Once Bitten, Twice Burned (Phoenix Fire #2)(4)
Author: Cynthia Eden

“You’re just . . . gonna watch . . . her die?” Ryder yanked at the chains and didn’t care when they cut into his wrists. He’d heal. He always healed.

She won’t.

“Yes.” Wyatt nodded and offered an almost-absent smile. “Yes, yes, I am.”

Her eyes were on Ryder—her eyes . . .

He saw the life leave them. Actually saw a veil of nothing sweep into her stare. “No!” He yanked at the chains, twisting his hands, breaking his wrists as he fought to get free. He smashed his fingers as he tried to jerk his hand through the ring that bound his wrist. He didn’t feel the pain as he struggled.

Dead.

“Exit,” Wyatt snapped, “now.”

The guards started hauling ass. They were leaving her like that? Just sprawled on the floor like a broken doll?

Maybe there was still time. His right wrist shattered. Maybe.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t move,” Wyatt advised Ryder with a quick frown as he paused by the door. “This is her first change. I have no idea how powerful it will be.”

Ryder didn’t understand the bastard. He was moving, all right. Won’t give up. Won’t—

The door slammed shut behind Wyatt and his men. And . . . the scent of smoke teased Ryder’s nose.

What the hell?

His gaze snapped back to Sabine. Her eyes were still open, only her eyes weren’t dark brown any longer. The brown was changing, turning to a gold, then seeming to burn red.

Red like fire.

The scent of smoke deepened around him. Ryder pulled his broken right hand free. Now the other—

Her body began to burn.

He yelled then, roaring her name, but the fire didn’t stop. It blazed hotter, higher, and swept over Sabine’s slender form. The white-hot heat from the blaze rushed over his skin, almost singeing him. Sprinklers erupted with a powerful spray from overhead, and the water drenched him but did nothing to stop the blaze that consumed Sabine.

His breath rasped out. Ryder stopped fighting for his freedom. There was nothing to be done now. No one could come back from those flames.

So there was nothing for him to do in the end but watch the fire burn, to hate himself for the monster that he was, and to wish that Sabine Acadia had never had the misfortune to walk into his prison.

But then something began to move within those flames. She moved, and Ryder realized that Wyatt’s experiments were just getting started.

Because even though she’d just died right in front of him, even though Sabine was burning, it sure looked like she was trying to rise from the fire.

CHAPTER TWO

The flames were all she knew. Burning so hot, but not hurting her. She saw fire—red and gold, so bright. She tasted ash.

The flames grew higher.

Pain and rage and fear and hate began to churn within her. Something had happened to her. Something bad. She knew it, but she couldn’t remember exactly what had happened.

She couldn’t . . . remember much of anything.

Just the fire.

But then the flames began to die away. Slowly, the fury of the fire became just a flicker, then faded to mere wisps of smoke around her bare feet.

She stood in some kind of room. With heavy, perhaps stone walls. She instinctively knew the walls were made of stone—but she didn’t know where she was.

Fear made her heart beat faster. Her gaze searched the small room, flying from the left to the right and she saw . . . him.

Against the back wall, stood a bloody man, blisters on his skin, his eyes—a wild green, bright and fierce—locked on her. There was disbelief in his eyes, shock carved into the hard, chiseled planes of his face.

And there was a chain around his wrist.

“How the hell,” his voice rasped out, deep and rumbling, and sending a shiver over her skin, “did you do that?”

She just stared at him. He seemed familiar. Her head tilted as she gazed at him. They were alone in the room. He was hurt. She was . . .

Naked?

Frowning, she glanced down at her body. Maybe she should cover herself, but she didn’t. The fury inside her left no room for modesty.

Destroy.

Burn.

Whispers that came from within.

She took a step closer to the man.

He lifted a hand toward her. A broken, twisted hand. “I thought you were dead.”

I was. The same whisper in her mind.

“Sabine, what happened?”

The name echoed in her mind. Sabine. An image flashed in front of her. A man, with dark red hair and a wide grin, chasing a little girl near a river. Sabine, you’re too fast for me! I can never catch you.

Her head began to throb. “Who are you?”

His eyes narrowed. “You don’t remember me?”

She shook her head. “Why are you chained?”

“Because they wanted to stop me from getting to you.”

She stilled. The ache in her head grew worse. Swelled higher. The rush of blood within her veins felt like the burn of fire.

The man stood just a few feet away from her. He was tall, muscled, and covered in so much blood. She glanced down at her own body. Not a drop of blood was on her skin. Her gaze rose back to meet his. “Where are my clothes?”

Surely she hadn’t just been . . . na**d . . . with him.

“They burned away.” His shoulders straightened. He was a big one, tall, with thick shoulders and a muscled chest. A bleeding muscled chest. “You died, then you burned.”

A shocked laugh came from her. “You’re crazy.” She wasn’t dead. And he . . . his intense gaze caused the faintest flickers of fear to grow in her belly. As she stared at him, her body started shaking, a small tremble that seemed to come from her heart and reverberate through every muscle. Sucking in a deep breath, she spun away from him and rushed toward the door. The guy was chained up, and he had to be that way for a reason. Since he couldn’t move, it seemed to make pretty good sense that she get away from him. Her hand lifted and she pounded her fist against the door.

Fire immediately swept out from her hand and blazed a path up the door and toward the ceiling.

Screaming, she leapt back, even as the sprinklers erupted overhead.

“There they come again.” His dark mutter.

The icy water drenched her. She tried pounding on the door again. More fire, fire that didn’t so much as singe her fingertips, but the door didn’t open.

Trapped.

She shook her hands, trying to stop the fire. Flames couldn’t be coming from her fingers. That wasn’t possible. This was just a nightmare.

She looked at her hands and saw—more fire.

Nightmare.