Burn For Me (Phoenix Fire #1)(76)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Cain flashed a vicious smile. “The last man who called me that wound up with a stake in his heart.”

“Yeah, and his old man’s real pissed about that.”

Cain tensed and his gaze flickered to the broken window. Eve frowned. A few moments later, she heard the thud of approaching footsteps.

His old man’s real pissed about that . . .

Her mouth had gone bone dry. “According to my sources, Jeremiah Wyatt is dead.” She threw the words out deliberately, looking for a reaction. Richard Wyatt had said otherwise, back in that nightmare at Beaumont. He’d told her that his father was alive. So the news stories about his death? Faked. “So it doesn’t really matter how pissed he is in hell.”

“If only.”

That had been the reaction she’d expected. More confirmation—Jeremiah Wyatt was still alive, and the detective knew it.

“There’s a cure, you know”—Roberts straightened his shoulders—“for whatever the hell they did to him.” A jerk of his gun toward Trace’s prone body. “They have some kind of injection that can make him right again.” Softer, “Make her right again.”

“They’re coming for us,” Cain said.

Eve looked at him and saw he’d already begun to stir fire near his palms.

Roberts shook his head. “No, they’re only coming for you, Thirteen. Only for you.”

The doors of the building opened with a long creak. Armed men raced inside.

A trap.

“I knew you’d come for the werewolf,” Roberts said. “Well, actually, he knew.”

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

That wasn’t her heartbeat.

About five men had entered the building. Not cops. Not even guys in military uniforms. Men in battered jeans, thick coats—all holding guns.

Like the guns would do them much good against Cain’s fire.

“You’re making a mistake,” Eve told them. “I’m clear of all charges. The FBI is backing me up. The media is—”

Thud.

Thud.

One of the armed men stepped back. When he moved, Eve saw an older guy with stooped shoulders, gray hair, and—and Wyatt’s green eyes. “The government might have cleared you, Ms. Bradley. I haven’t.”

She was staring at a ghost. “Jeremiah Wyatt. You’re supposed to be dead.”

“So I am.” His lips pursed as he studied her. “But it’s your mother who’s really dead. Your father. I know—I sent the men who killed them both.”

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.