Once Bitten, Twice Burned (Phoenix Fire #2)(39)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Sabine forced her gaze to meet his. She had asked him to help her. She remembered her desperate plea. She’d begged for his help, even as she knew that . . .

I’m dying again.

“I go to hell,” she whispered this confession as she stared into his eyes. “The fire is so hot. It burns my flesh away. Pulls up some beast that’s buried inside of me. The fire won’t let me go. It surrounds me, it—”

He stalked forward and caught her arms. “You never have to feel that fire again. You’ll never die again. Never age. Never get sick.”

Because I’m a vampire? She’d just traded one monster for another. Her heart raced. But . . . “I don’t have fangs.” Her teeth were just normal.

“They’ll grow, sharpen, when you need to feed.”

She forced herself to keep holding his gaze. “I don’t need to feed.” The last thing she wanted to do was sink her teeth into someone’s throat. She’d nipped him during sex but that had just been rough foreplay.

Right?

“Maybe you still have enough of my blood in you. When humans change, the first things they want to do are feed and f**k.”

She flinched. Um, yes, she’d sure had the f**king part down. She’d never felt a need so intense. It had taken her over. Dominated her every cell. She’d needed him, quite simply, more than she’d needed breath right then.

Was that really me? Or did those doctors do something to me? They’d injected her so many times with who the hell knew what when she’d been held captive.

“You were never human, so it only stands to reason that your body wouldn’t react the same way to the change.” His fingers were rubbing small circles on her arms. Did he realize that? She did. She liked it. Found the caress soothing. “It took three exchanges to convert you,” he said as a frown pulled his brows low. “With a human, it just takes one.”

Faint suspicion hummed in her mind. “You were trying to change me, from the beginning.” Don’t be true. Don’t be. Her heart wasn’t just racing. It was hurting. I trusted him. Even with my fear, I thought he was helping me.

His expression was blank, but his eyes were full of need. “The first time I gave you my blood, I wanted to keep you alive. That was my only goal. I never meant to take so much from you.”

Ah, and she heard the guilt there. It would probably always be there.

“I thought that if I’d just given you more, you would have transformed. Wyatt stopped me, and I figured the change didn’t occur because you didn’t get enough of my blood.”

But then he’d given more blood to her later. She pulled away from him. “You were trying to change me.” It had been deliberate. The blood drinking. The seduction. He’d pulled her in. Gotten her to trust him.

Why hadn’t he told her that she’d change? Why hadn’t he just told her what was happening?

“You didn’t want to be a phoenix,” he reminded her, voice flat. “I gave you what you wanted. If you hadn’t been hurt, if you hadn’t been lying there, dying right in front of me, I wouldn’t have gone for the transformation. Dammit, believe me!

“I couldn’t let you die again. You didn’t want death, and in that moment, Sabine, I would have traded anything—even the last bit of my black soul—to make sure that you didn’t burn again.”

Her mouth was dry.

“I just wanted to save you,” he rasped. “I haven’t saved many in my life.”

“Why am I special?” She hadn’t meant to ask that, had she?

His gaze held her prisoner. “Because I look at you, and I see the one person that I want most in this world.”

Oh, okay, that was not what—

Ryder gave a sharp, negative shake of his head. “It’s more. I look at you, and you remind me . . . you make me long for everything I lost so long ago.”

Her breath whispered out. “What did you lose?”

“Happiness. Hope. Peace.” A muscle jerked along his jaw. “And when I look at you, I see all of those things.”

The vampire had just stunned her.

“So, no,” now his voice roughened. “I wasn’t just going to stand there and let you burn, not when you were begging me to save you. Maybe it’s not the method you had in mind, but the blood exchange was the only option I had available to me.” His shoulders straightened. “And to be damn honest, if I had to do it all over again, I’d still try to change you. If that meant you didn’t burn, I’d do it again.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. He was right. She’d hated the fire. Hated dying, coming back, and not knowing anything.

Except she’d remembered him. Even after all of the flames and death, his image had come to her. Whispered through her mind. Her vampire.

Sexy. Dangerous. So compelling.

Powerful enough to push through the fire.

A vampire.

And I’m one now, too?

“Come to bed with me,” he murmured the words as his head bent and his lips feathered over her cheek. “You’ve been through hell.”

No, to hell.

But he was so tempting. Still naked. All of those rippling muscles. That thick cock. Gorgeous male.

“I can help you when the hunger comes.”

Fucking and feeding. That was what vampires did, right? The pleasure that had rocked through her before suddenly had her feeling shamed.

She’d had no control. Been just like an animal. Biting. Clawing. Would it always be that way? And when she did crave blood, would she be as desperate to satisfy her blood hunger as she’d been when she’d wanted sex with him?

What if she killed someone? Took too much?

“Sabine.”

Her lashes lifted. He stared at her with such care in his eyes.

“I will help you.”

She thought he might be the only one who could. It wasn’t like she had some kind of supernatural Rolodex. He was the strongest paranormal that she knew, and, despite everything . . .

I feel safe with him.

“If you really want to help me”—she drew in a deep breath—“then take me home.”

She had to see her family. Had to make sure that her brother was safe.

But Ryder shook his head, and, with regret pulling at his handsome face, he told her, “I’m sorry, love, but you can’t go home again.”

Her eyes narrowed. The hell I can’t.

And Sabine knew that her time with the sexy vamp had come to an end.