Once Bitten, Twice Burned (Phoenix Fire #2)(24)
Author: Cynthia Eden

No, she didn’t realize how desperate he was becoming. Maybe he could play the caring role a bit longer. If he was lucky. If she was.

Her eyes squeezed closed. “I’ve been to hell.”

He didn’t speak.

“When I died, I-I remembered this time. The fire is so hot. It surrounds me. Burns and burns and burns and it has to be hell. I go to hell.”

He reached for her arms. Pulled Sabine up to her feet. “No, love, this cage we’re in, that’s hell. And, I swear to you, we will be free.”

She shook her head. “We tried, we—”

He kissed her. His lips brushed over hers, silencing the tangle of her words. He wanted to thrust his tongue deep, to sink into her, but if he pushed, he knew he wouldn’t be able to pull back.

With her, his control was too weak.

So he kept the kiss simple. A bare press of the lips. A soft caress against her mouth.

Just enough to give him a taste.

Just enough to have him hungering for so much more.

Then his head lifted. “Don’t be afraid.”

She stared back at him. Such big, dark, beautiful eyes. But then, he’d thought her eyes were beautiful even when they burned with red and gold flames. Sabine swiped her tongue over her full lower lip and confessed, “They wanted me to use my body to seduce you.”

Seducing me wouldn’t be hard. No way had she missed the big erection pointing toward her.

“They said that if you answered my questions, if I got you to tell me your secrets, that I’d be let go.”

He wanted her mouth again. Because he wanted it, he stepped back. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

But she shook her head. “They’re lying. All Wyatt can do is lie.” Her gaze met his. Her cheeks were flushed. “He’s not human. I shot him in the chest—” Breaking off, she spun to face the mirror. Her hands slapped against the glass. “I saw him get shot in the heart! His men must have seen it, too! He’s not human!” Now she was screaming.

He grabbed her shoulder. “Stop, he’ll come—”

She whirled and wrapped her arms around him. “I want him to come.” The rain of her hair covered her face as she turned her head toward him. “They only let me see you because I promised to seduce you. To learn your secrets.” She gave a quick shake of her head. “But I won’t betray you. I just wanted to help you. You helped me, you were the only one who did.”

“Sabine . . .”

“I knew that you’d need my blood.”

She’d come to save him?

“Maybe now that you have it, you’ll be strong enough to get out.”

He heard the guards coming. Wyatt had realized his little plan had just gotten screwed.

But Sabine hadn’t.

“Come back for me, okay?” She tried to smile. If he’d been human, Ryder was sure that smile would have broken his heart. “When you’re free, promise to come back for me.”

The guards wrenched open the door. They came in with their guns up. “Step away from her!” Wyatt shouted.

Ryder turned toward him. Bared his fangs. “Why don’t you come and make me?”

Wyatt merely smiled back. “Fine. She’s behind you. I’ll just have the guards shoot until the bullets blast through you and penetrate her flesh again and—”

“How do you want to die?” Ryder asked him, genuinely curious as he made his plans. “It’s going to be a slow death, but do you want me to start by cutting your flesh away? Or—”

“Death doesn’t come so easily to me.” Wyatt’s mouth tightened. “If it did, do you think I’d be here?”

Interesting response. “So that’s a yes for cutting your flesh away?”

The doctor’s cheeks flushed dark red with what Ryder suspected was raw fury. Not so clinical now, are we? “Let Twenty-Nine go,” Wyatt snapped.

Twenty-nine?

“That’s me,” Sabine muttered, sounding disgusted. “Because I’m not a person anymore. Just a number.” Then she walked around Ryder.

The hell she was just leaving. He grabbed her arm. “Don’t go with them.”

She gave him a faint smile. “I was wrong about you. For a vampire, you aren’t so bad.”

Yes, I am.

“You’ve got a real killer bite, but there’s more to you than just that.” She searched his gaze. “Don’t forget me,” Sabine told him. Then she shrugged away his hand.

His gaze followed her. So hungry and wild and, he knew, desperate.

Wyatt shrugged off his lab coat and offered it to Sabine. He pointed to the guards behind him. “I want her transferred to the second facility.”

A second facility? Hell, no. “Sabine!”

She looked back at him.

“You’re not a number,” he snapped.

She was so much more.

Her head inclined. “And you’re not a monster.”

Then she left him. The guards led her out of the room, and Ryder noticed they were careful not to touch her skin. Probably because they were afraid she’d fry them.

He hoped that she did.

Wyatt didn’t exit the room. He stood in the doorway, lingering after the others were gone. “Were you the first?”

Ryder glared back at him.

Wyatt’s lips tightened. “Don’t you understand what I’m trying to do?”

“You’re trying to get your kicks from torturing paranormals?” Yes, that bit was obvious. He more than got it.

“I’m trying to cure us!” Hushed, as if he were afraid someone, somewhere, might overhear.

Ryder slanted a glance at the observation mirror. “Us?” Sabine had been right, but then, he’d suspected that truth for a long time. When Sabine had fired her gun, Ryder had seen the truth with his own eyes. Her bullet had plunged into Richard Wyatt’s chest.

But the guy was still alive. Humans didn’t recover so quickly.

“No one’s in the observation room,” Wyatt said, voice rough. “Do you think I’d risk talking while others could hear?” Wyatt bent down and yanked out a pair of jogging pants from a duffel bag at his feet. “Fuck, put these on.” He tossed the pants to Ryder.

Raising a brow, Ryder yanked on the pants. “Guess that little na**d scene didn’t work quite as you wanted, huh, ass**le?”

Wyatt’s eyes narrowed. “You think you’ve helped her? If you’d had sex with her, maybe gotten lucky enough to get her pregnant, you would have helped us all.”