Playing With Fire

by Cynthia Eden

  “No, sweetheart, you’re trying to take the stains off your hands. But that blood isn’t there because of you.” He was definite.

  “Yes, it is!” Why doesn’t he see that? “I was there, Dante. For years. I should have stopped it. I should have helped those people.”

  But she’d been afraid.

  Trapped.

  “You helped me.”

  He was still on the table.

  As he’d been so many times.

  As I was.

  Cassie pulled in a deep breath. “You escaped when I was twenty-two . . . because I killed you.”

  A death that the guards and doctors at Genesis hadn’t been expecting, so they hadn’t been prepared to deal with him as he rose.

  She’d cleared the exits. Even drugged a few of the men on patrol outside so Dante could get away scot free.

  He’d come back. Years later, but . . . he came back.

  “I thought about burning the building to the ground that night.”

  His confession.

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because something important was inside.”

  Her gaze searched his. “Is that why you came back?” She knew he hadn’t just been captured. The crazy phoenix had actually let himself be caught by Genesis.

  And she’d had to work to free him again.

  “I came back for you.”

  How many times had she wished to hear words like that? At first, hell, she actually thought she was imagining them.

  “I’d waited long enough for you, and I was there to claim you.”

  But he hadn’t. He’d escaped again when Genesis was destroyed, and, according to him, she’d died in New Orleans.

  “The first time I left . . . you stayed behind to help the others, didn’t you?” Dante asked.

  Cassie nodded. She’d worked, slowly but surely, to free others trapped in Genesis. She’d tried sending data to the media, had tried to get someone to see what was happening in the research facility, but the madness hadn’t stopped until a reporter named Eve Bradley had gone to work—undercover—at Genesis.

  “Why do you keep bleeding for them?”

  “Someone has to do it.”

  His gaze fell on the scalpel. “All of those years and Genesis never figured out a way to use me. And you think you can do it now?”

  “Cain O’Connor should arrive tomorrow.” The only other male phoenix she’d ever met. The phoenix who’d fallen in love with Eve Bradley when she’d been undercover at Genesis. “I want to look at DNA from both of you and see—”

  “Then you’d better get to cutting.”

  She didn’t want to cut him.

  She didn’t want to hurt him at all. “Did you truly come back for me?” Cassie whispered.

  His eyes swept over her face. “You’ve been mine for years. Did you really think I’d ever let you go?”

  Her breath caught. Mine. It was all about possession and need for him. Was it even possible for Dante to love?

  “I thought you’d leave Genesis and seek me out.”

  Cassie shook her head. “How would I have ever found you?”

  His hand lifted. Pressed over her heart. “The same way you found me in Chicago. The same link.”

  Okay, now she was starting to get nervous. “Link?”

  “Have you studied your own blood, Cassie?”

  She’d done tests on herself, yes, and not just blood work. She knew that her DNA had been mutated when she’d been a child.

  “You were different even before you father started his work.” Dante paused. “Maybe that’s why he started.”

  Cassie gave a hard, negative shake of her head. She didn’t want to hear this.

  “You’ve mentioned a brother. Your father. What about your mother, Cassie? Where is she?” Dante was sitting on the gurney, and she was standing between his spread legs. She hadn’t felt trapped until that moment.

  “My mother died just a few months after I was born.”

  “How.” No question. A demand.

  “A . . . a car accident.” So she’d been told.

  Dante was the one to shake his head. “I doubt that.”

  Her heart was beating faster.

  “I think your father wanted to create very special children, and he found a woman who could provide him with those children.”

  Her skin felt icy.

  “Nothing too dangerous, not if he was going to have it in the family, but something powerful nevertheless.”

  Something?

  “You’re not supposed to exist, sweetheart, but then, neither am I.”

  His words were starting to scare her. She’d been born human. Her blood had changed only because of her father’s experiments.

  Right?

  “And maybe . . . maybe your father couldn’t resist your mother. That would have been part of her charm, after all.”

  Her charm? He was losing her. “You’re wrong, Dante. I’m just—”

  “A siren.”

  Cassie laughed. She couldn’t help it. Laughter was her first response. “There is no way—”

  “Sirens are real, you know. As real as any other paranormal that walks the earth.”

  Her mouth suddenly felt very, very dry. “Sirens lure sailors to their deaths.” She knew the myth. Beautiful women, or at least, they appeared beautiful at first, but they were really monsters. “In Greek mythology, they’d sung to lure in their prey. When the boats crashed on the rocks near the sirens, the sirens had fed on the wounded.”

  “That’s the myth . . .”

  She was adamant. “That’s not me.”

  “Humans only know part of the sirens’ story.” His hand lifted, brushed back her hair. “In truth, there were so many ways for them to lure in the men they wanted. Except sirens weren’t interested in mortal men.”

  Her heart was going to burst out of her chest.

  “They wanted paranormals—because sirens craved power. Magic.”

  How many times was she going to have to say it? “I am not—”

  “Vampires are lured to you by the sweet scent of your blood. It’s different from anything else they’ve ever experienced. They can scent the poison, too, but your blood is too strong for them to resist.”

  Cassie put her hands on his chest. “My father made my blood that way. A lure and a poison.”

  “He made it poison. Nature made it a lure.”

  Her breath rushed out.

  “Werewolves will be drawn by your voice. It soothes their beast. That’s why the one called Trace is calmer when you’re near. I realized that when I watched you with him. He hasn’t attacked you yet because your voice puts his beast at ease.”

  “Sirens sing, I don’t—”

  “The lure is different for every paranormal. I know what you are. I’ve met your kind before.”

  She had a kind?

  “The magic isn’t as strong in you, probably because of the brews that your father gave you, but it’s there. I’ve known it from the time you were eight years old.”

  Her world was spinning. He was solid beneath her hand. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because you wouldn’t have believed me.”

  “My mother—”

  “She probably tried to get away from your father. But the thing is . . . once a man has a siren, he becomes obsessed with her.”

  A chill skated down Cassie’s spine. Dante’s dark eyes were so intense, so focused on her.

  “Once they mate, the siren can walk away, the ties won’t bind her, but her prey . . . is trapped. The only way he can escape her hold is death.”

  Cassie didn’t like what he was saying. Didn’t want to hear another word.

  I’m no siren. I’m Cassie Armstrong. I’m a doctor. I’m twenty-nine. I’m—

  “Don’t you want to know how you lure me to you?”

  No. “Yes.” Soft, scared. She would not be scared.

  Hell, she was so scared.

  “Part of it is your scent.” He inhale
d deeply, and his fingers tunneled in her hair, pulling her close to him. “Shifters can usually catch a siren’s scent, even if they don’t necessarily realize what that scent means.”

  “But you know what it means . . .”

  “I’ve dealt with sirens before.”

  It didn’t sound like he’d dealt with them in a positive way.

  He bent his head and his lips pressed against her throat. Her heartbeat spiked.

  “It’s not just your scent, though,” Dante rasped, “it’s your taste that draws me, too. So sweet and light . . . tempting me to gobble you up.”

  He scored her flesh with his teeth.

  “I had to be careful. I tried not to kiss you for a long time, but the first time I tasted your lips, the lure was set.”

  “You left after our first kiss.” Cassie had kissed him right before she’d killed him at Genesis. Stupidly, desperately, she’d hoped that the kiss would make him remember her.

  His head lifted, but her neck tingled, as if she still felt the heat of his mouth. “I thought I could break the link. I tried . . .”

  That hurt.

  “I couldn’t. You kept pulling me back to you.”

  He was wrong. She’d wanted him to be free. “No, I didn’t do anything—”

  The gold deep within his eyes began to burn. “Did you dream of me, Cassie?”

  She had. So many dreams. But what was wrong with a dream? Cassie nodded.

  “A siren can lure through her dreams. The link was between us, and you used it. Every time you dreamed, every time you longed, you sent that longing to me. Made me feel it.”

  He sounded almost angry.

  But she hadn’t meant to do anything like that. “I’m not a siren.” Her desperate whisper. He was wrong. He had to be.

  “A phoenix can’t mate with just anyone. Our fire burns too hot. We’d kill human lovers.” His lips twisted. “I know phoenixes who have—and they couldn’t even take their own lives when the guilt ate at them.”

  She couldn’t speak.

  “A male phoenix can mate with a female of our kind, but it’s rare. We just don’t fucking trust each other enough. Our killer instinct is stronger than our mating instinct.”

  That would be why phoenixes weren’t populating the world.

  “Dragon shifters work as potential mates. They can handle any fire. But, because of that, they’re also threats to us.”

  Any being that could handle the fire could also attack a phoenix during his weakest moment—the rising.

  “But there’s one more that can mate with us. One who can soothe our fire, with her siren’s song.”

  Cassie shook her head.

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re my mate, Cassie. There’s no denying it. I took you, I claimed you, and now, you are mine.”

  Jamie ran through the lab and slammed the door of his “room” shut. His hands were shaking and his stomach twisted with fear.

  He’d wanted to kill that vampire—that freak was just like the one who’d turned Tim.

  But when he’d gone in there with the chunk of broken wood he’d taken from the chair he smashed in his room, the vampire had been too strong for him.

  The guy’s fangs had been at his throat. If Cassie hadn’t come in . . .

  I would be dead.

  Or, even worse, he’d be a vampire.

  He didn’t know what was happening. Didn’t understand anything, not anymore. When they’d first come out to the world, vampires had told everyone that they could get along with humans. They’d been all friendly on the TV shows.

  Then those fanged freaks had attacked.

  And Jamie’s world had ended.

  He sucked in a deep breath. One. Two. The breaths didn’t calm him down any. Tim used to tell him . . .

  Don’t get so angry, man. Breathe. Relax.

  Tim wasn’t there anymore.

  Jamie wasn’t going to let that vampire keep living in that room down the hall. Tim was dead, and that guy deserved to die, too.

  Jamie just had to find a way to get to the vamp again—get to him, and take him out.

  When he’d hidden for all those hours in that swamp, he had made one vow. Just one. If he survived . . .

  He’d kill every vampire that ever crossed his path.

  That vampire—Vaughn—was going to hell.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Cassie was afraid.

  Dante could see the fear on her face in the widening of her eyes, and hear it in the rapid breaths that slipped from her parted lips.

  “You truly had no idea of just what you are.” He’d wondered for a long time. She’d seemed so unaware of her power—when she could have used it to her advantage numerous times.

  If she wanted, she could soothe any shifter with just the sound of her voice.

  But she hadn’t tried. Had never used that soft, seductive whisper that sirens loved so much.

  Actually, she had used that voice—when she’d been naked with him.

  And his phoenix had stayed buried so the man could claim her.

  “Your voice is your power. When you inject it with the magic that’s deep inside you, Cassie, you can command anyone.”

  “I-I don’t want to command.”

  No, she wouldn’t.

  “Remember, that’s where your power is.” If she needed that strength, he damn sure wanted her to use it. “When you sing your siren’s song, when you do it right, no one can hurt you.”

  She still had doubt in her eyes.

  “You’re not going to age anymore. At least, the sirens I’ve met stopped aging in their late twenties.” Dante shrugged. They stayed young and attractive—the better to keep luring in their prey.

  Even though Cassie was only half-siren, he suspected the same aging rule would hold true for her. All the other siren traits were there—buried, but there—so it stood to reason she had that perk, too.

  “How many sirens have you met?”

  “Three.” He wouldn’t mention that he’d killed the first one. She’d been his brother’s lover, and they’d both been bent on Dante’s death.

  The siren and his brother had burned.

  He’d risen.

  “And you’re sure . . . absolutely sure . . . that I’m—”

  “I know what you are. If the werewolf could manage more than one word at a time, he’d tell you, too.”

  She looked shattered. “My mother . . . ?”

  “Sirens don’t usually bear children with nonparanormals. They find humans too”—How to put this?—“weak for breeding.”

  Cassie flinched. “Uh, did you just say breeding?”

  “Your father experimented on you. I suspect he experimented on himself, as well. He could have changed his body enough to fool her, but once she found out the truth . . .” The siren would have left him.

  A siren’s prey wouldn’t have allowed that. Without her, Cassie’s father would have gone insane.

  Maybe he had.

  “He killed her.” Cassie’s voice was whisper-soft.

  Dante wanted to kiss Cassie again. She looked so lost, so hurt. But she needed the truth.

  He would give her that from now on. “I think he did.”

  Her lips trembled. “If I were truly a siren, wouldn’t I have used my power on you before?” Pain pushed through her words. “When you came back to me, when you rose, wouldn’t I have made you remember me?”

  Not if she hadn’t realized her power. “The next time I rise, just kiss me.”

  She shook her head. “Through the fire? Yeah, right. I’ll just go through the flames and put my mouth on yours.”

  “You might be surprised at what happens when you put that sexy mouth of yours against mine.”

  She opened her mouth to speak—

  And he kissed her. Dante had to kiss her. She was so close, and though she didn’t realize it, everything about her was pulling him in. Making him want, making him need, and driving him to the very edge of control.

  His hand rose, sank into her t
hick hair, and he brought his lips down on hers. Her mouth was open, so he pushed his tongue inside, tasting all of the sweetness that waited for him.

  Luring me in.

  Her taste was addictive. She was addictive. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to let her go. He wanted her naked. Wanted in her.

  And what a phoenix wanted . . .

  A moan built in her throat. The sound was sexy, driving up the heat of his arousal.

  She can handle my fire.

  The phoenix didn’t want to consume her. He just . . . wanted her.

  He rose from the table. Still kissing her. Then he was stripping her. Shoving down her jeans. Tossing away her shirt.

  “Dante?”

  She stared up at him, need bright in her green eyes. Her cheeks were flushed. Her lips red from his mouth.

  He kissed her again.

  He couldn’t stop.

  Couldn’t.

  He put her on the table. Licked her breast and loved the way she gasped his name. He should go slow with her.

  Slow wasn’t an option for him.

  He pushed between her legs. Found her wet, hot. His fingers thrust into her. Withdrew. Thrust. Even as he kept licking her tight little nipples. So sweet.

  She arched up against him, damn near jumping off that table. “Want . . . you!”

  And there it was. That hard push of power in her voice. The siren’s call that she didn’t even realize she’d given.

  Lust exploded through him, burning hot and wild, and nothing—no fucking thing—could have made him leave her then.

  His siren called.

  He answered.

  Dante thrust deep into her. He withdrew, then angled his body so that each drive into her took him over the sensitive core of her flesh.

  Her nails sank into his shoulders, and he loved that bite of pain.

  “You feel so good,” she whispered.

  She felt like the best dream he’d ever had.

  And her voice . . . sex and pleasure . . . temptation. Lust.

  Her voice drove him on as she whispered his name.

  She was coming. He felt the ripples of her release around him and couldn’t hold back any longer. He exploded within her, the fire burning inside him but never—never—touching her.

  The phoenix couldn’t hurt the one he wanted as a mate.

  Nothing could hurt Cassie.

  He held her tight, his mouth against her neck, his arms locked around her, as the release pumped through him.