Burn For Me (Phoenix Fire #1)(48)
Author: Cynthia Eden

“B-Beaumont . . .” The word seemed torn from Damon. Probably because it was. “He’s got . . . second lab . . .”

Cain waited.

“In . . . Beaumont.”

Cain had heard of the city. A small town, just inside the North Carolina border, nestled in the mountains. “Thanks for the information. Now you can die happy.” Or maybe with a semi-clean conscience.

“Cain!” Eve shoved at his back.

Sighing, he stepped out of her way. She immediately fell beside Damon. Her blood-smeared fingers reached for the man’s cheek. She leaned in close and told him, “You aren’t dying.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Yeah, it hurts like a bitch, I know, but the bullet missed your heart, and that second wound’s just a graze.”

While she was talking Cain was calling nine-one-one . . . and keeping a close watch on Eve.

“No vital organs were damaged.”

The woman sounded like a doctor. Fitting, since she’d played one back at Genesis. Cain wondered . . . how much of that role had been pretend?

“You get stitched up, get some good drugs in you, and you’ll be just fine.” Eve gave Damon a light tap on the cheek. “Sorry I had to press down so hard on your wounds, but I needed you to hurt a little bit more.”

“Pain can make people talk,” Cain murmured. The nine-one-one dispatcher answered in his ear and Cain told her to send an ambulance. “We’ve got a human down.”

Eve looked back at him with a frown.

Cain tossed the phone onto the countertop. “You make one fine bad cop.” He could admit when he was wrong.

The left side of her mouth hitched into a half-smile. “Told you that I have my moments.”

Yes, she did.

“But your bad cop . . . was better,” she admitted.

Because he hadn’t been playing.

Eve glanced back at the groaning man on the floor. “Just stay still until the ambulance gets here. You really will be okay.”

Anger tightened Damon’s face. Anger and pain.

Eve rose and went to the sink. Cain shadowed her moves—just in case Damon wanted to attack. She washed the blood away from her fingers. The water turned red as it poured down the drain.

Cain took Eve’s arm and began to lead her from the kitchen.

“You’ll . . . stop him . . .” Damon’s voice. Weak. Growling.

Cain glanced back. “I will.” A promise.

Damon nodded. “Good. He’s . . . sick . . .”

“A real monster,” Eve whispered. She cleared her throat and told Damon, “When the doctors sew you back up, get out of that hospital as soon as you can. Wyatt tried to kill you once, and when he finds out he didn’t succeed, he’ll come after you again.”

When you worked with the devil, you had to expect to feel the fire. “And if you try to warn him that we’re coming,” Cain said, voice sharp and hard when Eve’s had been soft, “I will be back for you.”

Damon’s breath heaved out. “Won’t . . . tell . . .”

He’d better not.

But just in case, Cain planned to attack the lab in Beaumont as soon as he could.

The distant wail of an ambulance’s siren reached him. Help. Coming quickly for the human.

They hurried back to their vehicle. Left the blood behind. Didn’t look back.

By the time the ambulance turned onto Branchline, Cain was already heading in the opposite direction. He watched the ambulance’s flickering lights in his rearview mirror.

“They’ll save him,” Eve said, sounding so certain. “The wound was all gore, but nothing vital had been hit.”

He glanced her way.

“Two years of med school,” she explained with a sigh. Her eyes closed as if she were tired. “I know what death looks like.”

She also knew how to be one fine actress.

She’d just bluffed her way into getting them the information they needed.

How f**king perfect.

Beaumont.

Now, to just find a safe place to leave Eve while he turned Wyatt’s new playground into ashes.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“It’s not happening,” Eve said into the silence that filled the car. She knew exactly what Cain was planning, and the guy needed to think the hell again.

He shot her a fast glance from the corner of his eye.

“You’re not dumping me and going after Wyatt on your own.” Right, like she hadn’t seen that one coming from a freaking mile away. This was not her first ball game, not by a long shot. “We’re in this together, remember? I’m not about to sit on the sidelines now.” Not when things were finally coming to a head.

The road had passed in a blur of yellow and white lines and asphalt, but she’d known exactly what Cain had been thinking. She’d seen him try to slow at a few motels during their road trip.

Looking for the right spot to dump me? Not happening.

“You go with me,” Cain said, “and you die.”

Trying to scare her. He didn’t get it. She was already plenty scared, and the fear changed nothing. “I’ve been dodging death since I was four years old.” Maybe it was easier to confess because of the darkness that filled the car. “That’s when my parents died. When vampires killed my father and a fire took my mother away from me.”

“Eve . . .”

“The fire spread through my house. Burning everything but me. I remember screaming and crying, but the flames wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t do anything but watch them . . .”

Mommy. Daddy!

She choked back the memory and tasted ash. “I hated fire after that.” Her gaze slid to him. Still do. But she’d stayed next to Cain anyway.

What did that say about her? Drawn, pulled, to the one thing she hated most.

“I’m . . . sorry.” His words seemed rusty.

“So am I.” Her whisper. “Vampires took my family away. They took everything from me, but I didn’t let that stop me.” Not during all those long years she’d spent alone. Bouncing from one foster home to the next. They’d said she couldn’t connect with the families. That she didn’t know how to bond. That had been bull, and she’d known it even as a kid.

I just didn’t want to risk loving someone and losing them again. Sometimes, it was better, safer, to just not care at all.

“You’ve helped. Done your part.” He seemed to be gritting out the words. “There’s no need for you to face more danger.”

“Trace is my friend.” For a while, the only friend she’d had. “I have to—”