Cynthia Eden - Once Bitten, Twice Burned

Now she was almost at death’s broken door.

“Get away from her!” Wyatt was shrieking now.

She wasn’t drinking. He pried open her mouth. Forced drops of blood onto her tongue and then massaged her neck, trying to make Sabine swallow. Live.

The guards grabbed him, trying to yank him away from her. Hell, no. He threw them back. Heard thuds when they hit the walls.

“You have to swallow the blood,” he told her, voice dark and rumbling with command. “Come on!” I didn’t mean to do this. She’d been so afraid. He’d told her that he’d hold on to his control.

But the beast that he was hadn’t been able to hold on. The beast . . . Ryder . . . he destroyed. That was his life. All he knew. And he’d destroyed her, too.

His vision seemed to blacken. She was the only thing he could see in that growing darkness. Beautiful, so still.

His head sagged over her. “Please.” Now he was the one to beg. He’d tasted heaven, and he’d tossed her to hell, all in one instant of time.

“Get away from her!” Wyatt’s voice wasn’t on the loudspeaker any longer. It was right there. In the room with him.

Kill him.

Ryder’s head jerked up. He bared his fangs.

And . . . and felt her mouth move lightly against his wrist. She was trying to drink, to take his blood.

Sabine was fighting to live. Yes.

His gaze snapped back to her. “That’s it! Come on, just drink some—”

Gunshots blasted. Bullets drove into his chest. One. Two. Three. The force of the hits had him falling back even as his blood sprayed the wall behind him.

“I told you,” Wyatt raged as he lifted his weapon. Wyatt had fired? “Back away from the female subject!”

Ryder ignored the pain and reached for her again.

“Stop him,” Wyatt ordered. Ryder realized the guards were back on their feet. “Shoot him until he stops moving. The bullets won’t kill him, but they can put him down for a time.”

Then the bullets exploded, popping like firecrackers over and over again as they sank into Ryder’s body. His chest. His arms.

He hit the floor. Blood seeped from his wounds. Pooled around him on the stone floor.

“Enough!” Wyatt lifted his hand. His eyes went from Ryder to Sabine.

Her head had turned and her eyes—wide open, still alive—were on Ryder. He could see the life in her gaze. She was trying to come back to him. Trying. She just needed more of his blood.

Her hand had lifted. Was she reaching for him? Ryder gathered every single ounce of strength that he had. “My . . . blood . . .” Only a little more, and she’d be fine. He could save her. Her death—unlike all the others—wouldn’t be on him. He started crawling to her through the blood.

“She’s gonna live,” one of the guards muttered. “I thought he was supposed to kill her.”

He could be more than a killer. She could be more than a victim. Blood soaked his clothes. The power he’d gotten from her rich blood was gone, stolen away by a hail of bullets.

“He did kill her.” Wyatt’s voice was flat. “We just have to wait for her to die.”

No! “Can . . . help . . .” He was almost to her side.

“Chain him,” Wyatt ordered. “He’s too weak to fight you. Chain the vampire and let him watch.”

Their arms grabbed him. Jerked him away from her. But he wasn’t as weak as they thought, not even with the bullets lodged in his organs. Ryder fought them, clawing and snapping with his fangs. Half a dozen guards had to jump on him and yank him back to the far wall. Then they locked thick chains around his wrists, trapping him. The guards hurried back as soon as those locks snapped in place. They were bloody now, too—from the wounds he’d given them.

When they moved away, he saw her again. Her chest was struggling to rise. Her eyes were still open.

“Don’t . . . do this,” he growled as he strained to break free.

Wyatt walked around her, staring down at Sabine as she sprawled on the floor. “Why do you even care? Shouldn’t she just be food to you?”

Ryder didn’t speak. He wouldn’t tell this bastard anything about himself.

“I think one of the bullets must have ripped into your heart”—Wyatt didn’t sound particularly concerned—“you’re bleeding far too much. Hmmm . . . I should have considered . . . will that wound to the heart kill you?”

No. It wouldn’t. He was healing already.

“I didn’t intend for them to shoot you in the heart.” Wyatt frowned at the guards. “Errors like that cannot be tolerated here.”

The guy was psychotic.

A bullet to the heart wasn’t normally an error. It was murder.

“You’re just . . . gonna watch . . . her die?” Ryder yanked at the chains and didn’t care when they cut into his wrists. He’d heal. He always healed.

She won’t.

“Yes.” Wyatt nodded and offered an almost-absent smile. “Yes, yes, I am.”

Her eyes were on Ryder—her eyes . . .

He saw the life leave them. Actually saw a veil of nothing sweep into her stare. “No!” He yanked at the chains, twisting his hands, breaking his wrists as he fought to get free. He smashed his fingers as he tried to jerk his hand through the ring that bound his wrist. He didn’t feel the pain as he struggled.

Dead.

“Exit,” Wyatt snapped, “now.”

The guards started hauling ass. They were leaving her like that? Just sprawled on the floor like a broken doll?

Maybe there was still time. His right wrist shattered. Maybe .

“If I were you, I wouldn’t move,” Wyatt advised Ryder with a quick frown as he paused by the door. “This is her first change. I have no idea how powerful it will be.”

Ryder didn’t understand the bastard. He was moving, all right. Won’t give up. Won’t—

The door slammed shut behind Wyatt and his men. And . . . the scent of smoke teased Ryder’s nose.

What the hell?

His gaze snapped back to Sabine. Her eyes were still open, only her eyes weren’t dark brown any longer. The brown was changing, turning to a gold, then seeming to burn red.

Red like fire.

The scent of smoke deepened around him. Ryder pulled his broken right hand free. Now the other—

Her body began to burn.

He yelled then, roaring her name, but the fire didn’t stop. It blazed hotter, higher, and swept over Sabine’s slender form. The white-hot heat from the blaze rushed over his skin, almost singeing him. Sprinklers erupted with a powerful spray from overhead, and the water drenched him but did nothing to stop the blaze that consumed Sabine.

His breath rasped out. Ryder stopped fighting for his freedom. There was nothing to be done now. No one could come back from those flames.

So there was nothing for him to do in the end but watch the fire burn, to hate himself for the monster that he was, and to wish that Sabine Acadia had never had the misfortune to walk into his prison.

But then something began to move within those flames. She moved, and Ryder realized that Wyatt’s experiments were just getting started.

Because even though she’d just died right in front of him, even though Sabine was burning, it sure looked like she was trying to rise from the fire.

The flames were all she knew. Burning so hot, but not hurting her. She saw fire—red and gold, so bright. She tasted ash.

The flames grew higher.

Pain and rage and fear and hate began to churn within her. Something had happened to her. Something bad. She knew it, but she couldn’t remember exactly what had happened.

She couldn’t . . . remember much of anything.