Cynthia Eden - Burn For Me

Pain stabbed into her, but before she could speak, Cain attacked.

His fire flashed out. One man down. He ripped the gun from another. Aimed and shot at a third. Before that guy had even fallen, Cain had hit a fourth in the leg with a bullet. The men were falling like flies around Jeremiah Wyatt as he just stood there, smiling, while they screamed.

A big coat covered most of his body. From his neck to his feet. “You and your fire …” Jeremiah whispered. “Richard thought he could control you. Such a foolish mistake.”

The guards were on the ground. Some were crawling away. None were trying to fight.

“That the best you got?” Cain demanded.

Jeremiah shook his head. “No.”

No? Eve rocked back on her heels. Roberts was still there, sweating. When the fire had started flashing, the guy had looked so scared.

But he stepped forward, pale but determined. “I got them here—I did what you wanted—now give me the cure!”

Frowning, Jeremiah turned his focus to the cop. “Ah, yes … your sister , wasn’t it? Richard had thought she’d be such a prime candidate for the program.”

Eve got a crystal-clear picture of just why the cop had sold her out.

Family. She’d been right. It was hard to turn your back on them.

“The cure,” Roberts snapped, his gun aimed at Jeremiah Wyatt.

How is that bastard still alive? He’d reportedly died of a heart attack ten years before. After Richard’s snarled words at Beaumont, she’d dug up pictures of Jeremiah Wyatt on her computer at the hotel. Grainy photos had showed his funeral.

His casket must have been empty.

And the man should be pushing ninety, but … he looked about seventy. Maybe sixty-five.

Experiments.

“You want the cure?” Jeremiah drawled. He didn’t seem concerned that his men had abandoned him. That he was pretty much the sitting duck right then. A phoenix to his left. A gun carrying cop to his right.

And a pissed-off reporter glaring dead center at him.

This was the man who’d ruined her life. Taken away her family. Left her lost and alone.

She’d never known so much hate.

“Kill her,” Jeremiah said, shrugging.

At first, she thought Jeremiah was giving Roberts an order. My execution. Cain must have thought the same thing because he lunged for the cop.

But Roberts wasn’t aiming the gun at Eve. He still had the barrel pointed at Jeremiah. “What?”

“There is no cure. Your sister’s rabid. Just like him.” A wave of Jeremiah’s hand toward Trace’s prone body. But Trace wasn’t exactly prone right then. He was trying to roll over. To crawl toward Wyatt.

“You said—you told me there was a serum! A drug she needed!” Roberts was shaking. The barrel of his gun trembled. “You told me to lure Eve here, to get her inside this warehouse, and you’d give me the cure!” His teeth snapped together. “Give me the damn cure!”

“I did.” Jeremiah’s voice was calm and easy. “Kill her. Cut off her head or burn her. That’s the only way you’ll ever free her. Once the wolves go rabid, they don’t come back.”

“You’re a sick freak,” Cain snapped.

Jeremiah’s gaze turned toward him. That green stare narrowed to slits of ice. “You killed my son. He was such a good experiment, and you killed him.”

“Richard Wyatt wasn’t an experiment!” Eve yelled at him. “He was a person. A twisted psycho of a person, but he wasn’t just an experiment!”

Jeremiah’s lips tightened. “We’re all experiments.”

The guy was deranged. No big shock. Not considering the way Richard had turned out. Like father …

Jeremiah’s lips relaxed. Eased into the twisted semblance of a smile. “I made Richard stronger. I made him better. When I started my work, the boy actually wanted me to stop. Told me I was hurting him.”

Thud.

The cane pounded onto the floor.

“There is no growth without pain. No life without suffering.” That faint smile was still on his lips when he pointed his finger at Cain. “You’re about to suffer.”

“Old man, I’m not scared of you.” Cain turned away from him. He reached for Eve, but she pulled back.

“Get Trace.” They’d take him to a hospital. He’d get help. Did Jeremiah really think he was the only one who worked in the field of shifter genetics? There were other experts out there. Others who didn’t torture and kill.

Maybe there wasn’t a cure yet. But there damn well could be one.

Cain hefted Trace over his shoulder.

Roberts hadn’t moved. “You son of a bitch,” he said to Jeremiah. “I risked my badge for you … I want my sister back!”

“That bitch is as good as dead.” The words were snarled, and before Eve could even blink, Jeremiah had lunged across the room. He opened his mouth—

And sank his teeth into the cop’s throat.

Vampire.

No wonder the man didn’t look ninety. He’d stopped aging. Maybe that had been him pictured in that coffin after all. Still and pale … a newly transformed vampire.

Eve grabbed Jeremiah’s arms and yanked him away from Roberts—even as Roberts fired his gun.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Two bullets blasted into Jeremiah’s chest.

One went right through his body and hit Eve.

A roar filled the building as Eve staggered back. She lifted her hand to her chest, and blood soaked her fingers.

Roberts stared at her with wide, shocked eyes. “I didn’t mean—”

She tried to nod. Managed to stagger back. Cain grabbed her. Wait. Where was Trace? Where— “Trace.”

“Screw Trace. I’m getting you out of here.” Cain’s gaze was burning, flickering with flames. He pulled her into his arms. “It’s all right, you’re going to be all right …”

“No, she’s not.” Jeremiah’s cold voice. He was still standing? “Because she’s not getting out of here alive.” He laughed, even as he swiped away the dripping blood on his chin. “I thought I’d slowly drain Ms. Bradley and kill her, make her suffer for what she did to my boy, but she’s already dead …”

No, she wasn’t. Eve wanted to scream at him, but she couldn’t talk.

“Only a few moments left, then that heart of hers will stop. That bullet— it killed her. ”

“I’m so sorry …” The detective’s voice. Eve couldn’t see him.

Cain was running toward the door with her in his arms, but then he staggered to a stop.

“You aren’t leaving,” Jeremiah snarled. “Not yet.”

Eve forced her eyelids to stay open. Jeremiah had dropped his act. Ditched his cane, and moved with that super vampire speed. And … as she watched, he reached into his big overcoat and pulled out a small, black box.

Her breath choked out. She’d seen a box like that before. On another story that she’d worked on. A box like that had been found in the aftermath …

“I taught my son so much,” Jeremiah said as he lifted the box in his bloodstained hands. “About genetics. About life. About the possibilities before us …”

In the aftermath of an explosion that had wiped out a home. A family.

“I also taught him about destruction. About how easy it can be to kill.” His fingers hovered over the small switch on the side of the box. “With just one … touch … of a finger …”

He’d wired the building. Eve could only shake her head. He’d wired this place, the same way that his son had wired the chocolate shop.

No wonder Jeremiah had wanted Roberts to lure them to this warehouse. Get them in …

Then watch us explode.

“Bombs are all around us,” Jeremiah said. “This is the end.”