Playing With Fire (15 page)

“They're lying.”

Her heart slammed into her ribs. “What?”

“Get out of here!” the man yelled at the same time.

“More were bitten. I can smell it, like rot in their blood.”

Oh, crap.

Dante pointed straight ahead. At the man with the shotgun. “He's infected.”

The shotgun blast broke the night, but Dante had moved in an instant. He'd grabbed Cassie and shoved her back against the glass window of the motel.

“I think Jamison might be the only one
not
infected,” Dante muttered. “I can smell the rot on all of them.”

But . . . but they were talking. The primals she'd seen had been barely able to do more than growl and snap with their teeth.

Is the virus still mutating?
That was a terrifying thought. But . . . it had to be.
Mutating,
changing, as it was transferred from host to host.

This was so bad. Very, very bad.

“Why did they tell us to run?” Cassie whispered. She didn't get that. Why not just spring up and attack them?

Crap
—those thudding footsteps were closing in.

“Get away from the woman!” The shout came from the darkness. “Or we'll kill you.”

“They wanted to see what I was before they attacked,” Dante whispered. “I can smell them, and they could smell just enough about me to tell them I was different.”

The motorcycle was about ten feet away. They could run for it, but . . .

What would happen the next time someone stopped for gas or a motel room? It was the perfect place to pick up prey.

The shotgun blasted again. It blew out the glass in the motel's window.

Cassie gasped as a heavy shard of glass embedded in her arm. By habit, she immediately clamped her lips together, holding back any other cries.

Her cries didn't matter. The blood did. And that scent was in the air. As if things weren't bad enough.

“Sweet . . . so fuckin' sweet . . .”

“Blood . . .”

“Mine!”

The voices were wild, frenzied, and suddenly, at least four men were charging for her. As they rushed closer, Cassie saw that their mouths were full of gaping fangs.

“She's not yours.” Dante's voice was flat. “So go to hell.” He opened his hand and sent a ball of fire rolling right toward them.

Cassie grabbed the chunk of glass, yanked it from her arm, and backed away. That fire he'd just sent out—
“The gasoline!”
Had Dante forgotten they were near a
gas
station?

The explosion ripped through the buildings, and the force of the blast sent her flying back through the air. She didn't know where Dante was, couldn't see him at all and—

“Got you.” His voice. The man who'd been talking before. The man who'd shot at them. He grabbed her injured arm.

She felt the slide of his claws over her skin. Then his mouth was on her, and he was drinking her blood. Guzzling it.

“No!” Cassie screamed as she punched at him.

Her punches weren't having any effect.

But . . . her blood was.

He stiffened. Shuddered. Fell onto the ground as he convulsed. His head jerked and twisted and then—he stopped moving entirely.

The virus might be mutating, but her poison still worked.

Her arm throbbed where he'd bitten her.

“Cassie!” Dante was there, hauling her to her feet and running his hands all over her as he searched for injuries. When he touched the blood on her arm, he froze. “Did he—”

“He bit me.” His teeth had torn into her, digging deep. “But I won't turn.” She couldn't. Though the first time a primal had bitten her, she'd been terrified that she'd spout fangs and claws.

But her poison destroyed the virus—and the vampires.

“What the hell are they? I've never seen vampires like them.”

“Genesis made them. They were supposed to be super soldiers.” Her gaze was on that still vampire. The fire that Dante had sent out—burning so bright and hard—lit the scene. The man was definitely dead. Pity. He looked to be so young, barely twenty. “But Genesis just made a virus that took over its host. The progression is fast, so fast . . . all the host soon knows is bloodlust and hunger.”

A bloodlust that could never be fully slaked.

“One bite,” she whispered, “that's all it takes.”

Dante's hold on her tightened. “Are you sure you won't turn?”

She tilted her head to study him. He'd destroyed the other vampires so easily. “Would you kill me, if I did?”

“Will you turn?”
He shook her once, and she could see a stark expression of—was that fear?—in his eyes.

“I can't,” she said softly. “I've been bitten by primals before.” Her head shook. “I don't turn.”

Her blood was poison to them. Not a cure.

“This is why I need you,” she whispered. “These men were probably normal humans until recently. If we can find a cure, we can stop this. But if we don't, I'm scared the primals will take over.” Especially if they were mutating on their own, getting even stronger.

The primals should never have been allowed out of Genesis. But when the facility had fallen in the mountains, some had escaped and gone on a feeding frenzy.

Dante's gaze locked with hers.

“We have to stop them,” she said again.

He gave a grim nod. But then he stiffened and whirled from her.

“Dante!”

He was running away from the fire. Toward the swamp. Toward the man who was staggering toward them.

Cassie rushed after him.

But then he stilled, stopping just a few feet from the man.

He wasn't a man. A boy. Maybe thirteen. Fourteen. Covered in scratches and bruises. His eyes were wide and desperate. “Please,” he whispered, “please kill me.”

Cassie shook her head.

Dante said, “Show me your teeth. Show me your hands.”

Those were nearly the same words that had been given to them.

She could already see the boy's hands. They weren't lined with claws. And his teeth—the boy opened his mouth.

No fangs.

“I don't want to be . . . like them. . . .” His breath panted out. “I saw—saw what you did.” He lunged forward, caught Dante's hand, and put it right over his chest. “Kill me,” he begged again.

“Dante, don't!” She grabbed for the boy.

He started to cry. “My . . . brother was the one with the shotgun. I don't want to be—”

“You're not infected!” Cassie said, then she looked up at Dante's face. He'd said that he smelled the . . . rot . . . from the others. “Is he?”

Dante shook his head. “You shouldn't beg for death.”

The boy shuddered. “It has to be . . . better . . .”

“No, it doesn't. Not if hell waits for you.”

She thought the boy might faint. He was sure weaving. “Are you Jamison?” The guy had said that Jamison ran into the swamp.

A weak nod. “J-Jamie . . .”

“Jamie, what happened?”

“Vampires . . . attacked everyone. W-we staked as many as we could . . . then . . . the others started to change.”

And he'd run.
She looked back up at Dante.

His face could have been carved from stone.

“We can't leave him out here alone.”

Dante jerked his hand away from the boy. “He isn't my concern.” Dante caught Cassie's hand in his. Tried to pull her away.

She wasn't in the mood to be pulled. “More primals could be in the area. We can't just leave him to die.”

“Why not?” Dante shrugged. “It's what he wanted to do.”

Cassie wanted to slug him.

“And what of the others?” Dante asked. “The
more
that you talk about so much, Cassie. Are we supposed to go out and save every human in the area?”

“Th-they killed all those vampires who came,” Jamie whispered.

“You want to save the world,” Dante said, eyes seeming to gleam in the dark. “I don't.”

“I'm not asking for the world.” Not right at that particular moment, anyway. She glanced over at Jamie. “I'm asking for him.”

She was pretty sure that Dante growled.

Then he said, “We can't fit him on the motorcycle.”

“Th-there's a truck, my brother's truck, a few feet back there.” Jamie threw his thumb over his shoulder.

Dante swore.

Cassie glanced at Jamie. “Do you have any other family?”

“N-no, ma'am. It was . . . just me and Tim.”

And she'd killed Tim. She couldn't let the boy die, too. “You're coming with us.”

Even in the faint light cast from the moon and stars, the hope that lit his face was painful to see.

Dante was still swearing.

“Is he . . .
What
is he?” Jamie asked as he wiped his hands over his cheeks. She suspected that the boy was wiping away tears.

“I'm not a hero,” Dante said flatly.

No, he isn't.
“He's the man who'll keep us safe.”

Dante glanced at her but was silent. After a moment, he gave a grim nod.

Jamie's breath rushed out then he was running and leading them toward the old pick-up.

He climbed into the bed of the truck.

Cassie slid into the front with Dante.

He caught her hand. “Why?”

She frowned at him.

“Why do you care about saving people?”

When your family business was wrecking lives, you have a whole lot to make up for.
“I didn't save those vampires.”

“The only way to save them was death.”

She flinched. “There has to be more than that, even for vampires.”

His hold tightened.
“Why?”

“Because I don't want my family to have only been monsters, okay?”
Is that so crazy?
“I want to help, not destroy everything I touch.”

His touch was warm against her flesh. Heating with the phoenix's power. “Why not?” His voice had hardened. “It's what I do.” His hand pulled away from hers. “After a while, you might even start to like the destruction.”

No, she wouldn't.

And she didn't think he did, either.

“How the hell am I supposed to start this thing?” Dante snarled. “There's no key.”

She leaned forward. Pushed under the dash. Her cheek pressed against his thigh.

Dante stilled.

Her fingers fumbled with the wires, and, in a few seconds, she had the engine sparking to life.

She pulled back, aware that his thigh felt rock-hard.

“How'd you do that?” His voice was low.

Cassie swallowed. “I've got a few tricks you don't know about.”

His hand rose to her arm. She flinched. She was still bleeding.

“Yes,” he said softly, consideringly, “you do.”

Cassie scooted as far away from him as she could.

But she could feel the heat of his gaze sweeping over her.

“Get back on the highway, keep driving straight until I tell you to turn.” They could sleep in shifts, and make it back to her base sooner.

Silently, he followed her orders. The black pavement started to disappear beneath the truck's wheels.

She tore part of her shirt away and wrapped up her arm. It seemed like a trend for her—using clothing to bind her wounds. But hey, it worked. When she had the wound covered, Cassie leaned her head against the window's glass, staring out at the night that waited.

So much for an easy pit stop.

The boy was behind them, silent in the bed of the truck. Why hadn't he tried to get up in the front with them?

Because he's probably terrified of us.
Right. She didn't blame him for that. Especially since he'd no doubt watched her kill his brother.

Lately, she'd started to scare herself.

“What will you do if you can't save them?”

She jerked at Dante's voice.

“The shifter that waits for you . . . what if you can't save him?”

“I will save him.”

Dante shook his head. “That's not an answer, you know.”

No, it wasn't. Because she didn't have an answer.

“Will you be able to put him down? Sometimes, death is the only cure.”

She didn't want to think about that, but . . . Dante was right. She looked down at her injured arm.
Death is the only cure.

I
t didn't look like much of a lab to Dante.

He braked the truck. Checked the scrawled directions that Cassie had given to him before she'd passed out. Yes, it was the place.

It looked like a hole-in-the-wall.

His head turned, and he glanced down at Cassie. She was beside him, her head sagging on his shoulder. The boy had finally asked to come up front when the sun rose, and they'd all crammed in together.

The boy hadn't slept though.

Not that Dante blamed the kid. When you watched your family die, it didn't usually put you in the mood for sleep.

“What did she do to him?” Jamie asked, his voice a whisper. It was the first time the kid had talked to him since he'd joined their little road trip from hell.

Dante glanced over at him, and found Jamie's eyes on his.

“My brother. She killed him, didn't she?”

“He killed himself.” The minute he'd taken her blood, he'd been dead.

Jamie shook his head. “I saw . . . he was convulsing after he drank her blood.” His gaze darted to Cassie even as he kept his voice whisper quiet. “What did she do?”

“She lived.” Dante wanted to brush aside the hair that had fallen over her face, but the kid was watching him far too closely.

“What are you?” An even softer whisper.

Dante held his stare. “I'm the man you don't ever want to cross, because if you do . . . if you do anything to hurt me or to hurt her, you won't have to beg me for death.” The boy needed to get this message. Clearly. “I'll kill you before you can even scream.”

Jamie's eyes widened, nearly filling his face, and his Adam's apple bobbed. “You don't scare me.”

“Yes, I do.” Dante scared everyone. Even Cassie, though he knew she tried to act like she didn't fear him. He'd caught glimpses of the fear in her eyes. “She wanted you to come with us, so you did. If it had been up to me . . .”

“You would have left me alone out there.”

Damn straight
. Dante gazed steadily back at him. “Don't ever give me reason to regret hauling you out of that swamp.”

“Dante?” Cassie's husky voice asked. “We aren't moving. We're—” She sat up, snapping to attention. “We're here!”

Yes, wherever
here
was.

She shoved against him, trying to get out. Dante slid over and when she hurried toward the ramshackle buildings, he followed her.

Jamie was on his heels.

“This is your lab?” Dante asked, voice doubtful. It looked like they were in the middle of an old corn field, and the buildings that surrounded them looked like abandoned barns.

“Don't let appearances fool you.” Her voice was actually perky. “This place was set up by the government back in the fifties. They forgot about it.” She pushed aside some wood that was near the door of the barn and quickly punched in a code on a security screen. “My father didn't.
I
didn't.”

“Identify yourself,” a computer voice demanded.

“Doctor Cassandra Armstrong,” she said at once.

The barn door opened—but they didn't head into a
real
barn.

The door slid open to reveal an elevator.

“Told you,” Cassie said, sounding pretty satisfied with herself. “Appearances can deceive you.”

“That is freakin' cool,” Jamie said.

Dante frowned at him.

“Now, we're heading down to the lab.” She bit her lip.

“I'll send Charles back up to hide the truck.”

They were descending, a fast descent that Dante thought took them down two floors. When the door opened again, a thin man with curly hair was standing in front of them.

“Cassie!” He rushed toward her. “I was afraid you weren't coming back!”

The man was hugging her far too tightly.

Dante decided that he didn't like him.

“I'm sorry, Charles. It took a bit . . . longer than I'd thought for the retrieval mission.”

Charles glanced over at Dante. His gray eyes doubled in size. “It's
him.
”

The
him
could hear.

“Is he going to kill us?” Charles whispered as he edged behind Cassie. “It looks like he wants to. It looks like he wants to fry us both!”

Cassie laughed, and the light sound caught Dante off guard. Her laugh was so sweet he wanted to hear it again.

“No, he's not going to kill us,” she said. “He's here to help us.”

Not really, but they'd get around to the true reason for his visit later.

“And the boy?” Charles asked with a questioning glance toward Jamie.

“We need to keep him safe . . . and use our ties to find some of his family who can take care of him.”

Jamie's chin jutted up in the air. “I told you, my family is—”

“There was a primal attack,” Cassie said quietly. “His brother didn't survive.”

Charles's gaze dropped to the bloody shirt that was still wrapped around her arm.

Jamie's shoulders hunched.

“Can you . . . can you put him in one of the unoccupied rooms?” Cassie asked softly. “Give him something to eat?”

Charles nodded. “As long as he doesn't mind the locks on the doors.”

Jamie backed up, edging toward the elevator.

“It's okay!” Cassie quickly reassured him. “Some of the . . . patients here can't be let out.” Her voice was soothing. “You won't be locked in, Jamie. You're free to go anytime you want. I was just offering you a safe place to stay while we looked for your family.”

“I told you, I
have
no family.” The kid was pretty vehement on that point. “Tim and I were in the foster system till he turned eighteen, then he got me out.” Jamie's hands had fisted in front of him. “He said we weren't ever going back.”

And now Tim was dead.

No, there would be no going back for him.

“If you decide to leave”—Cassie kept talking in that same soothing voice—“I just ask that you tell no one about us. Forget this lab. Forget me. Forget Dante.”

Damn if she wasn't soothing Dante, too, and he hadn't even realized he'd needed soothing.

The kid's eyes were like saucers. “Are you making monsters down here? Like I saw on the news—that Genesis place that got blown up—”

“We're healing the monsters,” Cassie said carefully. “Not making them.”

Did she believe that lie? It sure seemed as if she did.

But Jamie was nodding.
Ah, he bought the lie, too.
“I-I'll stay, for now.”

“Good.”

Charles hurried forward. “Come with me, uh—what's your name?”

“Jamie.”

“Come with me, Jamie.”

Dante noticed that Charles gave him a particularly wide berth as the man took the boy down the hallway.

And just like that, he was alone with Cassie again.

“I need to check on Trace.” She turned away from him.

Hold the hell up
. He caught her arm and turned her right back around. “We've been traveling non-stop.” For more hours than he wanted to think about. “You were captured by some military assholes, you were bitten by vampires—and the first thing you want to do is go and check on
him
?” Jealousy was there, clawing at him.

“I have to see if Trace's condition is still stable.”

Screw that.
“Cassie . . .”

She pulled away from him. “I have a room down at the end of the hall.” Her hand rose, and she pointed to the left. “You can go rest in there. I'll see you in a little bit, okay?”

No, that isn't okay.

But the woman didn't wait for an answer. She just spun on her heel and went down the hallway that branched to the right. Did she think that he was Charles? About to jump at her every little command?

She needed to rethink that.

He began to stalk after her. He wanted to see this Trace that she talked about so often. The man that she was desperate to save.

The man that was in his way.

Dante needed Cassie to have ties only to him. In the life that he would have with her, there would be room for no others.

She needed to leave everything behind. Everyone else.

She would. It was just a matter of time.

He headed down the hallway, his steps silent. Cassie was up ahead of him. He could see her as she tapped on a control panel before one of the rooms.

The place might have been built in the fifties, but it had undergone some serious upgrades. Just who had made those improvements? Suspicion swelled in him.

Cassie entered the room.

A wolf's howl seemed to shake the lab, echoing up that hallway.

That was no man. That was a beast.

A fully transformed werewolf.

Shit
. Bellowing Cassie's name, Dante raced down the hallway.

 

Jon wasn't following a trail of breadcrumbs. His eyes narrowed on the wreckage. He was following a path of fire.

The phoenix had been there. And he'd left a dead vampire in his wake.

“I've never seen a vampire like him,” Shaw whispered as she stared at the man's claws. “Did you see his teeth?” Fear whispered through her words.

Jon's gaze left her. Slid around what remained of the lot. The motorcycle was there, tossed on its side. Cassie and Dante must have switched to a different vehicle. They wouldn't have gone into the swamp on foot.

“What is he?” Shaw asked.

“He's a primal,” Jon told her, the words coming quickly. “Trust me, it's a good thing he's dead.” But a very bad thing that he'd been out in the open. Someone needed to alert Uncle Sam to the fact that more of those freaks were out and infecting others.

That someone wouldn't be Jon. He still needed to stay off the grid.

“Cassie's tracking signal led us here.”

He glanced over and saw Shaw frowning down at the phone in her hand—and at the tracking screen that had appeared on that phone.

“She
should
be here.” Shaw seemed confused.

Jon headed toward the primal vampire. “You put the tracker in her arm?”

“Yes, I—”

“Is the signal still transmitting?”

Shaw pointed to the vampire. “It says that she's right there.”

Dammit.
“She isn't, but the asshole who fed on her is here.” That was why the vamp was frozen. “Got a taste of her poison, didn't you, dumbass?” Jon muttered to the dead man.

“Wait, you're saying he—”

“When the vamp fed on her, he ate the tracker, and Cassie is long gone.”
Fucking hell.

Fury flooded through his body. He'd thought that he was close, that he would have her back by now—

But she was gone.

Gone.

He whirled and grabbed Shaw, yanking her up against him. “You said you could find her!”

Fear rolled off Shaw in waves that he could smell. Then she was gasping, twisting in his hold as she tried to break free.

Smoke rose from her arm—from the touch of his fingers.

He was blistering her flesh. In a few more moments, he'd give the bitch third degree burns.

“I'm sorry!” she yelled. “Stop! Please, stop!”

He didn't want to stop, but he stepped back.
For the moment.
“I need Cassie.”

Tears leaked down Shaw's cheeks. “I know. You
have
to find her.”

He did. The throbbing was back, nearly ripping through his temples. “She's gone. There's no tracker.” Fire burst from his fingertips. It would be so easy to put that fire against Shaw's skin. “I have no fucking clue what kind of car she is in or where she went.”

“Please! Keep the fire away!”

The fire wasn't touching her. He had control. For now. “She's with the phoenix. Dante isn't going to let her go. He'll keep her close and—”

Shaw stumbled back.

He smiled. “A phoenix's weakness.”

She had fallen to the ground. “What?”

“Do you know why there aren't many phoenixes around?” His voice was mild.

Shaw shook her head.

“Because they can kill each other. They have, actually, over and over again.” He glanced at the wreckage. All of that wonderful fire. “They don't know I'm alive.” A huge advantage for him. “When I start to burn, they'll think it's another phoenix.”

“Burn? Burn what?”

He glanced over at her. “Everything.”

Every damn thing that Cassie had ever held dear. Good thing he knew her well. “I'll light up Cassie's world until Dante has to come for me, and when he comes, she'll be there.”

If he couldn't find Cassie, then he'd smoke her out—literally.

She'd come to him, and he'd get exactly what he wanted.

I need her.

Something inside Jon was pushing him to find her. Clawing to get out and get to her. Was it the phoenix? Dante's beast had recognized Cassie as a mate. Jon knew that from the Genesis reports he'd read. During one of Dante's desperate risings, that confession had broken from him. He'd claimed Cassie only once, but that slip-up had been noted by Genesis.

Maybe Jon's own, newly developed phoenix was experiencing that same instinctive recognition.

“Why did Dante come for her at the ranch?” he asked.

Shaw shook her head. “I don't know.”

Dante had risked himself to go and rescue Cassie. Now . . . Jon was finding himself obsessed by her.

Cassie's blood was poison to vampires, a little tweak that her father had performed on her.

But what if there was something . . . else . . . that had also been done to sweet little Cassie?

Something that was drawing him to her. Something that was making him think . . .

Mine.