Once Bitten, Twice Burned (Phoenix Fire #2)(26)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Wyatt glanced over his shoulder at him. “When my father realized the mistake he’d made with these experiments, when he saw how quickly they could infect others with their bite, he had to create a being who would be immune to them.”

His father?

“If a human gets so much as a single bite from these vamps, the infection takes over that person’s body.”

That wasn’t the way vamps were made. Never so quickly. And it took an actual blood exchange between the vampire and human, not just one single bite.

“The infection is in their saliva,” Wyatt said, rolling his shoulders a bit. “Humans don’t have an immune system or DNA strong enough to resist the transformation.” His lips twisted in a humorless smile. “Human DNA is actually designed to speed up the process.”

“But you’re immune, right?” That was what Wyatt had just said. “If you’re immune, then why don’t you just make up some vaccine from your blood so all the little humans in the world are safe?” The words were snarled, but Ryder actually meant what he said. If Wyatt wasn’t just bullshitting in an attempt to push Ryder into cooperating with his experiments, then this—shit, this really could be hell on earth.

“Because my blood’s poison.” The words were growled from Wyatt. “To the vamps and the humans . . . flawed. He made a mistake.”

He? The guy’s father? They were just a whole family of screwed-up ass**les.

“Where are these vampires?” Ryder asked. If the guy was telling the truth, he wanted to know where these primal vamps were being held. Because I’ll kill them.

“They’re contained.” Wyatt opened the door. “I won’t let them out. Not until I’m sure of their control.”

The story could be a lie. “Show me one of them. Prove what you’ve got.” What you’ve done.

“No.” Wyatt didn’t look back this time. “They don’t get out. They never get out.”

They aren’t real. “This is bullshit!” Ryder yelled. “You don’t have them—you’re just trying to get me to cooperate.” He yanked on the chains. Felt more rage building in him. They’d taken Sabine. More experiments. More hell. The chains were embedded in the stone walls. The stone began to crack as he yanked with all of his strength. “I’m not cooperating! I’m going to f**king kill you!”

The door closed behind Wyatt. He’d gone.

Ryder kept pulling at the chains. Pulling . . .

“You can try to kill me.” Wyatt’s voice drifted through the speaker. “But I told you, I’m poison.”

Then they’d both die.

“Now I have to go see about your lovely phoenix. If you won’t cooperate”—Wyatt sighed—“maybe she will.”

Then there was only silence. The frantic beat of Ryder’s heart, and the knowledge that Sabine would be hurt. She’d be killed. And all he could do was sit in this cage and wait.

The rage built within him. Grew. With every second that passed, the man he was lost more and more control.

I can be f**king primal, too.

Wyatt was about to see just how primal the first vampire could be.

CHAPTER SEVEN

They left him alone in his cell for three weeks. Ryder counted the moments as the hunger grew within him. Sabine had tried to help him by giving him blood, but it hadn’t been enough. Wyatt had taken too much from him during all of those long, desperate¸ draining hours.

Need more.

His fangs burned in his mouth. His gut clenched with a hunger that wouldn’t stop, and he began to wonder . . .

When he’d been out, just what had Wyatt done? Taken blood, yes, but had the bastard injected him with something? The hunger was stronger, so much more intense than anything he’d felt before. And it certainly wasn’t the first time that an enemy had tried to starve him.

But it was the first time that he’d hungered so completely for the blood of one person.

Need Sabine’s blood. He was salivating, wanting it—her—so badly. He’d yelled for her. Roared. But the jerks in white lab coats hadn’t come near his cell.

He’d tried to reach Thomas’s mind, and he’d made contact, right before a guard had blasted a bullet into the guy’s head.

So much for Wyatt’s talk about Thomas becoming an experiment. They’d exterminated him quickly enough.

Ryder paced back and forth in his cell. Rage and hunger built. Sabine. He thought of her too much. She was consuming him, just like the hunger. She was—

He heard the faint rustle of footsteps. With his teeth clenched, he whirled toward the observation mirror. Not watching. No one was in there. Ryder stared back at his twisted reflection as a faint odor drifted to him.

His nostrils twitched. That scent . . . “Fire,” he rasped. Sabine? His phoenix?

Then the footsteps were rushing away.

Ryder’s wild gaze darted to his door. The chains were gone. He’d smashed through them. There was a faint click and hiss from outside of his cell. The lock.

He lunged forward.

And a gun lifted. A woman stood in the doorway. Her blue eyes were big and frightened, and her dark hair tumbled around her shoulders. He ignored the gun as his gaze zeroed in on her neck.

Hunger.

“Don’t bite me!” she yelled.

His gaze jerked back up to her face. A pretty face. Pleasing. But . . .

I want Sabine. The woman before him was a means to an end. His ticket out. So he’d bite, he’d feed, and she wouldn’t stop him. Gun or no gun.

“I’m here to help you.”

His eyes narrowed. She sounded as if she meant the words, but he wasn’t buying her line. It was just another one of Wyatt’s games. Another lie. Like the twisted vampire story—primal vampires, his ass. “So says the woman with the gun aimed at my chest.” He tried to keep his voice even so she wouldn’t realize just how much fury surged in him.

She blinked and made the mistake of glancing away from him as she looked at her gun. “Look, that’s just to—”

He ripped the gun out of her hand and shoved her back. His hand fisted in her hair as he yanked her head to the side. The perfect position for feeding. “Hungry . . .” And he was. Starving. But he wouldn’t drain her. His control was there, hanging by a thread. He’d get power from her blood. Enough power to strengthen his body and get out of the pit.

“I’m . . . helping . . .” the woman said, sounding both angry and afraid. “Trying . . . to . . . help . . .”