Cynthia Eden - Once Bitten, Twice Burned

She could burn just fine.

“You’re staying away from her,” Ryder said because he wasn’t about to let anyone get close to her when she was weak.

“She’s not even going to know you.” Dante smiled at him. A hard, evil grin. “When the fire dies away, I’d say you’ve got about a five percent shot of her even remembering who you are. Do you know that? The fire can take away our memories. Leave us with nothing but ashes. She’ll see you, see your monster and just want to run from you. That is, if she doesn’t go for your throat first.”

“That’s a chance I’ll take.” Maybe she wouldn’t remember him, then, fine, he’d just make her fall for him again. This time, things would be different. She wouldn’t have to know the pain of their first meeting. She wouldn’t remember the bite or the blood or—

No.

He didn’t want any memories taken from Sabine. She deserved to have every instance in her mind, good and bad and everything in between.

Dante’s eyes narrowed as he studied Ryder. “I don’t understand you.”

Ryder shrugged. “What’s to understand?” Sabine, hurry, come back to me.

“I’ve seen you, over the centuries . . .”

Dante’s words shocked Ryder into silence. As far as he knew, only vampires lived for that long a period of time. Every other being he’d encountered had seemed to have an expiration date.

“You’ve killed,” Dante said, voice expressionless. “You’ve fought. You’ve left a trail of death in your path.”

Ryder lifted his chin. “Looking to throw some stones? What have you been doing for your centuries? Protecting the innocent?” Doubtful, given the way this guy enjoyed tossing around his flames.

Dante waved that away. “I know what you are, on the inside. Because I’m the same. The darkness. The need to kill, to fight, to destroy. It’s in us both.”

“I don’t want to destroy Sabine.”

His brother’s blood was on the ground. How long would he have before Malcolm rose? How long before Sabine came back to him? Hurry, love. Don’t keep me waiting.

He had to stand guard over her burning form. He couldn’t leave, not even to finish his battle with Malcolm. Or rather, not even to finish him.

“Why not?” Dante asked. “What makes her different?”

Cassie started to choke. No, she’d been choking all along, slowly dying as she tried to beg them for help. Ryder saw that now as his gaze flew to her. She couldn’t speak. Her eyes screamed for her. Keith had finally shaken from his stupor and run to her, but there was nothing he could do to help.

“Will you save the human?” Dante asked as he cocked his head. “Will you rush to aid her, trying to even that bloody scorecard that you carry around with you? Saving human lives, to make up for all the ones you slaughtered?”

Cassie was dying in front of him.

“Or will you keep standing guard,” Dante murmured. “Over the phoenix who burns so brightly? A phoenix who may soon come for your heart.”

“She already has my heart.” Sabine could do with it whatever the hell she wanted.

Cassie had tears streaming down her cheeks. Her eyes were desperate, but she shook her head when she gazed at Ryder. Her lips moved, just the faintest bit . . . Stay with her.

Sorrow had his own lips tightening. Cassie wasn’t like the others from Genesis. Perhaps she really had wanted to help.

For that kindness, she was receiving a slow and brutal death.

Then Ryder saw her eyes dart to Dante’s form. Her stare changed. Flickered with an emotion that he was becoming too familiar with these days.

Ryder’s breath left him in a rush. “She saved you.”

Dante frowned. “Sabine has done—”

“Not Sabine.” He didn’t want the man even speaking her name. Stay away from her. To keep Dante’s attention away from Sabine, Ryder said, “The human, Cassie, she’s the reason you escaped Genesis.”

Dante shook his head. His gaze darted to Cassie. His frown deepened.

“You don’t remember,” Ryder said as his heart raced. “Because they killed you, again and again.” The same lack of memory that Dante was using to taunt him, well, that same darkness, that nothingness, had erased Dante’s past.

A past that was dying less than three feet from him. And the guy didn’t even realize what he was losing. Not what, who.

A woman with love in her dying gaze.

“How do you think you got out?” Ryder pushed.

Dante’s stare was on Cassie. Her shirt was soaked red from the blood that had poured from her neck.

“Do you remember her? At all?” Ryder knew the emotion he’d seen in Cassie’s eyes. That kind of consuming need and longing was exactly what he felt for Sabine.

Dante turned away from Ryder. He gazed only at the woman before him. A woman who was wheezing as she tried to catch her last breath. “Cas . . . sandra? My . . . Cassandra?”

There was a whoosh of sound. Ryder whirled around. Sabine was on her feet. Surrounded by flames. Standing, with her hands up.

Malcolm was clawing at his chest, rising again, shouting, but Ryder couldn’t make out his brother’s words over the crackle of flames.

Flames that were snaking out. Racing over the walls. The ceiling.

She doesn’t have control.

Keith yelled as he ran back to the cage and fought to free his son. But if he let the beast out, what would happen then?

Vaughn would attack. Would kill others, infect more humans.

Dante crouched over Cassie. His hands were bathed in her blood. “Help her!” he roared.

But who could help her?

If the phoenix cried, perhaps his tears would heal Cassie.

Or my blood, maybe I can transform her. But no, Ryder couldn’t transform her, not with the poison that had been placed within her body.

And Sabine’s flames were growing. She’d kill all the humans there, if he didn’t stop her.

Ryder straightened his shoulders. Took a step toward the flames. They wouldn’t burn him. They hadn’t before.

But even if the flames did burn, wasn’t she worth the pain? Wasn’t she worth everything ?

The flames licked around his feet. Rose over his legs. Burned his clothing.

Didn’t touch his skin.

“Sabine.”

Her head whipped toward him. He saw the fire in her eyes. Fire, but no recognition.

“Pull it back, Sabine, before you hurt the humans.”

She smiled.

The flames grew higher.

She was so fucking beautiful—and the deadliest thing he’d ever seen in his very long life.

“You don’t want to hurt them,” he said, closing in on her. Her flames were orange and gold. Big. Bright. “You don’t want—”

She lifted her hands and held them, palms out, toward him. “Stay back.”

No. “Do you know me?”

Sabine shook her head.

“I know you,” he whispered as he kept advancing. “This isn’t what you want. You don’t want to kill.”

But her smile said otherwise. “I like the fire. I want to burn. Destroy.”

She turned her head. Keith was struggling to open the cage. Fumbling with keys. Sabine frowned and sent fire racing toward the cage. Vaughn screamed when the fire licked over his arm.

“I only know the flames,” she whispered. Her voice was husky. Deeper than before. Flowing with power. Darkness. In her eyes, he saw rage and pain and fear.

And he remembered another time. The first time she’d burned before him. “I thought you’d died then, too,” he said.

Malcolm rose to his feet. A gaping hole filled his chest. He’d dug the bullet out of his heart. Now Malcolm was coming for him again.

“One of us is dying, brother!” Malcolm swore as he charged at Ryder. “One of us is—”