Once Bitten, Twice Burned (Phoenix Fire #2)(11)
Author: Cynthia Eden

He shrugged. “You’d rather I just drink from you without—”

“I want that stake!” Sabine shouted.

“Fine,” Wyatt bit out. Static crackled for an instant on the intercom, then Ryder heard the guy say, “Mitchell, give the man his stake.”

A few tense moments later, Mitchell, body sweating and twitchy, edged into the room. He pulled a stake from his back pocket.

The guards should have used these when they tried to take her from me before. Instead of shooting him, they should have staked him. But Ryder knew why they hadn’t. Wyatt had wanted him alive then.

Now? Now it looked like the guy was still playing with him.

Let’s play, bastard.

The stake was the first weapon that he needed.

Mitchell tossed the stake to him. Ryder grabbed it with his right hand. “Now get the hell out,” he ordered the humans with bared fangs. “Before I decide to drop some bodies to the floor.”

They got the hell out. Weapons or not, they were still scared spitless.

Who has the power, Wyatt? He knew the doctor would see the challenge in his eyes. Wyatt kept him locked up tight because he knew that if Ryder ever got free, the humans in Genesis would all be dead.

That’s why you want me to take her blood, isn’t it? Because it’s all about control.

Ryder was ready to rip that control away.

He caught Sabine’s wrist with his left hand and pulled her toward the bed.

Her heels dug into the hard floor. “Oh no, you’re not—”

He was. They were.

He pushed her onto the bed. She immediately bounced right back to a sitting position on the mattress. He almost smiled at her. The woman was fast.

He was faster.

He pushed the stake into her hand. Her fingers closed around it, and she stared up at him with dark eyes that looked as if they could steal his soul.

Not that he had a soul to steal.

Not anymore. He’d lost that long ago.

He knelt in front of her, pushing between her legs. She swallowed but didn’t speak. His fingers wrapped around hers, tightening her grip on the stake.

Then he lifted the weapon to his heart. If this act didn’t earn her trust, he figured nothing would.

The experiment between the vampire and the phoenix was progressing far better than Richard Wyatt could have hoped.

He watched the two of them through the observation glass, anticipation filling him.

Sabine had the stake against the vampire’s heart.

The door opened behind Richard. “You think she’s gonna kill him?” the guard demanded. There was no missing the eagerness in Mitchell’s tone.

“Doubtful.”

“But he drained her!” Mitchell snapped. “The woman’s got to want some revenge! She should want to hurt him!”

Like you do? Richard knew that Mitchell hated the vampire. Mostly because the man knew just how powerful Ryder was.

We hate what we fear.

A lesson he’d learned long ago. His father had taught him that lesson when Richard had been a child.

“She won’t kill him.” Richard knew the truth was actually that Sabine couldn’t kill the vampire. Ryder was the fastest vamp that Richard had ever seen, and plenty of the undead had been brought through the doors of Genesis.

Ryder wasn’t like those others. At first, Richard had thought that Ryder was just another test subject. Another vampire that could be used as a genetic donor for his experiments but Ryder’s reflexes were too fast. His body healed too quickly. He didn’t need the weekly blood supply that the others required in order to keep living.

And the man’s strength was incredible to behold. He’d ripped the heart right out of one guard’s chest. An unfortunate incident, but one that had taught them all—

Never get too close to the vampire.

During his observations, Wyatt had quickly realized that Ryder had not appeared to have any weaknesses. Certainly not any attachments. He killed guards who made the foolish mistake of coming to him. He drained them with a brutal efficiency. He never showed remorse or guilt.

Wyatt had begun to think the fellow might be a sociopath, in addition to having the curse of being a bloodsucker.

Then Sabine had entered Ryder’s cell, and he’d seen the dangerous intensity ignite in Ryder’s gaze.

Ryder had fed from her, but, when she’d been near death, the vampire had seemed to . . .

Break.

Wyatt tapped the glass in front of him. The two figures appeared frozen. The tip of the stake pushed hard into Ryder’s chest. The vampire had one hand on Sabine’s thigh while his other hand locked around Sabine’s fist—the fist that gripped the stake.

“Drink up,” Wyatt murmured. Ryder had to drink. The more blood that he took from her, the greater his weakness—and possibly his strength—would become.

It was a catch-22, but it was for the good of science.

As for Sabine, she’d begin her own transformation soon enough.

Ryder probably thought the big plan was for Sabine and the vamp to f**k. To breed.

Wyatt wasn’t interested in creating a new life. He wanted transformation, not birth.

When Sabine took in Ryder’s blood, how soon would she transform? Was it even possible to make a phoenix into a vampire?

I’ll find out. His fingers pressed the button for the intercom. “Time to drink, Ryder.”

The vamp’s shoulders stiffened, but the hand on Sabine’s thigh rose, and a few seconds later, Ryder brushed back Sabine’s hair and bared her throat.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Wait.” Fear churned in Sabine’s stomach as she stared into Ryder’s eyes. When a vamp was about to sink his teeth into a girl’s throat, he shouldn’t look so . . .

Reassuring. And, um, sexy.

Especially when said girl had a stake pressed to his heart. Why the heck had he given her the stake? Her fingers trembled around it. After what he’d done, maybe she should drive it into his chest but . . .

I need him. The truth was there. Desperate. He was her only hope in this nightmare. The vampire scared her, but the man named Richard Wyatt? He terrified her. He liked to hurt her.

Ryder had said that he’d help her. The vampire was the only one that she could trust.

Provided he didn’t drain her dry. Her fingers tightened around the stake. “Aren’t vampires supposed to have some power to control the minds of their victims? Can’t you just make me forget what you did before? Make me—” Sabine broke off, unable to say the last.

He finished for her. “Make you want my bite.” The words were deep and dark.