Playing With Fire (16 page)

“We light up her world,” Jon said again. “And we bring her to
me.
” He'd find out what was happening
and
he'd get the tears that he needed.

Failure wasn't an option.

Shaw rose slowly to her feet once more and nodded.

 

“Cassie!”

Dante grabbed her and yanked her away from the—
what the hell
? The howl had sounded as if it had come from a fully shifted werewolf, but Dante wasn't staring at a beast.

He also wasn't staring at a man. Not really.

But rather, he was looking at a combination of both.

This was Trace?

Trace saw him, and his lips peeled away from his teeth, revealing fully extended fangs. He jumped toward Dante, but the silver chains that were locked around his wrists and ankles jerked Trace back.

Claws burst from the man's fingers—long claws, easily as sharp as knives. Trace was big—too tall, too wide—with muscles bulging over his body. His eyes were wild, feral, glowing. Currently looking at Dante with a bright hatred.

Trace's features were sharp, hard, very much like a wolf's, but he
wasn't
a wolf.

Was he?

“Trace, please. Calm down!” Cassie said as she pushed Dante back. “I'm a friend, remember?
Friend.
”

Those glowing eyes slid to her. The man-beast's muscles bulged, and Dante was afraid that the guy was about to rip those chains right from the wall.

He sure looked strong enough to do it.

“I'm Cassie, remember? I help you.”

“Help.”
That guttural growl was no human's voice. If a wolf could talk—
that one could
—Dante figured it would sound just like that snarling sound.

Cassie nodded. “That's right. Dante and I are both here to help you.”

The glowing stare came back to Dante once more.

Then the man-beast gave a sharp shake of his head. “Kill,” he growled as he looked straight at Dante.

Dante's eyes narrowed.
Come on and try, beast. I'll fry that fur right off you.

Cassie hurried toward a cabinet on the right. She pressed her thumb against the screen on a small locking pad, and the lock hissed open. “I need to give him his dosage. He's due for one now, and Charles always gets nervous when he has to come inside and do it.”

Charles was afraid the wolf would eat him.

The glowing stare followed Cassie's movements. The beast looked like he wanted to make a meal of her.

Not happening.

“How much of him is man?” Dante demanded. He wanted to know just what he was dealing with in that room.

“All of him,” Cassie snapped as she pulled out a needle from the cabinet. “Trace is in there, and from what I've determined, he understands everything we say.”

Dante realized the beast was staring at him. He bared his own teeth. “Screw off.”

The beast heaved against his chains.

So he
did
understand.

“Dante! Don't! Don't antagonize him in any way. Trace is inside, but the Lycan-70 dosage that he was given put his beast in charge. He can't change back to his normal form, and he can't shift fully. He's”—her breath exhaled on a rush—“trapped like this.”

In a form somewhere between man and beast.

She headed toward Trace, acting like she didn't see the claws and fangs that would rip her apart.

Dante grabbed her.

The man-beast snarled.

Dante snarled right back then told Cassie, “You aren't injecting him! Get Charles and his cowardly ass back in here to do the job!”

She shook her head, sending her hair brushing over his arm. “Trace isn't going to hurt me.”

Dante wasn't in the mood to test that theory.

“He won't,” Cassie said, sounding so sure. “I've given him dozens of injections, and he's never attacked me.”

“There's a first time for everything.” Dante didn't let her go. “If his beast is in control, he could attack at any moment.”

Her fingers tightened around the syringe. “He won't. Just . . . give me a minute to do this, all right? Once he gets the dosage, he'll be calmer. He always is.”

Dante wasn't sure he bought that bullshit. The thing he
was
sure of? He didn't want Cassie getting any closer to Trace.

“Give it to me,” Dante gritted because he knew what he had to do.

She blinked.

Dante smothered a sigh. “Give me the damn syringe. If anyone's getting close to the guy, it sure won't be you.” He could handle himself if the wolf got wild. He'd just burn the beast.

But Cassie was hesitating. “I don't want you killing him.” Dante took the syringe from her. “Then he'd better not attack me.”

Sure enough, as he stepped toward that man-beast, the guy tried to lunge for him.

“You don't want to piss me off,” Dante told him, voice flat. “You won't like it when the anger burns through me. No one ever does.”

The man-beast snapped his teeth together.

And Dante drove that syringe into the fellow's throat in one fast, hard hit.

A loud, echoing howl broke from Trace, and he sagged in his restraints, falling down to his knees.

Dante carefully eased back, watching the guy closely.

The claws didn't vanish. Those bulging muscles didn't change. So far, that injection wasn't doing anything. How long was it supposed to take before—

The guy's head tilted back. His eyes weren't quite so wild. The beast still glowed there, but Dante could have sworn he saw a hint of the man, too.

“Thank . . . you . . .” Trace gasped as his shoulders sagged forward.

Cassie took the syringe from Dante. Disposed of it. Then she was back, sliding toward the kneeling werewolf. “I told you,” she said as she glanced back at Dante. “He's calmer after the dose.”

Calmer, and far more human.

Dante frowned, but he didn't try to stop Cassie when she approached Trace.

Cassie reached out and slid her hand against the werewolf's arm.

Trace looked at her. “You . . . came . . . back . . .” Each word seemed to be a struggle for him.

Cassie nodded and smiled at the guy.

Yes, the werewolf was calmer, but Dante wasn't. With that touch and smile, the tension in his body deepened.

“I told you that I'd be back. And Dante over there? He's here to help you.”

The werewolf's eyes turned to him. Weighed him. “How?” Trace rasped.

How indeed.

“Let me work on that part,” Cassie said. “But first, I need to check you out. So let's just keep those claws away.” She started to check the werewolf. Putting a stethoscope against his heart. Drawing his blood.

Running her hands over his back.

Dante's back teeth clenched.

It was a clinical exam. Nothing sexual there at all, but—

He remembered the lieutenant colonel's words
. Her lover is sick. Not sick so much as transforming. If she can't help her werewolf, she'll lose him, and Cassie doesn't want to lose Trace.

Cassie wasn't Trace's lover. Dante knew that. Cassie had never been anyone's lover.

But mine.

He stayed close during the exam, not trusting those knife-like claws, but Trace made no move to attack Cassie. By the end of the exam, he was sitting in a metal chair, the chains pulling against him.

“Okay, that's all for now.” Cassie rose to her feet. “I'll run the blood work and see where we are—”

“Cure . . .” Trace growled.

Cassie nodded. “I think we're close, Trace. I do. With Dante here—”

But Trace gave a hard shake of his head. “Cure . . . or kill . . .”

Dante eased closer to Cassie. The werewolf had better not be threatening her.

“Cure . . .” Trace said again, his face locked in desperate lines as he struggled to speak. “Or . . . kill . . . me.”

Dante felt the ripple of shock go through Cassie's body. “We're not to that point, Trace! There's hope. You just need to give me more time.”

Dante wasn't seeing hope in Trace's gaze. And that gaze swung to him. The same plea the werewolf had just voiced to Cassie was in that stare.

“Why the hell is everyone asking me to kill them?” Dante muttered. He didn't like the pain that he could suddenly feel emanating from Cassie. She shouldn't know pain.

“You.” He pointed at the werewolf. “Save the death wish for later. Dying is easy. I know—I've done it more times than I can count. Use the power of your beast and live.”

Anger flared in Trace's eyes. He surged to his feet, but the chains stopped him from advancing.

Dante smiled at him. “Maybe one day those chains won't be on you. Maybe . . . if you stop asking folks to
kill
your mangy ass . . . you can be free.”

The anger made the glow deepen in Trace's eyes.

Good.
Anger was far better than desperation.

Better than hopelessness.

Dante pushed Cassie toward the door. She had her tests to run, and, well, now that the wolf was getting amped again, Dante didn't want her close to him any longer.

Cassie slipped from the room.

“Her . . . smell . . . ”

Dante looked back at the werewolf 's rough words.

“Mate . . .” Trace growled.

Anger pumped through Dante. “No, she's not yours, so don't even think—”

“Dangerous . . . protect her . . .”

“I'll keep her safe, because she's
mine.
” Had been, for longer than Cassie even realized.

Dante left the room. Cassie sealed Trace back inside. Had she heard what the wolf said? What he'd said?

A tear slid down her cheek. Dante bent and wiped that tear away.

“He didn't deserve this. Trace was just trying to help his friends. He was helping them when
my
brother—”

She had a brother?

“My brother injected him with Lycan-70. Richard knew how dangerous that mix was, but he didn't care.” Her hand raked through her hair. “That's always been my family's problem. They just don't
care
who they hurt.”

She cared. Cared so much that she was risking her life for a werewolf who could choose to
take
his own life at any moment.

“You aren't like them.” Her tear was cool on his finger. “You were never like them.”

She swallowed and gave a slow nod. Then she exhaled. “You should get some rest. I need to run these tests.”

She pulled away, straightened her shoulders, and headed back down the hallway.

Dante didn't move. His gaze followed her until she turned the corner.

He had two choices. He could destroy the lab and everything that linked her to it. Then he could take her. She would know only him.

Or . . . he could help her. Help her save the werewolf. Help her try to stop the primal virus from spreading.

He'd never been one to help.

He just took what he wanted. Let the rest of the world save or destroy itself.

No, that wasn't exactly true. Centuries before, he had tried to help.

Madness had swept through his village. Turning all those of his kind against one another. He'd tried to fight the madness, tried to save his brother.

But there were some who couldn't be saved. No matter how hard he'd tried, he couldn't save them. He'd been forced to fight Wren.

And, in the end, he'd sent his brother to hell.

Dante glanced at the closed door.

Help or destroy . . .

For Cassie, maybe he'd do a bit of both.

W
hen the alarm rang, shrieking through the lab, Cassie jumped to her feet. She'd been working with her samples for hours, and silence had been her only companion.

Until then.

Her gaze flew to the monitors. The alarm was coming from room eight.

Not Trace's room.

Oh, crap.
Room eight. It was for the only primal vampire she had in the facility.

She grabbed a wooden stake from her desk drawer, even as she prayed that she wouldn't have to use the weapon. That primal—she'd promised his father that she would do everything possible to save him.

But if he was loose and tried to attack someone, she'd have to stop him.

Charles was in the underground lab. Jamie was there, too. He wouldn't make it through another attack.

Cassie grabbed for a dosage of tranqs, then hurried forward. She shoved open the sliding doors that led from her work area and raced toward room eight. Her shoes slapped against the tile even as her heart thundered in her chest.

The door to room eight was open.

No, no, it
shouldn't
be—

She sprang into the room.

Vaughn Adams, the vampire, had his arms wrapped around Jamie. The primal's teeth were inches from the boy's throat.

One bite, and Jamie would be infected too.

“Stop!” Cassie yelled.

Vaughn's head jerked toward her. His nostrils widened.

“Let him go, Vaughn.” She'd had no treatment success with Vaughn so far. All of the serums, the drugs—nothing could give him back even a hint of his humanity.

Jamie whimpered.

Cassie's fingers curled around the stake. She'd agreed to help Vaughn, but she would not let him hurt the boy.

She stepped forward, and her right foot kicked against—another stake? Her gaze followed the stake as it rolled a few inches away, then her eyes whipped back up when Vaughn hissed.

“Tasting . . . you . . . soon . . .”

So he'd told her before. Once upon a time, Vaughn Adams had been a New Orleans cop, a guy torn between the paranormal and normal world. A bite from a primal vampire had sent him into a walking nightmare. One that, after months, he still hadn't been able to wake from.

“Why wait?” She lifted the sharp point of the stake and slid it over her wrist, drawing forth some blood. “Come and get it now.”

“No!” Jamie shouted, his eyes bulging.

Vaughn shoved him aside and came right at her, all those terrible fangs in his mouth snapping.

“Cassie!”
Dante's roar. The alarm had drawn him to their little party.

She didn't look back at Dante. She couldn't take her eyes off Vaughn. One taste of her blood, and he'd be dead.

She wasn't ready to give up on him yet.

When he came at her, she yanked up her left hand—the hand that had been in the front pocket of her lab coat. Her fingers were curled around a syringe—one full of enough tranqs to knock the guy out for a week.

She drove that syringe into his heart.

But he didn't stop. His hands locked around her shoulders and he yanked her up against him.

No, no. He should have been on the floor. He should have . . .

“Bad mistake, vampire.” Dante's voice was lethal and cold, so at odds with the sudden heat in the room.

Vaughn's mouth was inches from Cassie's throat.

But . . . he wasn't biting her.

Cassie lifted her lashes. She stared into Vaughn's eyes. Bloodlust stared back at her.

But he wasn't biting her.

In the next instant, he
couldn't
bite her. Dante had yanked her away from the vampire then turned, putting his body between her and Vaughn. Dante's hand was suddenly lit by fire as he reached for the primal.

Vaughn fell to the floor before Dante could touch him. “He dies,” Dante said. “He
dies.
”

Cassie couldn't let that happen. “No! Don't touch him!” She pulled Dante back. “He's not a threat now.”

“He wanted to
bite
you.” Dante stared at her as if she were crazy.

Only a little.

“He could have killed you!” Dante charged.

“You know that's not true.” Her words were quiet. “My blood would have killed him in an instant.”

Dante's eyes blazed at her. “And what about the kid?” He jabbed a finger toward the cowering Jamie. “Do you want him to become like his brother? Like this bastard here?”

She flinched. “You know I don't! I'm trying to help—”

“Some beings are too dangerous to help! Some only need to be put down.”

She'd heard those same words before. They'd come from her father. “My father said the same thing about you once.”

Dante's hands fell to his sides. “He was right.”

She shook her head.

“Why is he here?” Dante's gaze was on Vaughn's prone form.

“I need a test subject if I'm going to find a cure.” She hated those cold words, but they were true. “I have to see if I can reverse the primal state with the vampires, and Vaughn—Vaughn's father begged me to try and help him.”

“Helping . . . him?” Jamie's voice was shaky as he rose to his feet. “You didn't help my brother.”

“He took my blood,” she whispered. “There wasn't a chance for me to help—”

“You let my brother die, when there could be some kind of—of cure?” Jamie's face darkened.
“There's a cure?”

They needed to get out of that room. She wanted to make sure Jamie was safe, and if she was wrong about the drug's effects on Vaughn, she didn't want the boy getting attacked again.

She reached for Jamie's hand.

He jerked away from her. “I saw him die”—his voice thickened with pain and fury—“when there was a
cure
?”

Dante grabbed the boy and hauled him from the room.

“Wait, jerk! Let me go! You need to let—”

Dante dropped Jamie in the hallway.

Cassie secured the door shut once more. How had it even opened? How had Jamie gotten in there?

“There's no cure yet,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “I'm working on it, hoping—”

“Tim didn't have to die!”

He had. The instant he took her blood his fate had been sealed. “There's something different about me,” she confessed to Jamie. “Vampires—all vampires—have a terrible reaction to my blood.”

Jamie had stomped toward the right wall. “Reaction?”

“It kills them,” Dante said bluntly. “Your brother was dead the instant he put his mouth on her.”

The bright color leached from Jamie's face.

“What were you doing in there?” Cassie asked, shaking her head. “
How
did you get in there?”

Jamie opened his fist. She saw Charles's access card in his hand. One swipe of that card, and Jamie would have been able to get inside any room in the place.

“Charles . . .” Jamie rasped. “He asked how I hooked up with you. I told him about my brother . . .”

“And Charles told you about the primal here.”
Dammit.
She'd been so rushed to get back to her research that she hadn't taken time for detailed instructions. She should have been more clear with Charles about the boy.

“He told me . . . to stay away from this room because of the guy in there.”

So Charles had been trying to protect Jamie.

It looked like Jamie hadn't wanted protecting. She remembered the stake that had rolled across the floor.

“I swiped the access card after I saw Charles open a few doors with it.”

“And you came inside to kill the primal.”

“My brother is
dead
! All of them should be dead, too!” Jamie swiped a hand over his eyes. “Tim was all I had! We were going out to LA! Going to start a life . . . His life is
gone
! It's all gone! Because of those fanged freaks.”

No, it was gone because of her father and his experiments. More lives destroyed, all in the name of science.

“I'm sorry,” Cassie whispered.

“If you're really sorry, you'll go back in there and stake that bastard.” Jamie spun on his heel and stalked away. “Send him to rot with my brother.”

Cassie watched him storm out of sight.

“Are there . . .” Dante began quietly, “any more . . . experiments . . . here that the boy needs to watch out for? I'd sure hate for him to stumble onto something that might feel the urge to eat him.”

Cassie shook her head. “Only Trace and Vaughn are here. The rest of the place is empty.” Cassie tried to brush by Dante. “I need to get back to work—”

He caught her, caged her between his body and the wall. “What happens if you can't cure them?”

Cure . . . or kill . . .

She didn't want to think about Trace's words then. “I told you, I will cure them.”

“If you
can't
? Will you kill the werewolf?”

Her chest ached. “Why does it always have to be about killing? Can't I save someone?” She pushed against Dante's chest.

He didn't back away. “Still trying to atone for the sins of others, aren't you?”

“No. It's my own sins I'm atoning for.”

Trying to, anyway.

Failing.

“Fine.” He bit out the word, and finally—thank you!—backed away. “You want to cure 'em? You want your shot at this? Then let's go.”

What?

The guy was half-dragging her down the hallway and back toward her office. Apparently, they
were
going.

“You think a phoenix is the key, then go ahead, slice me. See if you can find the key in me.”

They were in her workroom. He walked to a tray of instruments near the left wall and picked up a scalpel.

She tried not to remember the feel of a scalpel slicing into her own skin.

“Where should I get?” Dante sat on the gurney in the office. “Will this work? And don't worry about strapping me down. I won't fight.”

As he'd fought before, when the Genesis scientists had spent years slicing him open. Dissecting him while he'd still been alive.

“Dante . . .”

“That was the point of me coming here, right? So you could use me? To save them?”

Cassie swallowed. Took the scalpel from him. Put it away.

“You're gonna have a hard time getting your samples with your bare hands,” he muttered.

Her lips wanted to tremble. How had everything gotten so messed up? “I just want to help.”

“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?”