Playing With Fire (8 page)

Because she could heal? She
had
healed before, but what if a bullet hit her in the head? The heart? Would she—could she—heal from an injury like that?

“Go!” Cassie yelled. “They're not going to shoot me!”

But she was wrong. They were firing at them. He bent low and chose the weakest link he could find in that sea of white then drove forward fast and hard.

The man screamed as Dante bore down on him. Screamed and shot. A bullet drove into Dante's chest. One ricocheted off the motorcycle. Another sank into his shoulder.

Dirt flew up around the motorcycle. People were yelling. The helicopter's blades were spinning and sending the air rushing against him.

“Aim for the motorcycle!” It was that same shouting voice. The man who had to be in charge. The man that Dante wanted to rip apart.

Instead . . . he sent a ball of flames flying back at their attackers as the motorcycle raced toward the trees. They were close. Once they made it inside that sweeping band of trees, their pursuers would have a hard time catching up to them.

He tightened his hold on the handlebars, fighting to keep the bike steady.

A bullet sank into the front tire.

Then another hit the back.

The motorcycle spun out of control. Cassie's arms weren't around him anymore. He tried to grab for her, but was thrown from the bike, too. His body flew through the air even as Cassie's scream seemed to echo in his ears.

Then he hit a tree, slamming headfirst into the thick wood, and he didn't hear her scream anymore.

“D
ante?” Cassie ran toward him. Her ankle throbbed—she'd heard it crack—and the skin had been ripped from the side of her right arm when she'd slammed into the ground.

But Dante . . . he'd hit so much harder than she had.

Footsteps thundered toward them. Lights cut through the darkness.

She sank to her knees beside his still body. The moonlight spilled down onto him, and she could see the twisted angle of his neck. That very
unnatural
angle.

Her breath whispered out as her fingers lifted to his throat. No pulse.

The thud of approaching footsteps came closer. Ever closer.

She could run. There was time. She could leap to her feet and disappear into the forest. She might even get away.

She didn't run. She just eased closer to Dante. Her bruised fingers brushed back his hair. Blood was trickling down his forehead. When the motorcycle had started to spin, she'd tried to hold onto him, but she hadn't been strong enough.

The lights fell on her. Too bright and hot.

“Is he dead?” The voice came from behind the light. It was a voice she'd grown to hate over the years. Once she realized just what the man truly was.

“For the moment,” Cassie said quietly. The words were the truth. She glanced down at Dante's still face, lit so well by the shine of flashlights. “While you can, you and your men need to get the hell out of here.” Because when Dante rose, there would be no controlling him. In an environment like that, where there were so many trees and miles and miles of wilderness, a phoenix would be capable of doing an immense amount of damage.

“We'll be leaving,” she was told. Then the leader of the group stepped forward, and Cassie glanced up to see the hard features of Lieutenant Colonel Jon Abrams. He stared down at her. “But you'll be coming with us.”

Jon hadn't changed much since she'd last seen him. Same hard, handsome face. Same military short, blond hair. Those deceptive blue eyes. He could look so harmless with those eyes.

But when he wanted, those eyes could be lethal.

Dante's skin began to heat beneath her touch. Already, he was coming back to her. Sometimes, the risings were fast. Brutal.

So destructive.

What would this rising be like? Would he come back, full of fury and sending flames at everyone and everything in his path?

Would he know her?
Please, know me. Come back with the memories.
It could happen. She'd seen him come back with his memories . . . maybe . . . two times before.
Bring them back now.

But she knew that, all too often, he came back only as a beast.

“I'd suggest that you step away from him, Cassie.” Jon was actually trying to sound like he cared.

She had to give him credit. He'd always been a good actor. He'd convinced her once that he actually wanted to marry her.

“We've gone to a lot of trouble to find you,” Jon continued, “and we're not eager to watch you burn.”

Her lips twisted. She called the lie. “Aren't you?”

He lunged forward and caught her wrist. Yanked her up and away from Dante, his strength far more powerful than a human's should have been. She fought him, punching and kicking, but Jon wasn't letting her go. “You aren't”—he growled out the words as he twisted her hands behind her—“dying for him.”

He would throw that up at her. Just because she'd almost died once before, while trying to save Dante, didn't mean she had some kind of death wish.

Jon bent over her, and his mouth brushed near her ear. “I want you to stand back and watch him rise. Watch the monster that you risked so much for.”

Wait. He
wanted
Dante to rise? But Dante would just kill them all if—

Her gaze flew toward the men who'd swept onto the scene. Men in those heavy, fireproof suits.

“The guys in the government labs have been making some modifications,” Jon told her softly. “When your phoenix burns, he's at his weakest, right? Well . . . we're about to have a little test.”

No, it wasn't a test. It was an execution. If those fireproof suits were strong enough, the men could get close enough to kill Dante.

Then there would be no rising. Not if they destroyed him as he was regenerating. Not if they destroyed him in that one weak moment.

“No!” Desperate, she stopped fighting, knowing that if she was going to help Dante, she would have to catch Jon off guard. “Don't do this!”

“He's a monster that can't be controlled. The orders came from above.”

She heard the smug pleasure in Jon's voice. He'd hated Dante since the moment he realized . . .

I love him.

“What can't be controlled must be killed,” Jon told her. He jerked his head to the left, and, at that signal, two men in white began to advance toward Dante's prone body.

“Don't do this! He hasn't even started to burn yet!” Cassie cried out.

“He will soon enough.”

She still wasn't fighting him. If she didn't fight, he might lower his guard and loosen his hold. The instant that hold loosened, she'd escape.

“I thought you wanted him alive. He's the most powerful of his kind! You need his DNA—”

“I don't need him at all. He's a threat that will be eliminated.”

The men were close to Dante. Too close.

And . . . she could smell smoke. Could see the faint tendrils rising from his body in the bright light.

When he burned, they'd attack. There might be no more risings. No more Dante.

“Nothing is stronger than his fire.” She hoped that was true. Prayed it was. But in the government's secret labs, anything could be created—and had been.

A suit to resist a phoenix's fire?

No, please, no.

“We're about to find out.” Jon still held her.

“They'll die!”

He didn't respond. Did he care if those two men in white died?

No, he didn't. She'd seen beneath his mask too late. He wasn't concerned with collateral damage. He never had been.

But . . . but his hands weren't holding her as tight anymore. His attention was totally focused on his two men as they closed in on their prey. One man had his gun just inches from Dante's head.

“Wait for the flames!” Jon yelled. “If you attack too soon, it won't do anything. He can only be destroyed when he's actually rising! The regeneration isn't complete then!”

“That gun had better be phoenix fireproof, too,” Cassie snapped. “Because if it isn't, your boys are going to die!”

The fire began to burn along Dante's body. Sweeping up, flaming higher and higher.

“Go to hell, shifter.” Jon's rough snarl had nausea tightening her stomach.

But his grip on her eased even more as he moved a bit to the side in order to better watch the show.

Your mistake.

She drove back with her elbow. Slammed it into his stomach and jumped forward.
“Dante!”

The man with the gun was leaning closer to him.

Jon tried to grab her. Not happening. A burst of speed and a wild lunge shot her forward, slamming her body into the man in white—the jerk who thought he'd shoot her phoenix.

They hit the ground. Rolled. When she looked up, that gun was pointed right between her eyes.

“Stand down!” Jon yelled. “Stand—”

The
whoosh
of fire cut through his words. She felt the heat lance her skin, and she glanced up in time to see flames rolling toward her.

The other man who'd approached Dante—the second man in the fireproof suit—was rolling on the ground. His suit was burning.

So much for being fireproof.

“Nothing is strong enough to resist a phoenix's burn,” she said as she glared back at the man with the gun. “Instead of pointing that thing at me, you should be saying thanks. 'Cause I just saved your ass from the flames.”

The guy's buddy was screaming. His teammates immediately started spraying a thick, heavy extinguisher fluid on him.

And Dante kept burning.

The man with the gun hadn't lowered his weapon. He also hadn't said thanks.

“We have to get her out of here.” Jon's voice. He was no longer sounding so smug. He shoved the gun away and hauled Cassie back to her feet. “I'm getting her out in the chopper. Load up in the vehicles and clear out.”

His hand was bruising her as he yanked her behind him. Her gaze flew around the area. The man who'd burned—he was out of his suit, looking unharmed, but shaken.

Another few moments, and he wouldn't have been so lucky.

“Dante!” She shouted his name as her gaze focused on the fire that surrounded him. She couldn't even see him over the flames. The fire was so high. Raging. Consuming.

She dug in her heels, fighting to stay back. She couldn't get on that helicopter with Jon. He'd make her disappear, just as Genesis had made so many others disappear over the years.

She had work to do. People who were counting on her down in Mississippi. Cassie knew that if she didn't get back to them, they'd die.

Or . . . they'd kill.

“Let me go!”

But Jon didn't let her go. “Couldn't do this the easy way, could you? Sorry, baby, but I don't have any drugs to give you.”

Good.
That would mean that she could keep fighting him. She punched him.

He punched her right back with a punch that had a whole lot more strength than hers. The blow staggered her. When she stumbled, Jon lifted her into his arms. “Get that chopper moving!” he yelled.

The wind beat against her. The
whoop-whoop-whoop
filled the air again.

But she still heard the roar of fury quite clearly. They all did. As that roar shook the night, everyone seemed to freeze for a moment.

She lifted her head, fighting to see Dante. She knew that roar had come from him.

She'd heard him make the same sound before. Or, rather, she'd heard the phoenix make that sound.

But Jon was shoving her into the helicopter. Holding her down.

“Get us out of here!” he snarled to the pilot.

Her gaze flew over his shoulder.

The flames had died down, fallen just enough for her to see that Dante was standing strong. His shoulders were bare—the fire always burned away his clothes—and he was striding forward.

He was looking at the helicopter.

At her.

“Dante!” She had to get to him. If she didn't stop him, he'd rage out of control.

But Jon's hold on her wasn't loosening.

“Dammit, he'll kill them!” Cassie cried.

Dante's fire was racing out and following the fleeing men in their not-so-phoenix-proof suits.

Jon frowned. “You're the mission, not them.”

The helicopter was rising into the air.

Dante ran toward her. Faster.

“Don't kill them!” she screamed. “Dante, pull the fire back! Pull it back!”

He was still running. The flames were burning.

She had to get out of that helicopter.

“Hold her!” Jon snapped.

Hard hands grabbed her—one of his men? She was shoved against one of the helicopter's seats. Held down.

Jon lifted his gun and fired. Six shots. In fast succession. “That'll buy the men on the ground some time.”

She knew what he'd done.

Six shots. Jon had always been such a damn fine shot.

“Three to the heart,” Jon said. “Three to the head.”

Her lips trembled, but she lifted her chin. “He'll come back.”

“Doesn't he always?” Jon glanced down at her. “But he won't be able to find you. Hell, maybe we'll be lucky, and he won't remember you at all.”

She was buckled into a seat then. Jon was beside her. Her body ached and throbbed, but that pain didn't matter.

The thing that hurt the worst?

Her heart seemed to have been carved right out of her chest.

She was afraid that he was right. Dante wouldn't find her. Despite her hopes, hell, he probably wouldn't remember her at all.

While she could never forget him.

The helicopter turned, circling around, and she stared down below. A circle of fire surrounded him, showing his splayed body. He'd fallen so that he stared straight up at the sky. He wasn't moving at all.

But she knew that, soon enough, he would be.

Please, please, remember me.

Without him, she wasn't sure she'd be able to escape.

 

The fire swept around him. The flames were like voices. Laughing. Mocking. Burning.

He felt claws dig into his skin. White-hot knives that cut and tore as he fought his way out of hell.

He couldn't stay in the fire. There was something he needed.

Something he had to have.

He shouted as the flames spun around him. Dante fought his way through that fire, determined to get to—

Her.

The flames flickered, and he rose to his feet. The fire was burning beneath his skin, clawing him from the inside, but he took a step forward.

Another.

He could hear the distant whir of a helicopter.

They'd taken her on the helicopter.

The memories were there. Strong and sharp. He could see her face. The delicate beauty. The stark fear that she'd felt as that bastard had taken her away.

A fatal mistake.

The man would die for that.

Dante looked up into the air and saw only the stars. The helicopter was gone.

His Cassandra was gone.

But every memory that he'd ever had—so many lifetimes—those memories were back.

He smiled and began to hunt.

No one takes her from me.

 

Cassie stared at the door of her cell, and wondered if Jon was planning to feed her any time soon. She wasn't exactly sure how much time had passed, but the gnawing in her stomach told her it had been at least a day since she'd left Dante.