Playing With Fire (23 page)

He could kill us all.

The first moments after a rising were the most dangerous.

She wanted to stay with him, but there were others in that place who needed her.

Cassie spun on her heel and rushed back to Jamie and Charles. She shoved against the doors to her work room, but the doors wouldn't open. Her fist banged against them. “Charles! Charles, it's me! Let me in!”

“Is the phoenix with you?” His voice broke with fear.

“No.”
Not yet.
“Hurry, open the door!”

She heard the slide of a bolt—the very large bolt that she'd never used but Charles sure seemed familiar with—and then the doors were opening. Breath heaving, she hurried into the lab. “How's Jamie, is he—”

He was strapped to a table. Convulsing.

Her heart stopped. Her blood hadn't worked.

It was killing him.

 

He knew only the fire. Consuming. Burning. Twisting. He could hear screams, but there were always screams in hell.

The fire of the phoenix came from the bowels of hell.

He felt hands on him, claws that tried to hold him back and stop him from rising.

But he had to rise.

Someone waited on him.

An enemy?

A lover?

Both.

The memories were there, just out of his grasp, burned by the fire that whispered to him. The fire that told him . . . he was strong. The others were weak.

He could destroy.

He could take.

He could do anything he wanted.

And still the fire burned. Burned and burned even as his eyes opened.

The flames had spread from him, scorching the floor beneath him and rising to lick at the walls and ceiling.

He climbed to his feet as his gaze swept around the area. No one else was there.

An alarm was shrieking—a loud cry that annoyed him. And water was shooting from the ceiling.

The water didn't stop his fire. Nothing could stop it.

Then he looked down, past his flames. On the floor, he saw drops of blood.

He inhaled
,
caught the scent, and the phoenix that he was—the beast that had taken over—knew the hunt was starting.

The flames followed him as he went after his prey.

“His blood pressure is skyrocketing!” Cassie tried to hold Jamie down.

Poor Jamie—he was so young. So terribly young. His eyes were rolling back into his head, and a keening cry broke from his lips.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered.

But sorry wasn't going to save him.

“What happened to the phoenix?” Charles asked. He was still by the door, seemingly frozen.

“He's burning, rising.” She couldn't deal with that, too. She gave Jamie an injection. “Come on. Don't do this. S
tay with me.
”

“Rising?” Charles's voice had sure, ah, risen too.

Then she heard him swearing.

The giant bolt—one that was the length of the swinging lab doors, slid into place. Locking them in.

Her gaze flew to him. Charles was shaking his head. “He's not getting in. He's
not
!”

Unfortunately for them, Cassie didn't think that metal bar would be providing them with a whole lot of protection. When faced with a phoenix's fire, the metal would melt.

Dante
would
get in.

One crisis at a time.
She sucked in a deep breath and focused on Jamie once more. He wasn't shaking anymore, and his blood pressure was slowly getting back within the normal range.

Hope began to whisper in her heart.
Live.

Sweat coated his body as if a fever had just broken. She picked up his hands. Studied his nails. No claws. She opened his mouth. Regular teeth. No fangs.

She took some of his blood and rushed to her microscope. Eyes narrowing, Cassie stared down at the specimen.

His blood cells were—not normal, but . . .

Not primal.

The cells weren't mutating into the primal form. In fact, they looked very similar to her own.

“Without the poison,” she whispered, prayed. If his blood was clear, if he could make antibodies for the virus that didn't contain the poison of her blood, then they'd just found the cure.

She was the one shaking.

“Do—do you smell smoke?” Charles asked as he hurried away from the door.

Yes, she did. Had been smelling it ever since she'd left Dante in that elevator.

“Jamie?” Cassie whispered. “Jamie, can you open your eyes for me?”

His breath sighed out.

“I-I can't see anything on the monitors outside,” Charles said. “The smoke and fire are too thick.”

“Jamie?” Cassie fought to keep her own voice calm. “I need you to open your eyes. Look at me.” She'd seen other primal transformations, and, by this point, the victims already had their fangs and claws. The treatment
was
working.

Jamie's lashes flickered. When his lashes lifted, she saw that his gaze was blurry. Lost. “Am I . . . dead?”

She threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. “No, you're very much alive.” Tears stung her eyes.

He stiffened and tried to shove her away. “No, he bit me, I—”

Cassie didn't let him go. “You're the same. No fangs. No claws.”

He shuddered against her. She eased back just a bit and hurriedly got the straps off him so he could sit up. Jamie stared down at his hands with stunned eyes, and then he reached up to touch his teeth. “How . . .”

“You did it,” she told him, unable to stop smiling. “Your blood—mixed with mine—
you
made the cure.”

He shook his head.

“We can stop the spread of the virus.” And, maybe, with a little more work, she might even be able to revert those who were already primals.

“Th-that smoke is getting thicker.
It's coming under the doors
!”

Cassie's head jerked up at Charles's shout. He was right. Smoke was coming under the doors.

Where don't you want to be when a brutal fire is coming toward you?
Trapped underground, with no windows.

There was only one way out of her lab room—through that barred door.

She could hear the crackle of flames coming closer and closer.

Charles turned to her. “What are we going to do?”

Sweat trickled over her skin. It was getting so hot in that room. Too hot. The smoke was making Jamie cough. “We have to get out. The tunnel . . . It's the only way.” They couldn't go back up in that elevator. Fire waited in the elevator, above the elevator—and Jon had to be up there some place, too.

I can't face him now.

She already had one phoenix to deal with.

“We have to get out.” Cassie was coughing, but she rushed toward the door. She reached for the bar—and it scorched her fingers. The heat near the door was blistering. Gasping, she jumped back.

Her gaze flew around the lab. She'd have to find something to use for prying up that bar. If she used her hands, she'd get second or third degree burns. Her gaze locked on the closet and the trusty mop she'd used before. She rushed for the closet.

The doors flew in behind her, bringing in more smoke and flames. Cassie slipped, hitting the floor. She rolled over and looked up—and stared into the burning stare of a phoenix shifter.

“We are so dead,” came the frightened rasp from Charles.

Cassie shook her head. No way. They weren't dead yet. And she didn't plan on any of them dying soon.

She rose on knees that wanted to shake, but forced herself to hold steady. “Dante.” If he remembered her, then this part would be a piece of cake. He'd kill his flames, and they'd all get out of there, no problem.

Easy.

His burning stare locked on her—with no recognition whatsoever.

It wasn't going to be a piece of cake.

“Dante!” She said his name, louder, harder. “Stop the flames!”

He didn't stop them. So much for that siren power.

“You're going to kill us!”

No response. Despite the blistering heat, her skin was chilled.

Cassie crept toward Charles and Jamie. Charles had gotten the boy off the table and was trying to shield Jamie with his body. Cassie lightly touched Charles on the shoulder.

The flames seemed to surge higher.

He doesn't remember me.

Which meant she had to be very, very careful.

“I'm going to distract him,” Cassie whispered to Charles. “When I do, you and Jamie run like hell to the tunnel. Don't stop until you have fresh air in your lungs. And then . . . suck in that air and keep running.”

Charles grabbed her hand. “Are you
crazy
?”

The flames definitely surged higher again. Dante's fire-filled stare centered solely on Cassie.

“Quite possibly,” she confessed. “Get out of here, head to Vaughn's father in New Orleans. We'll meet you there at midnight.” The same thing she'd told to Eve. “Tell him . . . tell him that I think Jamie is the cure.”

Charles's fingers clenched around hers. “And
tell me
that you'll be right behind us.”

“I'll be right behind you,” she whispered.

His eyes were sad. “Cassie, you always were such a terrible liar.”

She stepped in front of Charles and Jamie. “Dante!”

No flicker of recognition.

But he'd told her that a siren could soothe a phoenix's beast. She was supposed to be a siren, so she could do this, right?

She moved toward Dante. Fire was eating at the walls of her lab, and the smoke was going to choke her if she wasn't careful. But she
had
to get Dante away from the exit.

Then she could focus on living and breathing.

“Dante, come to me.” She raised her hand. Tried to tamper down her fear and just project—hell—she wasn't even sure what she was projecting. But she was scared and most definitely stressed, and he'd told her that he thought her power came out at times like that.

He was advancing toward her.

Charles and Jamie began to edge to the side.
Yes, yes. Keep going.

“Your fire will burn me,” Cassie said, locking her gaze on Dante. “Do you want that? Do you want to hurt me?”

An expression of confusion crossed his face.

“Do you know me at all?” She eased a bit to the right.

He followed her.

Cassie took another two cautious steps to the right, then back.

Again, he followed . . . and opened up the escape path for Charles and Jamie.

They ran for the doors.

Dante never looked their way.

“Please remember me,” Cassie said as she stood there, trapped by the fire and by him. “Dante, tell me that you know I'm—”

“Mine,”
he growled as he reached for her.

She tensed up, expecting to feel the scorch of the fire, but she just felt his warm, strong fingers curl around her shoulders.

She stared into his eyes. The beast he carried was right there, glaring back at her. She wanted to see the man he was—the man that his rising had made him forget.

She'd never asked him what it was like each time he died. She'd heard the whispers at Genesis. The stories that said a phoenix actually went to hell, that it was the hellfire itself that brought him back.

The fire had to come from somewhere, didn't it?

Just what did Dante see when he died?

“Mine,”
he said again, as if claiming her. His hold tightened.

When they'd talked before . . . when she'd told him that she wished there was a way for him to always remember her, he'd said that a siren could lure and control with her voice—and her kiss.

Just kiss me,
he'd said, but no smile had lifted his lips.

Yeah, right, I'll just go through the flames and put my mouth on yours.
She'd been mocking at the time.

Cassie swallowed. She wasn't exactly flush with options. “Remember me,” she whispered, then she closed the distance between them. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and rose onto her tiptoes. Her lips pressed to his.

S
he tasted of sweetness and sin. Her lips were soft and open beneath his, and her tongue pushed lightly into his mouth.

Mine.
It was the thought he'd had when he'd first seen her, surrounded by his flames.

And it was the same thought he had as he tasted her.

His hands were around her, holding her tight, pressing her harder against him. She wore clothes. He didn't. His had been—burned away?

He tried to grab for the memories, but they were just out of reach. All he could remember was fury and fire and—

My need for her.

He deepened the kiss, taking more from her, desperate for that sweet sin. He lifted her up against him so he could control the kiss.

Control her.

She was important, this woman with the dark hair and the green eyes that had shone with her fear, even as she called out to him.

Dante.

His name. He'd known it when it came from her lips.

He thrust his tongue into her mouth. Wanted to thrust into
her.

But that alarm was still shrieking, and water was shooting down on them in
this
room, too.

He lifted his head. Didn't let her go.

The water soaked her, him, but the cool liquid didn't stop his fire. Only he could stop that.

“If . . . if you don't put out the flames, I could die,” she told him, her voice husky.

He killed the flames.

The water continued to pour down on them.

“Th-thank you.” Her voice was . . . soothing.

The phoenix liked it. Wanted to hear more.

“We need to get out of here. We have . . . enemies close by. We have to run, Dante. Do you understand that? We
have
to run.”

He didn't want to run. He wanted to fuck. Her.

Her gaze searched his. “Tell me that you're starting to remember.”

Fire. Screams. Hell.

“Not yet, huh?” She exhaled and rolled her shoulders back. “Okay. At least I'm still alive and the fire's out. We'll just do this one step at a time.”

She tried to pull away.

He yanked her right back against him and kissed her again. Harder. Deeper.

He wanted more of the sin.

She kissed him back, her tongue sliding against his, and the lust burned through him as powerfully as the flames. He would take her there. Learn all of her, experience—

Her hands shoved against him. “We can't! We're in danger here!”

She's in danger?

“Our enemies will find a way to get to us if we don't move. I told you, we have got to get out of here.”

He wasn't worried about enemies, but he didn't want her afraid.

“We have to go now,” she said, her voice seeming to echo with desperation, and he was powerless to refuse her.

She took his hand and rushed toward the smoldering doors. “There's a secret tunnel.” She stopped and coughed. The smoke was thick. “We need to get to that tunnel, but—” She spun back toward Dante, eyes wide. “Vaughn!”

She was pushing Dante aside. Typing on a computer and staring at the screens around her, even as the water continued to soak her clothes and skin. “He's not here,” she whispered, shaking her head. “He has to be . . .
the tunnel.
”

Dante saw what she was viewing. A man with dark hair was running through a small opening in the wall.

“He got out, but we've got to stop him! We can't let him bite anyone.”

Bite?

“Let's go!” She grabbed Dante's arm again. Trying to pull him.

He frowned at her. “Mine.”

She slapped her chest. “Cassie, okay? Just call me Cassie and let's get out of here.”

He'd rather call her his.

But he ran with her through the doors and down the hallway. Her wet clothes clung tightly to her body, and his gaze fell on her ass.

“Focus!” she called back to him. “Dante—here.” She tossed him a pair of jeans that she'd just jerked from some type of storage locker.

He pulled on the jeans. She stared at him a moment, and he saw the same fear lurking in her gaze once more.

He didn't want her to be afraid. Not ever.

“Stay with me.” Her stare held his.

Always.

They ran, twisting through the halls, and he soon found himself in front of the same narrow entrance that he'd seen on her computer screen.

I remember computers. I remember alarms.
He knew what all of those things were.
Why not her?

But he did remember her . . . Cassie's taste had been familiar to him.

She slipped into the tunnel first, and he followed right behind her. Though it took a bit more maneuvering for him to slide through that narrow entrance.

“Charles and Jamie left the door open,” she murmured. “That's how Vaughn saw it. He's in here somewhere, so stay on guard.”

She yanked the tunnel door closed behind them.

Instantly, they were in darkness.

He could see perfectly.

He heard her sharp gasp.

“Your eyes are still burning.”

His beast was very much in control. He wanted to burn and destroy everything in sight but she was keeping him in check.

“You can see, can't you?” she whispered. She'd put her hands on the left wall and was carefully walking forward in the dark.

“Yes.”

“Good. Because if you see a very hungry vampire coming toward us, give a warning shout, okay?”

Dante saw no point in bothering with such a shout. “I'll just burn him.”

“Ah . . . he's kind of a friend. So focus on the shout.” She stumbled, righted herself, and kept going. “The tunnel is half a mile in length. Once we get clear, we'll hit the woods and try to find some transportation.”

Transportation, in the woods?

Her breathing seemed loud in the tunnel. Fear still rode her heavily, and he didn't want that. He reached out for her, curling his fingers over her shoulder.

He heard a loud boom from behind them—and the whole tunnel started to shake.

“Was that an explosion?” Cassie whispered. Debris began to rain down on them.

From the sound of things, yes, it had been an explosion, and the tunnel was collapsing. Giant chunks of the ceiling hit the ground.

“Dante . . .” The fear had thickened in her voice.

He didn't waste time telling her to run. She couldn't see in the dark like he could. He picked her up, held her slight body tightly in his arms, and raced through the falling tunnel.

The air became thicker the farther he went. He could discern no light up ahead. He said nothing to Cassie, not wanting her to know what he worried—

That they were trapped in the darkness.

More explosions seemed to rock the building behind them. The enemies that Cassie had spoken of—it seemed as if they were trying to blast their way to her.

Dante inhaled deeply, trying to catch a scent past the smoke and dirt. He needed fresh air. Needed an escape for them.

Got it.
He pushed forward, moving even faster, and then he saw it. Not in front of him, but above him. A thin stream of light coming from the ceiling.

There was a ladder to the left, one built into the wall. Cassie climbed up first, and he saw her hand punch out at the ceiling, only it wasn't really a ceiling. The wood above them swung open—a trapdoor. And more light shone down on them. She jumped off the ladder, and he rushed up after her.

They were in a cabin, an old, musty cabin. Someone had left a lantern on the floor, and that was where the light had come from.

“We did it,” Cassie whispered.

Dante wasn't so sure that they'd done anything, not yet. “This place isn't safe.” His body was taut, on edge with tension. Because he could
feel
danger lurking close by.

He went to the door, yanked it open, and stared into the night.

“We'll have to meet the others,” Cassie whispered behind him. “But first we have to find Vaughn. He's a primal vampire and I can't let him stay loose on—”

A loud scream split the night.

Dante tensed.

That scream had come from the right . . . about thirty yards away. In those thick woods.

He stalked forward. The scent of blood teased his nose.

The scream came again, but was abruptly choked off. Dante kept gazing into the darkness.

Cassie ran by him, rushing toward the right and that scream. Her move made no sense to him. Why? Why would she rush
to
danger?

But if Cassie was going that way, so was he. Dante lunged after her.

 

Gone.

Jon watched the flames consume what was left of Cassie's secret lab. Oh, but she'd thought she was clever.

She was wrong.

The flames were crackling as they shot higher into the sky. The explosions had started moments before. Destroying. There would be only rubble and ash left when he was done.

“Was she in there?” Shaw asked as she crept toward him. She wasn't the only one giving him a wide berth. Most of his men looked at him with fear in their eyes.

He'd just risen before them.

They were right to fear him.

“The phoenix wouldn't let her die.” He was certain of that. “He got her out.” The question was . . . how.

Jon turned away from the fire. “Every Genesis lab that I've ever been in has an emergency exit. Cassie would have made sure that her lab had one, too.”

Shaw's eyes widened.

“Get a map of the area. I want to search every building, every cabin, every damn shack within a two mile radius.” An emergency escape had to lead somewhere. When he found that place, he'd find Cassie.

“Are you . . . are you all right?” Shaw asked him carefully.

“Of course. I'm fine, I—”

She pointed to his arms. His face. “You have blisters on you. From the fire.”

He stilled. He hadn't even felt the pain, but as he lifted his arms, he saw the marks that ran from his wrists to his elbows.

Phoenixes weren't supposed to be hurt by the fire.

But then, he hadn't been born a phoenix.

Shit. I need more injections.

More tears from a phoenix.

“Get that search going!” Jon snarled. He'd get his tears, either from Dante or . . .

The female phoenix.

The weak, nearly broken phoenix who had family in New Orleans. Jon hadn't forgotten about her. If he couldn't get to Dante, then he would get to her. In New Orleans, that phoenix had a foster family that he could use in order to get to her.

He would use anyone or anything if it suited his purposes.

And he would
kill
anyone or anything.

He stormed away from the others. He stared into the night. Cassie was out there, he knew it. With Dante.

Jon inhaled deeply, trying to pull in their scents. One of his first enhancements with Genesis had been his sense of smell. It was even better than a full-blooded wolf shifter's.

Fucking better.

He inhaled and caught the coppery scent of blood.

Jon smiled.
I've got you.

“Follow me!” he yelled to his men—those still alive, anyway. His fire had taken out five of them.

 

“Vaughn!”

Cassie broke through the clearing and saw the vampire on the ground. He was moaning, twisting. She rushed toward him—

And found herself jerked back by her phoenix.

“Vampire,” Dante said in her ear. “Don't get close to him.”

But Vaughn seemed hurt. He wasn't talking, just making a faint, moaning sound in his throat.

“Did he get burned?” Cassie whispered. She
had
to get a better look at him.

“I don't smell burns on him.” Dante pulled her closer against his body. “Just blood. The vampire fed recently.”

Oh, no.
Vaughn had gone into that tunnel right after Jamie and Charles. And it wasn't like there were a whole lot of people running out in the night.

Footsteps pounded. Voices shouted.

“Men are coming,” Dante said. “We either kill them or we run.”

Okay, so there
were
a lot of people running out there.

“Vaughn. Vaughn,
look at me,
” Cassie commanded as desperation flooded through her.

Dante's hold tightened.
“Your voice. Sin . . . sweet . . .”

Cassie cleared her throat. Now probably wasn't the best time to have a little chat about her voice. “Vaughn, look at me.”

His head lifted. The moonlight fell over him, revealing the deep lines of anguish on his face. “H-help . . .
burns . . .
”

There was blood on his mouth. Dripping down his chin. “Vaughn, who did you bite?”

“B-boy . . .”

Jamie?

Jamie's blood had the antibodies in it. “I need to get closer to him.” She fought against Dante's too-tight hold.

Dante's mouth was near her ear. “That's not happening. And those men are coming closer. Are they our enemies?”

“Yes.”

“Then I kill them.” He made it sound so simple. Absolute.

She frantically shook her head. Nothing was simple.
“No.”
There had been too much killing. The men with Jon, did they even understand what was happening? “They're just following orders!”

“Then they need to think for themselves.”

Vaughn sank his fingers into the ground, trying to crawl toward her.

Dante sent a line of flame at him, blocking his path. “You
don't
come near her.”

That fire lit Vaughn's face and she saw—Cassie's breath choked out. He didn't have a mouthful of fangs. Not anymore. His canines were still too sharp, but his other teeth actually looked . . . normal.