”

  “Don’t worry, if you see him again, it won’t be for long.” Black hair, black eyes, the right size.

  Tommy frowned. “W-what do you mean it won’t be for long?”

  “If he comes back, the guy’s here to kill you.” But Jon didn’t think the phoenix would be coming back. He was running with Cassie, sticking to her like glue.

  The phoenix’s obsession with Cassie hadn’t lessened over the years. Jon would use that obsession. It would be what finally broke the phoenix known as Dante.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “We can hide the Jeep in the back,” Cassie said as the car eased to a stop at a cabin nestled in the mountains of Kentucky. Another safe house, courtesy of Trace. She’d stayed in it on her way up to Chicago, and it was the perfect place for them to rest up and regroup before the second leg of their journey.

  Once the Jeep was covered—they would not be taking that rickety vehicle again because Trace had left backup transportation at his cabin—they went inside.

  Trace did enjoy his luxury. Or he had, before his life had become a nightmare.

  He was one of the patients that she had to get back to in Belle, Mississippi. He needed her. Cassie’s assistant Charles would do his best to keep Trace stable until she got back, but time was of the essence, for Trace and for the other patient who needed her.

  “Is this place yours?” Dante’s voice was low, rumbling as he glanced around at the sleek lines of the cabin.

  She shook her head, then realized he wasn’t looking her way. “It belongs to a friend.”

  He touched the monitors that she’d activated minutes before. Monitors that showed the exterior of the cabin and the lone road leading up to it. Trace sure seemed to love his security setups.

  “This the same friend who owned the warehouse?” Dante asked.

  “Yes.”

  He looked at her with a hooded gaze. “Must be some friend if he lets you have access to all his homes.”

  Since Trace was incapable of using said homes at the moment, she wasn’t sure that “letting” was involved so much. “We’re both exhausted. We’ll crash for a few hours, then hit the road again, and we should make it to Mississippi—”

  “Is he waiting in Mississippi?” Dante stalked toward her, his head cocked. “The man who owns this cabin . . . is he waiting down there for you?”

  She nodded.

  “And he just let you walk away from him?” The back of his hand skated down her cheek.

  She absolutely refused to tremble at his touch. She refused. She—

  Trembled. Dammit.

  “It wasn’t a matter of me walking way. I told Trace that I’d be back.”

  “He’s your lover.”

  “No.” Cassie shook her head. “He’s just someone who needs me.” Actually, maybe it was time to lay her cards out for him. “He’s the reason I came after you.” Her breath whispered out as she pulled away from his touch. “Do you have any memory of your life before that alley? I mean, have the images started to come to you at all?”

  His guarded expression told her that he did have some memories. It also told her he didn’t trust her enough to tell her what he knew.

  Fine. She’d tell him. “It was called Genesis.” It had been her father’s brainchild. “The media billed it as being a research facility. Everyone was told that all of the paranormals there had volunteered to be brought in. Our government was supposed to be developing a faster, stronger soldier at Genesis.” Her hands fisted. “It was the next wave of mankind’s development. Our evolution.”

  He just watched her with that dark gaze that could unnerve her too easily.

  Just watched . . .

  “Some of the paranormals did volunteer, but they didn’t realize they were giving up their lives. The rest of them were taken. Abducted and forced into the program. Then the experiments started.” She swallowed, remembering the screams that had haunted her for so long. “Most folks these days think that Genesis was a fairly new program. One that started a few years ago once the paranormals merged with society and stopped staying in the shadows.”

  “They think wrong.”

  Was he speaking from his own memories? He’d been in Genesis for far longer than a few years.

  Before his first escape, anyway.

  “My father started Genesis over thirty years ago. That was when he started to play God with the subjects in his labs.” When she’d been seven, he’d started to play God with her.

  “Where is your father now?” Anger. No, rage.

  She could see it in the golden flames that had sparked to life in his eyes.

  “In the ground.” True. “He was killed a few months ago. Staked, then he lost his head.” Maybe she should be sad, but she wasn’t. “He experimented on himself. Hell, he experimented on everyone.” Don’t, Daddy. Please. “He was a vampire, but now he’s just—dead.”

  There would be no coming back for him.

  “Trace . . . Trace Frost was infected.” Because of her father. Because of her brother—though Richard was dead now, too. A whole family of Frankensteins, that was all they were. “Trace was given a drug that brought out his more . . . primal instincts.”

  “What is he?”

  What . . . ah, so Dante did understand. “Trace is a wolf shifter. He used to have control of the beast, but thanks to Lycan-70, the beast has control of him now.” If she couldn’t reverse the effects of that drug, the man that Trace had been would never come back.

  “You . . . care for him.”

  “I care for anyone who is tortured like that. From all accounts, Trace Frost was a good man before he was given the dosage. I want him to be that man again.” Cassie squared her shoulders. “And I want you to help me.”

  A line of stubble coated Dante’s jaw. He looked big and dark and dangerous. Normal for him.

  She crept closer to him. “You’re with me now. Stay with me. When we get to Mississippi, come with me to my lab—”

  She had just said the wrong thing.

  He grabbed her hand and yanked her right up against him. “I r
emember being in a lab.” Snarled at her.

  She didn’t flinch.

  “They cut me open. They shot me. They drugged me. They even drowned me a few times.”

  He had far more memories than she’d realized.

  “I won’t ever fucking go back in a lab again.”

  Her gaze held his. “Trace isn’t the only one that is suffering down there. There are vampires. And there’s an infection that’s spreading faster than anything I’ve ever seen. The humans who get bit . . . can’t think or reason any longer. All they do is hunger and kill—”

  “Then they need to be put down.”

  “They have families. Lives. If I can cure them, they can go back to the way they were before.”

  Dante’s eyes narrowed at that. “You think you can cure a vampire? Turn him human again? That’s not possible.”

  “A man who dies and burns and rises from the ashes shouldn’t be possible, either.” She swiped her tongue over too dry lips and noticed that his gaze followed that small movement. Her heart slammed into her ribs. “Your tears can cure anything or anyone. If I can just get a sample from you . . .”

  He pushed her away. “Is that what you want? For me to cry for you?” His face had twisted into lines that looked cruel. “They tried for years to get me to break. I never did.” He spun away from her. Headed for the stairs.

  “You did.” The words slipped out. She shouldn’t have said them. Big, big mistake.

  But they were the truth.

  He froze with his hand on the wooden bannister. “What?”

  She knotted her fingers into fists. “You did break. The phoenix shed a tear.”

  He glanced back at her.

  “If you hadn’t cried, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Find another fucking phoenix!”

  It wasn’t like they were easy to find. “As far as I know, there are only three phoenixes in the United States.”

  He whirled toward her.

  Right. Ahem . . . phoenixes had a tendency to kill each other. She probably shouldn’t have mentioned that the others were actually in the U.S.

  A phoenix was truly vulnerable only in that one moment of rising. When a phoenix’s body regenerated and he rose from the flames, it was during that instant of time when he could truly die. A forever death—one from which he would never rise again.

  Most enemies couldn’t brave the heat of the fire long enough to kill a phoenix.

  Another of your kind could do it. Phoenixes could—and had—killed each other before.

  “You’re the oldest phoenix that has ever been discovered,” Cassie said, voice quiet. “According to my father’s journals, you are the first.”

  Dante simply stared at her.

  His stare made her nervous and shaky and so she kept talking. “I took a tear from one of the other phoenixes and tried to synthesize a cure. It didn’t work.” She stepped toward him. “You are the key to the cure. If you’re the first, I can study your DNA. I can analyze your tears. They could be a more pure form than—”

  “I’m not your damn experiment.”

  She flinched at his fury. “I didn’t say that you were.”

  “But you want to put me in your lab, right? Want to run your tests . . . cut me open . . . just like they did.”

  “I’m not like them.” She forced the words through numb lips.

  “Aren’t you?”

  Damn him. She’d worked hard to save lives. To help those who’d been injured by her father and Genesis. “Why are you even here with me?” Cassie demanded. “If you don’t trust me”—she closed the space between them and angrily grabbed on to him as she jumped up those bottom steps—“why are you here?”

  “Because I can’t walk away.”

  Her laugh was bitter. “You didn’t seem to have that trouble in Chicago.”

  His nostrils flared. The banked flames in his eyes lit. “When I breathe in your scent, I ache.”

  Her lips parted in surprise.

  “When I kissed you, your taste had me maddened.”

  “Dante . . .”

  “I look at you, and I think . . . mine.”

  Could he hear the drumbeat of her heart? It felt like it was about to race right out of her chest.

  “You say we aren’t lovers, but in my dreams, I’ve seen you naked.”

  She dropped his hands. He wasn’t supposed to—

  His hand rose. Touched her just over the curve of her right breast. “There’s a freckle here. I’ve licked it. I’ve kissed it.” His gaze swept down her body. “In my dreams, I’ve kissed you everywhere.”

  Her memory was absolutely fine and that had not happened. “Just dreams,” she breathed out. “Not reality. That hasn’t happened!”

  “I’m not leaving you because I can still taste you. I’m not leaving you because I fucking want you under me. I want to be buried so far inside of you that I stop caring about what’s real and what’s a dream.”

  “Th-that’s why you’re with me? Sex?” He wanted her to sleep with him? Like that was some kind of hardship.

  “Possession.”

  She didn’t understand what that rough growl meant. “I don’t—”

  “I feel like you’re mine. I’m here . . . fucking here . . . because I can’t let you go.” Then his mouth was on hers. He’d wrapped his arms around her. Lifted her up against him, and just taken her mouth.

  He didn’t kiss her softly. She was sure that he’d known little of softness in his long life. No tentative hunger. Just an avalanche of need that should have frightened her.

  It didn’t.

  Cassie wrapped her arms around him and held on tight. Her lips parted beneath his, her tongue met his. The electric surge of lust seemed to pulse between their bodies wherever they touched.

  She wanted to touch him everywhere.

  There were no monitors to watch them. No guards. No fear of pain or retribution. For once, they were alone. They had a bed upstairs. They had time.

  She could have him.

  He could have anything he wanted from her.

  His hands were trailing over her body. Curling around her hips. His fingers spanned her ass, and he pushed her up higher against the hard length of his cock.

  Her phoenix was aroused. Definitely aroused.

  “Why?” He pulled his mouth from hers, but he didn’t let her go. He just started to kiss her neck, and, oh, the skin was so sensitive there.

  She felt the rasp of his tongue on her, and quivered. Yes, quivered. She’d never done that in her whole life.

  But then, she’d never been with Dante like that.

  “Why do you want me?” He growled the words, and they seemed to vibrate against her skin. “You know what I am.”

  Didn’t he realize that was why she wanted him?

  “I’ve wanted you for a long time,” Cassie confessed.

  He’d been her first crush. The star of too many fantasies. He’d talked about dreams. She’d sure had her share of them.

  Dante’s hold tightened on her. Then he pulled back. Glared down at her. “You think if you fuck me, I’ll do what you want.”

  Wow. Talk about being able to kill a mood. Her cheeks went ice cold, then she felt them heat with her embarrassment and fury. “No, I thought if I fucked you,” she tossed right back at him, “then maybe the constant need I feel for you would go away.” She pushed past him. “But right now, maybe we both just need to cool down.”

  No, she needed to get away from him before the jerk saw that he’d made her cry.

  A phoenix didn’t cry easily.

  But she wasn’t a phoenix. And she’d sure shed plenty of tears for him over the years.

  “Cassie!”

  She didn’t stop. She stomped up the stairs. “Give me space, Dante. Just, dammit, give me some pride.” She was swiping away her tears.

  She’d forgotten how easily he could hurt her. Just a few careless words.

  Cassie reached the landing and didn’t glance back at him. She’d looked back at him
before, other times just like this, when he’d wound up rejecting her in some way, and there had never been regret on his face.

  He might lust for her—she’d felt the strength of that need—but Dante had never loved her.

  Sometimes, she wondered if he could love anyone.

  He dreamed of her again. Dreamed of a room with a silver ceiling, silver walls, and a silver floor.

  A bright hell.

  “You shouldn’t have come back.” Her voice.

  His Cassandra.

  He turned and realized . . . one of the walls was actually a mirror. When he focused just right, he could see through that mirror.

  He could see her.

  “You were safe. You should have stayed away.” Her voice was sad.

  He strode toward that mirror. He could see his own image staring back at him. But, through that image . . .

  Her.

  She had her hand on the glass. He put his above it. Could have sworn that he felt the silk of her touch.

  He knew why he’d come back. Because he hadn’t been able to leave her. He’d tried to stay away, but he’d needed her too much.

  He’d had to get back to her.

  Every step away from her had seemed to rip a hole into his chest.

  Now he would have her.

  Even if he had to burn that whole building down to claim her.

  Dante stared out in the night. The cabin was quiet behind him, still. His dreams had tormented him for hours. No, not dreams. Memories, streaming through his mind.

  Different times. Different places.

  The thing that had always been the same? The fire.

  Consuming.

  Destroying.

  Cassie was in the bedroom at the top of the stairs. Did she dream of him?

  Something had been done to them, he knew that now. The attraction that he felt for her was unnatural. The ache to be close to her . . . the pain of being apart . . .

  Another fucking experiment?

  When he’d been in Chicago, he’d felt like part of him had been missing. At first, he’d thought that hole came from not having all his memories. That it was just the result of all the dark spots in his mind.

  Then he’d looked up in Taboo and seen her and thought—