Playing With Fire (20 page)

He lifted his hand and touched the glass.

She did not lift her hand.

“The phoenix is always with us, but in those moments, when it felt the blood of its own kind . . . a new hunger hit me. Hit us all. And the fight for dominance began.” Dante swallowed the ash. “When the fire died away, I was left standing. I thought it was over, but then my brother came for me. Wren cut my head from my body.”

Her hand rose then. Pressed against the glass over his. “Dante . . .”

“The fire started. I began to rise, and, through the flames, I saw him coming at me again. I knew Wren was going to kill me. My hearing was coming back, and Zura's words were ringing in my ears, even over the crackle of flames.
‘Kill him . . . kill him . . . let us be free!'
”

His brother had tried his best to kill him.

“What happened?”

Dante forced a shrug. “I didn't die. They did.” Zura should have been more specific with her words. She'd never named him, so Dante had risen, and a siren had ordered him to kill—and he had.

His fire had exploded—going for Wren and Zura. When Zura had begun to burn, Wren had lost his last hold on sanity.

I'm sorry, brother.
Dante had wished again and again for a different ending.

“Because of what happened then, you think every phoenix will come after you now?”

He shoved away the image of his brother. “It's what we do. That wasn't the only attack. Word spread after that—a phoenix's weakness is his own kind.”

“So it's better to be the
only
one, than to have a threat out there? That's crazy!”

“That's the way of the phoenix,” he told her quietly.

“That's the way of the insane. Cain isn't a threat to you. He isn't—”

“He'll realize what you are.”

“No, he doesn't think I'm
anything
but human. I asked him if I sounded different. If I smelled different. You know what he said? That his Eve smelled like paradise and temptation. Like every dream he'd ever had.”

There was an odd note in her voice. Almost . . . envy?

“He's not hearing any siren song from me, and I'm—I'm starting to wonder why you're lying to me.”

“He's mated,” Dante said, understanding at once.
Smelled like paradise and temptation.
That was the way a mate smelled to a phoenix. The way that Cassie smelled to—

“He's in love with Eve, yes, but that shouldn't affect the man's ability to smell a difference in me.” Cassie turned away. “Get some sleep, Dante, we can talk tomorrow.”

“You're . . . leaving me?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Sucks, doesn't it? Now you know how I felt when you locked me in that closet.”

“I was protecting you.”
The woman should understand that.

“No.” A sad shake of her head. “You were protecting yourself. From a threat that doesn't even exist. Wake up, Dante. This isn't a world full of sirens and phoenixes any longer. You don't have to battle your own kind. But you
do
have to learn to trust them.”

And she truly did just leave him.

The door closed behind her with a soft click.

But she didn't leave him alone.

Dante had known that another was there, even if Cassie hadn't realized it. Another had been standing just outside his cell door the whole time they were talking. Listening to them. Waiting for the moment when Cassie left.

The lock turned slowly, disengaging.

Cain stalked inside. The phoenix pulled the door shut behind him.

No Cassie. No Eve.

“I think we have some business to finish,” he murmured.

Yes, they did.

 

“Why are you crying?”

Cassie stiffened at Jamie's voice. She'd thought that he was asleep, safe and secure for the night.

But there he was, standing at the front of the small makeshift bedroom she'd claimed for herself.

Cassie was sitting in a wobbly, wooden chair, and it trembled a bit as she hurriedly swiped her hands over her cheeks. “I'm not crying,” she immediately denied.

He lifted a brow and looked far too old for his fourteen years.

“Fine. I was crying. A little.” She sniffed.

He crept toward her. “Because of what I did?”

“No, because of something I did. Something that I wanted to make right. I'm not sure I can anymore.” She'd clung to hope for so long, but it was vanishing.

Jamie came closer. Hesitated, then awkwardly patted her shoulder.

Cassie almost started crying again. “We . . . we're still looking for your family, Jamie. The foster family that you were with has moved and—”

“I don't want to go back to them.” His voice had chilled. Frowning, she looked up at him.

“I told you that. Not ever. When I was there, they didn't want me.” His shoulders straightened. “They got a check for having me, and that's all they needed.”

“Jamie . . .”

“Did your father . . . Did he really make the primals?” She swallowed the lump that wanted to choke her. Jamie had a right to know. “My father was a scientist. He . . . worked with the paranormals. He was supposed to be making a stronger soldier . . . to help protect the country.”

Jamie frowned. “Did he?”

She shook her head. “He got lost.” That was the way she'd always thought of him, even as a child. “He stopped noticing the danger of what he was doing. He took humans, tried to give them the strength of vampires, but none of the weaknesses.”

Jamie's eyes widened.

“He made the primal vampire virus, then he tried to keep the vampires he'd created contained, but you just can't—” She had to swallow again because that damn lump was choking her. “You just can't hide some things in the dark.” Like she'd tried to hide her true identity. Her name wasn't just Cassandra Armstrong. It was Cassandra Armstrong Wyatt.

Jamie studied her a moment, then said, “If you can't cure them, then we have to kill them. Every single one.”

Vaughn
.

“Not yet,” she whispered. “There's still—”

“How many humans are you gonna let die before you realize those primals
all
have to be stopped? Not cured? Just wiped away from the earth.” Jamie's hands had fisted at his sides. “We need the freaking marines in here! It's a war—and we have to fight them.” He gave a hard shake of his head. “Not cry over them. Not
them.
” He rushed from the room.

She didn't blame him, not for his anger and not for running away. How many times over the years had she wanted to turn and run away?

More than she could count.

But it was her mess. One she'd inherited. One she had to fix.

Her steps were slow but certain as she made her way to the lab.

Eve was there, keeping vigil over Trace, when Cassie entered the room.

Eve glanced up. “Do you think,” she began quietly, “that we'll ever cure him?”

“Yes.” It was what Cassie had to believe.

And she knew what she had to do.

Dante had said that his tears hadn't healed her in New Orleans. If the tears of a phoenix weren't what she needed, then maybe . . . just maybe . . . she already had the cure.

Inside of her.

“During your research on Genesis, did you come across any information on a Lieutenant Colonel Jon Abrams?” Cassie asked her curiously.

Eve gave a slow nod. She might have attended med school, but she'd dropped out of the program to pursue her true passion—journalism. Cassie had leaked information about Genesis to her, and then Eve had gone undercover at the facility in order to see firsthand just what was happening.

It was because of Eve that Genesis had been destroyed.

“He was one of the recruits in the shifter program,” Eve said slowly. “A success, from all accounts. Enhanced hearing, vision—”

“Strength and speed,” Cassie finished. “And he got the bonus of having ready-made weapons in the form of his claws.”

“Why are we talking about him?” Eve wanted to know.

Cassie walked toward her instrument tray. “Because Genesis isn't fully dead. Uncle Sam is still conducting experiments, and Jon Abrams was the man handpicked to carry on the work started in my father's labs.” Her fingers curled around a scalpel. The sharp blade gleamed. “Jon tracked me when I went to Chicago. He caught me, locked me in an exam room, and then he started . . . taking samples from me.”

Eve's chair squeaked as she rose. “What kind of samples?”

Cassie's hold tightened on the scalpel. “The same kind that you're going to help me take now.” She couldn't do it on her own. And Charles was gone. She'd seen him slip away earlier. He hadn't stopped to tell her good-bye.

She didn't blame him.

But it still hurt.

“Why did he want samples from you?” Eve asked as she crept closer.

Cassie gave her a sad smile. “You knew my brother.”

Eve stilled.

“You had to notice the resemblance,” Cassie said. “I've been told that we have the same eyes.”

“You do.” Quiet. Careful. “But other than your eyes, you are
nothing
like Richard Wyatt.” There was anger there, rage.

Hate.

Most people hated Richard. He'd been as determined to carry through on his twisted experiments as her father had been.

But Cassie didn't hate him. She still remembered a boy who had rushed to her bedside just before her father put her under yet again.

Daddy. Daddy, no! Don't hurt Cass anymore. Use me. Use me, Daddy!

And their father had. He'd started to use them both in his experiments.

Her brother had tried to save her.

Until he'd become twisted, too. From the experiments? She thought so.

“I don't like to remember him the way he was at Genesis,” Cassie whispered. “I like to remember the boy he was—when we were both too young to see the monsters.”

She looked up and read the pity in Eve's stare. Cassie handed the other woman the scalpel. “My father experimented on me and Richard. He made us different.”

“Is your blood poison, too?”

Eve had always been resourceful. Cassie wasn't surprised that the reporter knew Richard's secret.

“To vampires, yes, but I think there's more that is . . . different with me.” Cassie stumbled over the words. She had almost said . . .
I think there's more that's wrong with me.
“In New Orleans, I-I think I died when I was attacked by a vampire.”

Eve sucked in a sharp breath. “And your Dante saved you?”

Cassie's laugh held a touch of bitterness. “No, I thought . . . He said I healed myself.”

Eve blinked.

“So let's find out how I did it, okay? We're going to take samples and we're going to see just what my father may have done to me.”

“Uh, fair warning. I never finished med school. That was just a cover, you know that, right?”

“Don't worry. I'll guide you through it.”

Eve's breath rushed out on a relieved sigh. “So I'm just taking your blood. Nothing major—”

“No, it will be quite major, but we have to get it done.” The secrets that Cassie needed, the cures, could be within her own body. “Just lock the doors. Dante is secure, but I don't want to take any chances on being interrupted.”

“Cassie . . .”

“People need our help. Vaughn, Trace. Let's see just what my father did. Maybe we can use it.”
Use me.
“And some of the nightmares can end.”

Eve gave a grim nod, and they went to work.

 

“I don't want to kill you,” Cain said.

Dante very much doubted that. “Have you killed others of our kind?”

“Have you?” Cain tossed right back.

“Yes.”

Cain's hands clenched into fists. “You're the one they kept in the other lab at Genesis, aren't you? The one they called the Immortal.”

Dante nodded.

Cain's gaze raked over him. “Were you the first?”

“No.”

“Then you don't know, either. You don't know where the hell we came from.”

Hell was a pretty apt description. “Our home was on an old volcano. One that was dormant by the time I lived there, but . . . according to the stories, our village was born of that ash. Born from the fire and brimstone and hell that exploded onto earth.” Dante had first heard those stories when he'd been a child, running around the countryside with Wren at his back.
Wren.
“From that fire, the phoenix came to be.”

Cain just stared at him.

“There were so many of us in the village,” Dante said, shaking his head as he remembered what it had been like
before
.

“Until you turned on each other.”

“Kill or be killed,” Dante murmured. In his mind, he saw the rain of ash that had hit during the deadly battle. A battle started by one woman's whispered word.

“It doesn't have to be that way.”

“Are you sure?” Dante pushed him. “Even now, don't you want to go for my throat? Your mate is in this lab. I know exactly what she is. I know her weaknesses, I know—”

“And I know exactly what
your
mate is,” Cain snapped out, temper biting in the words. “I know Cassie's weaknesses, but I've never hurt her. I
won't
hurt her. We may have a battle between us, but I don't pull in the innocent.”

Dante could respect the other phoenix. He nodded.

“So don't threaten Eve. Don't even look at her sideways.”

Dante's brows lifted. “Does your Eve know that you're in here now?” he asked, curious despite himself. The phoenix across from him was not at all what he had expected.

But then, he'd made sure to stay away from other phoenixes, except for the young female in New Orleans that he'd foolishly tried to save a few months back. Too late, he'd realized that she hadn't wanted to be saved from her vampire lover.