Burn For Me (Phoenix Fire #1)(18)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Even if he deserved that death?

She jumped out of the truck. Slammed the door and raced the rest of the way up the graveled drive. She’d told Cain the truth when she’d said that she had friends in this city. This particular friend was loaded—and that was why he had a giant house on twenty private acres in Atlanta.

She pounded on the door. Hurry, hurry . . .

The door opened. Trace Frost glared down at her, wearing a pair of pajama pants and looking severely irritated. His eyes were narrowed, the faint lines around his eyes tight.

“It’s two-thirty in the morning, Eve,” he growled. “Two damn thirty. Unless you’re here to have sex, then—”

“Someone’s about to die.”

Her words cut him off.

Trace blinked at her, his green eyes waking up very quickly. The guy was built, muscled, freakishly smart.

He was also a shifter.

So Trace usually kept tabs on any other shifters in his town. It was the whole keep your friends close, and your enemies closer bit. His motto was keep the shifters close . . . and be ready to defend your f**king territory from friends and enemies.

He raked a hand over his face. “You would be coming about something like that.”

She pushed the laptop against his chest. He’d be the one cracking that pass code for her later. The guy owed her. Seriously owed her since she’d risked her life for him more than once. “Jimmy Vance.”

Trace whistled as he rocked back on his heels. “You don’t want to mess with that guy.” His native Texas rolled faintly beneath the words. Trace gave a quick shake of his head. “Vance would sell out his own mother for—”

“If I don’t find him soon, he’s dead.” She didn’t want Vance dead because, well, one, killing the guy was wrong. You couldn’t just go up and torch a shifter. Cain would find his own ass hunted if he did that. And, two, she needed Vance. Eve wanted to break the Genesis story wide open, and if Jimmy Vance had been dealing with Wyatt, then she wanted to talk to him.

Preferably while he was still breathing. Otherwise, it would be rather difficult to accomplish.

“I don’t know if his death would be such a loss,” Trace muttered as he lifted up the laptop. “You didn’t have to bring me a present.” The porch light glinted off his tousled, blond hair.

“You’re getting me into that system,” she told him, putting her hands on her hips, “after you take me to Vance.”

Trace’s gaze came back to her. Then that stare slowly swept over her body. He winced. “Fine, but, seriously, if we’re hunting shifters tonight, you have to change. You won’t get into a fight looking like that.”

Whoa, hold up. “A fight?” She followed him into the house.

He tucked the laptop under one arm and shut the door behind her. The alarm beeped. “Vance—and the shifters like him—always head to the cage fights on Saturday nights.”

Her stomach clenched. “You’re not talking about a normal cage fight, are you?”

Trace shook his head. “Just to get in that fight, one of us will have to bleed.”

Dammit. Why does everything with the paranormals always have to be about blood?

Jimmy Vance had better be freaking grateful when she saved his butt.

No, no, this was definitely not a normal cage fight. Eve had seen cage fights on TV. Even done an interview or two at fights back when she’d worked in Texas.

This was different. And, yeah, they’d had to bleed to get inside.

Apparently, no one got in without signing up for a fight. She’d come with Trace, and he’d been the one to agree to enter the cage. If she’d come alone, well, she never would have made it past the hulks at the door.

Eve’s eyes were locked on the cage as Trace swiped out with his claws and cut into his opponent’s stomach.

More blood pooled on the already slick cage floor.

If I’d come alone, I’d probably be dead.

She couldn’t fight a shifter. No way. Not even in her nightmares.

The crowd around her was cheering. Yelling, screaming. Throwing fists and claws in the air as they placed wagers on who would be walking out of that cage.

And who wouldn’t.

Horror had Eve’s mouth hanging open. She’d never expected . . . this. But Trace—he’d known exactly where to go. Down the twisting, dark back streets of Atlanta. Inside the old warehouse that had looked abandoned to her.

A trick. The place had been packed inside. Once they’d cleared the first level of the warehouse, she’d started to hear the yells—and to smell the blood.

Trace had flashed fang and claws, shifter-style, when they saw the bouncers. One of the bouncers had even greeted him by name.

Not Trace’s first trip into the cage.

The place reeked of blood and violence. Men and women jostled her as they fought to get closer to the cage. The floor of the cage had to be about ten feet wide, and the walls—okay, the caged fencing—stretched all the way to the ceiling.

A loud cheer erupted from the crowd. Eve’s gaze jerked back to the fighters. One man was down, moaning.

That man wasn’t Trace.

Trace had his claws in the air. Sweat glinted off his body, and the guy was . . . smiling.

Her back teeth clenched. She hadn’t realized just how much he would enjoy the violence.

The cage opened and Trace stalked out. Someone else dragged his bleeding opponent toward one of the back rooms. More money exchanged hands. The smoke in the area deepened.

Beers were tossed around.

The blood pooled in the cage.

Eve shoved her way through the crowd around Trace. He was getting slapped on the back. Figured. Shifters and violence. They went together too well.

And she knew Trace had a dark side. Taking the guy there hadn’t been her best plan ever.

She grabbed his arm. “Where’s Vance?” They weren’t there so Trace could rip and claw his way through the fighters. They had a job to do.

Trace glanced her way. Blood dripped from his mouth. “I talked to the organizer . . .”

Wait, there was an organizer?

The cage door was being opened again.

“Vance is fighting now.” Trace wrapped his arm around her shoulders and turned her to face the cage. “Provided he survives this fight, you can talk to Vance all you want—after.”

She stared at the man entering the cage with an arrogant swagger. His head was shaved, and his eyes, small, angry, swept over the crowd. A tattoo of a giant snake covered his bare chest and an old pair of faded jeans hung low on his hips.