by Cynthia Eden
He pushed away from the mantel and walked toward her. “You came back. When you were hurt before, in this very city—”
“Because of something my father did to me! Because I’m a walking experiment! But how long does it last? I’m not like you. One of these days, I’ll die, and I won’t come back.” Her breath heaved out. “So don’t talk about killing like it’s nothing. All the lives—they matter to someone. Trace has friends. Eve is his friend. I’m his friend.” Cassie’s shoulders slumped. “We all matter.”
Dante was staring down at her with confusion on his face.
Did he truly not understand?
“Someone had to matter to you,” she whispered. “At some point, at some time, it couldn’t have always been so easy for you to kill.”
“I kill so that others can survive.” Hard words.
Maybe no one had mattered. Her hand lifted. She touched his chest.
He immediately stilled beneath her hand.
“I can feel your heart beating,” Cassie whispered. Beating at a fast and strong rate. “You have a heart, but do you love?”
His eyes were carefully guarded.
I guess that’s my answer.
She tried to pull her hand back, but his hand rose and curled around hers, holding it in place. “I loved my brother, and I still killed him.”
The way of the phoenix.
“We do what we must in order to survive.”
But if they all became monsters, what was that survival worth?
“I will do anything”—his hold tightened on her—“to ensure your survival.”
Pushed too far, she had to ask, “Would you cry for me, Dante?”
His dark eyes held hers.
“If I couldn’t heal myself, if I were dying right in front of you, would you cry for me?”
A phoenix’s tears had to be shed willingly. They couldn’t be harvested from the tear ducts. Their power came from the pain of the phoenix.
Dante wasn’t answering.
That was an answer.
She forced herself to smile. “Not that you have to. I’m an indestructible girl, right? No need to ever cry over me.”
He let her go. “I would kill in an instant to keep you safe.”
“Again with the killing.” She hoped her smile didn’t look as sad as she felt. “Sometimes, it’s not about killing. It’s about sacrificing. Putting someone else’s life first.” Cassie tried to straighten her shoulders. “Look, how about we both just stay alive tonight, okay?” She glanced at the old clock on the mantel. “We need to leave and head over for the rendezvous.”
“You know I have to kill.”
His words fell heavily into the room.
“The phoenix in those woods—the man you called Jon Abrams—he won’t stop until I stop him.” The floor creaked as Dante walked toward her. Then his hand was on her shoulder.
Cassie forced herself to glance back at him.
“You can say the world is about sacrifice, but I won’t let him keep threatening you. And I won’t let the bastard hunt me. Running isn’t my way.”
No, not his.
“So I’ll go with you to meet your friends. And when you’re safe”—Dante gave a grim nod—“I will end Jon.”
The house sat, with its lights shining, at the end of Hollow Way. They hadn’t come to the home of Keith Adams in their loud, grinding truck.
A backup ride had waited for them at Cassie’s safe house. “Do you think they’re inside?” Cassie whispered.
She wouldn’t look at Dante—not for long, anyway. Her gaze kept darting from him. He’d upset her back at the safe house.
He knew that he had.
Would you cry for me, Dante?
It would have been easy to lie and say yes, but he didn’t want to lie to her. She deserved his honesty.
He hadn’t cried for anyone in hundreds of years. He’d cried after his brother was gone, but . . .
That hadn’t done much good.
“Let’s go around to the back,” Cassie said, her voice low.
They slid through the shadows, easing up the back porch. Cassie crept toward the door and rapped lightly against its surface.
Dante inhaled, pulling all of the scents into his lungs. Wolf. Werewolves often had that slightly woodsy odor.
“Your werewolf... was here.” Is he still?
Dante pulled in more scents. “Ash . . .”
“Cain?” she whispered, glancing at him from the corner of her eyes.
Dante wasn’t sure.
The door creaked open. A man stood there. His hair was gray on the sides and deep lines were etched across his forehead. “They said you’d be comin’, Cass,” he whispered and opened the door. His eyes narrowed when he caught sight of Dante. “Who’s this?”
“A friend,” Cassie quickly told him. “Dante’s a friend of mine.”
Dante frowned at her. He was a whole lot more than just a friend.
The man’s gaze assessed him. “You vouching for him?”
“Yes.”
After a small hesitation, the guy waved them inside.
Dante crossed the threshold.
Cassie followed the man through the kitchen and down the hallway.
The scent of ash and that wild, woodsy scent grew stronger. He’d thought the werewolf was close but—
Is that Trace?
The scent actually seemed to be blending with the ash as they were nearing the living room.
Cassie reached out, as if unable to help herself, and caught the man’s arm. “Keith, I’m so sorry . . .”
Dante heard the restrained emotion in her voice. The whisper of pain and sorrow. “But there’s something I have to tell you. It’s Vaughn . . .”
Keith’s face hardened.
“He’s dead.”
Dante thought the man would break down, but Keith shook his head. “No, he’s not.”
“He is,” Cassie said, the words soft but certain. “I saw him. He was staked and—”
“He’s still alive, and that’s why”—Keith lunged toward Cassie and shoved a needle into her neck—“I have to do this.”
Dante roared. He grabbed Cassie, snatching her from the man’s hold even as he threw the human back. Keith’s body slammed into the wall with a thud.
“Cassie?”
Her breath heaved out. Her lashes began to fall.
“I had to!” Keith shouted as he rose. “He has my son!”
Carefully, so carefully, Dante put Cassie on the floor. Then he looked up at Keith Adams. “You’re a dead man.”
A door opened behind him. The scent of ash and woods—that damn scent—was stronger.
“No, Dante, he’s not dead.”
Dante knew that voice and spun around.
Jon Abrams was staring at him. The man’s body was covered with burns.
“You are,” Jon said. He raised his hand and fired the gun he gripped in his fist. The bullet tore right into Dante’s chest.
He fell back, ramming into the floor, his body landing just inches from Cassie’s. As death claimed him, she was the last sight he had.
Cassie . . . so still. So pale.
Would you cry for me, Dante?
“I’m sorry.” Keith’s broken voice.
No, the bastard wasn’t sorry, but he would be. Dante would make sure of it.
The rest of Jon’s team slowly swarmed the house. They’d stayed back because Jon had worried that the human might slip up and give away his plan.
Humans could be such screw-ups.
Dante lay sprawled in the hallway, blood pooling beneath him.
Keith crouched over Dante, with his hands drenched in the phoenix’s blood. Was the fool actually trying to save him? It sure looked like he was attempting to stop the blood flow.
Humans. Screw-ups. Jon was so glad he wasn’t one of them any longer.
I’m so much better.
“You never said you were killing him!” Keith yelled as he looked up at Jon. “You said you were taking
them into custody! That you wanted them alive!”
“Relax.” Jon motioned to two guards. They needed to get Cassie out of there before Dante started to burn. “It’s not like he’ll stay dead.”
Keith jerked his hands away from Dante. “Vampire?”
“Guess again.” Jon winced when the burns on his shoulder brushed against the wall. He hadn’t summoned any more fire in the last six hours because when he conjured the fire, it hurt.
As much as he would like to kill Dante when the phoenix started to rise, he couldn’t.
I need him.
Jon knew that his body wasn’t holding the phoenix transformation. His cells weren’t strong enough. Not yet. A few more dosages of the serum, and maybe those cells would be strong enough.
I need his tears.
As Jon’s men carried Cassie out of the house, he knew that he had the perfect means of getting those precious tears.
“We have to transport him ASAP,” Jon ordered the guards in the fireproof suits who had just arrived.
How long would those suits last once Dante’s fire lit? They sure hadn’t lasted long before.
“If he rises during transport, put a knife to Cassie’s throat. That’ll keep him calm.” Jon winced. His burns hurt. “When he’s calm, kill him. Just keep killing him until we get back to the lab.”
The lab he’d taken over as soon as he got to New Orleans. Genesis had tentacles everywhere, and the closed-down lab a few miles away from the Tulane campus had been easy enough to acquire. It had all the equipment that he needed.
And he had the phoenix that he needed, too.
All nice and neat.
Time for the tears. Jon wasn’t going to lose his power. He wouldn’t go from being a god to being a rotting husk of flesh. He’d do anything necessary, but the phoenix would cry.
It was all a matter of motivation.
You’ll feel plenty motivated when Cassie screams for you.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When Cassie opened her eyes, she was in—a truck? Some big, jostling vehicle, it almost looked like a moving van, and a man with a knife was sitting beside her, pretty much holding her upright.
She smelled smoke.
Her gaze flew to the left. Dante. He was lying on his back, and there was smoke rising from him. Men in those familiar white, flame retardant suits were all around him.
Keith sold us out.
She didn’t see Keith anywhere. If he’d tried to deal with Jon—if? yeah, right—the guy could already be dead.
“He’s rising,” Cassie whispered as her gaze slid back to Dante.
The guy with the knife jerked. He needed to be more careful with that jerking. He’d almost cut her skin.
She warned him. “This is the time when you need to run like hell. Those flames are going to be white-hot, and they’ll kill us all if we don’t get out of here.”
The man was sweating. He lifted the knife and pressed the blade to her throat. “The lieutenant colonel said he won’t attack, ma’am, as long as we’ve got you.”
“In case you haven’t noticed . . .” How could the guy miss it? “Your lieutenant colonel is crazy. When Dante rises, he won’t even know who I am. You could shove your knife all the way through my throat, and it wouldn’t matter to him.” Cold, brutal words. True words. “He’ll still burn this whole ride down around us.”
The blade trembled and definitely nicked her skin.
Since she had the guard’s attention, she kept pressing. “When he rises, he’s all animal instinct, and his main instinct is to kill.” Her gaze swept the back of that truck. The flames were starting to crackle. They did not have much time. “Why do you think that Jon isn’t back here with us? He knows we’ll all die here.”
“No, no, ma’am. He said—he said as long as we had you—”
The guy needs to listen! “Dante won’t know me! He’ll kill me!”
The man’s eyes got glassy.
Cassie’s heartbeat froze. Wait. She pitched her voice low, trying to use that soothing tone that had worked with Trace. A siren’s power? Hell, it was worth a shot. “Put down your knife.”
Dante had said that she made him remember his past, that she’d soothed Trace. Maybe she was getting better at channeling her power.
She was definitely feeling stressed, so if she could use a siren’s suggestion on him . . .
“Put down the knife.”
He lowered the knife.
Her breath rushed out. And she counted—four guards. There were four other guards with them.
“Go to the back of the truck and open the door,” Cassie ordered the guy.
The man stood up immediately. Headed to the back of the jostling truck.
It’s working. She sucked in a couple more of those deep breaths. The breaths were starting to taste of smoke.
And the guy was trying to open the back door. It was insane. It was working.
Dante had been right about her.
Now, if she could just save them.
But as the guy hurried to obey her instructions, the others all whirled to face her. Crap. Could she control so many at once?
Cassie had no clue. Let’s find out.
“Pick him up.” She fought to keep her voice low and soothing when she wanted to shout.
At first, no one moved.
Then the guy shoved open the back doors, just as flames licked around Dante’s legs.
“Pick him up.”
If his fire started in the truck—with the gasoline in the vehicle’s tank, hell, they could all explode.
The remaining guards moved as one and picked up Dante. Cassie hurried toward the open doors. The dark road stretched behind them. The fire burned hotter. The men—even in their suits—wouldn’t be able to hold him for long.
She hated to do it, but there wasn’t a lot of choice. “Throw him out.”
Dante would recover.
He would—
They threw him.
She saw the flames when he hit the road.
Then she braced herself because she had to jump, too. There was no way she could stay in that death truck and let Jon take her wherever the hell he wanted.
She knew it was Jon taking her. Even as she’d fallen to the floor, her body heavy with numbness, she’d heard his voice.
Dante was right about him. It looked like the only way to stop him was to kill him.
Her fingers curled around the edge of the vehicle.
The only way to stop him . . .
If she jumped, Jon would come and find her.
He’d keep searching for her and Dante.
Maybe it was time to end all the hunting. Cassie knew Jon had forced Keith to help him. She remembered what Keith had said. He has my son!
Was that true? Was it even possible that Vaughn was still alive?
If she stayed in that rig, she’d find out, and possibly get to Vaughn. She’d definitely get an up close and personal audience with Jon.
Then I’ll see just how well my voice works on him. She had a weapon that Jon didn’t know about. One that he couldn’t fight.
Finally, the advantage would be hers.
Behind that truck, the flames were growing brighter in the darkness.
“Good-bye, Dante,” she whispered. When this was over, when she’d finished her battle, and stopped the experiments, she’d go to him.
But Genesis—her father—had made one more monster that she had to slay first.
I hope you’re ready for me, Jon. Because she was ready for him.
“Close the doors,” Cassie said.
The fire burned. Consumed. Dante’s hands pushed against pavement—rough, hard—and he climbed to his feet.
The darkness was around him.
Her scent . . . faint, fading . . . drifted in the wind.
The fire kept burning.
Her.
He could see a ghost of her image in his mind, but he couldn’t call up her name.
Her scent was so faint.
He to
ok a step forward. She smelled of sin and sweetness. Not fire. He was tired of the smell of ash.
He wanted sin.
Sweetness.
Another step.
She’d left him.
He’d find her.
Another step. Another.
Then he was running. Rushing as fast as he could. After her.
The truck rumbled to a stop. Cassie glanced at the men near her. They looked dazed, and that was the way they should look. She’d told them to forget everything that had happened in the back of that truck.
So far, her command seemed to be working.
She heard voices. Footsteps. Then the doors were being opened once more.
Cassie stood in the middle of the truck. The men were against the back wall.
Jon frowned up at her. “What the hell? Where’s the phoenix?”
She smiled. “Next time, instead of leading your prisoners, maybe you should follow behind them,” she advised him. “That way, you might actually notice when someone escapes.”
He leaped into the truck.
She saw his face—her breath sucked in. “Dante burned you.” She didn’t remember the fire at Keith’s house.
Jon shook his head. “Where the hell is he?”
“He ditched the ride a while back.” Her chin lifted. “And now you’re left with me.” This was it. The moment she’d waited for. “Take me to Vaughn.”
Jon blinked at her.
“Take me to Vaughn.” Her heart was a drumbeat in her ears.
Jon took her hand. Led her to the back of the truck. They jumped down.
And headed toward the long, flat building on the right. Two armed men blocked the door, but Jon waved them aside.
The interior of the building smelled of . . . blood.
“Do your superiors know what you’re doing?” Cassie asked. Just how far-reaching was his madness?
“I don’t have superiors. I do what the hell I want.”
“Do they know that?” Cassie asked, glancing back to the guards. “Or did you tell them all that you’re still working for the government?”
He stopped. Frowned at her. “Where are we?”
Crap. “Vaughn. Take me to Vaughn.”
A woman rushed up to them. Cassie recognized her. The blonde—Dr. Shaw—who’d taken all of those samples from her at the ranch. It was hard to forget someone who’d made her bleed.