Playing With Fire (Phoenix Fire #3)(11)
Author: Cynthia Eden

“Get out of here!” Cassie yelled up to them. “I don’t want to hurt you!” She didn’t. Her job was to help, to cure.

Not to kill.

She’d left the killing to her father. The guy had pretty much made it his life’s work. She was trying to pick up the pieces and mend the lives that he’d torn apart.

The vampires rushed down the stairs. Their fangs were out, fully extended, and hunger twisted their faces.

That was what her blood did. It made them desperate. Drunk.

Crazed.

Her blood soaked shirt was still in the bathroom, so she wasn’t surprised when the first vampire ignored her entirely and ran in there.

But the second and the third? They locked their hungry gazes on her . . . and advanced.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Cassie repeated again. “Please, leave.”

The vampire closest to her, a man with blond hair who looked like he was barely twenty, just laughed. “But I don’t want to leave.” He lifted his hands. The guy was sporting wickedly sharp claws. “And I do want to hurt you.” He leapt toward her.

She shot him.

Dante froze as the thunder of a gunshot echoed in his ear. He was in the middle of the warehouse district, walking through the night, trying not to look back—

But that gunshot had come from behind him.

Cassie?

He heard the roar of another gunshot. Another.

He didn’t think. Didn’t hesitate. He just turned and ran back to her.

No one takes her from me.

Even when he walked away from her.

I’m coming. Hold on, Cassie. Hold on.

As he ran, another image flashed through his mind. A memory. He’d had flashes before, like scenes straight from a movie that he watched instead of lived. And in this scene . . .

Blood covered Cassie’s chest. She stared up at him, emotion filling her beautiful eyes. An emotion that he didn’t want to face.

“It’s . . . okay . . . ”

He could barely make out her words. But he knew she was lying. Cassie was such a terrible liar.

The wounds on her body were too deep. There was too much blood.

She would never survive.

He could save her. He had to save her. There was no way that Cassie could die.

Only . . .

The life drained from her eyes. He saw it vanish. “No!” His roar. He yanked her against him. Held her as close to his body as he could. Her blood soaked his shirt and his skin.

She wasn’t breathing. She wasn’t moving.

He was too late.

She was gone.

The image vanished as swiftly as it had appeared, leaving behind the bitter taste of fear in Dante’s mouth. He wouldn’t be too late. Couldn’t be.

He pushed himself, desperate to rush back to the woman that he’d so foolishly left moments before.

He reached the back door. Tried to swipe his hand over the hidden keypad that Cassie had used before. But the damn door wouldn’t open.

Another shot thundered.

“Cassie!” Dante yelled her name.

He heard snarls and shouts and . . .

“Help!” Her voice. She was still alive. She’d better stay that way.

He slammed into the door. The damn thing wouldn’t give. It must have been reinforced.

Fine. If it wouldn’t give, then he’d just burn it down.

Because he was getting to Cassie. “Hold on!” Dante shouted to her. “Just hold on!”

He wasn’t up to having her die in his arms a second time.

She was out of bullets. She was also a terrible shot. Cassie hadn’t hit even one of those vampires in the heart.

She’d just blasted them until her gun clicked. Two of the vampires—the blond and a bald guy—were on the floor. But the others were closing in on her.

Crap.

Smoke began to drift in the air. Her head whipped toward the door. Dante was out there. That was his smoke. She’d heard his shout. He wanted her to hold on—hold on to what? The vampires were right freaking there!

One grabbed for her. She slammed the gun into the side of his head and managed to break free of him. Then she raced for the wooden table in the corner. The vampire she’d hit grabbed her legs and she fell, face-first, onto the floor. She ignored the pain from that impact and grabbed out with her hands. She caught the side of the wooden chair and yanked it back.

The vampire was pulling her toward him even as the chair slammed into the floor—slammed and broke apart.

She grabbed for one of the broken pieces of wood. “Got to taste . . . got to taste . . .” the vampire snarled.

“No. Trust me, you don’t want a taste!”

He didn’t listen.

His fangs came at her.

She drove the makeshift stake into his chest. That close, well, that close her aim was dead-on. He screamed, but the cry choked off as his body stiffened.

His blood pulsed out of his chest as she shoved him away from her. Cassie jumped to her feet.

And realized that she was surrounded.

Three vampires . . . including one that she recognized.

“Hello, bitch,” said the redheaded female vamp that Cassie had last seen in Taboo. “Didn’t think you’d get away from me, did you?”

Sometimes, Cassie truly thought that she had the worst luck in the world.

She bent and scooped up one of the chair’s broken legs. “This is your last chance to walk away.”

The smoke was thickening. Dante was outside, probably growing more pissed by the moment. The angrier he got, the more powerful he would become. She just needed to buy a little more time. Time for him to burn his way through the wall of the building.

“One of us will walk away,” the vampire promised Cassie with a click of her too-sharp teeth. “But it won’t be you.” The redhead rushed toward her.

Cassie screamed and brought up her stake.

The redhead just ripped that stake out of her hand—and laughed. “Amateur hour is over, honey. Time for you to play with the big girls.” The stake was thrown against the wall. The redhead grabbed hold of Cassie’s hair and yanked back her head, baring her throat. “You should never have come between me and my snack.”

That snack had just burned his way through the back side of the warehouse. As Cassie gasped, flames leaped around them, racing up the walls, burning hot and bright.

Over the female vampire’s shoulder, Cassie saw Dante surging toward them. The flames were reflected in his eyes. “You should run,” she whispered to the vamp.

“And you should die,” the redhead snarled, then she sank her teeth into Cassie’s throat.

Cassie cried out as the woman tore into her neck. The bite was brutal, and she felt the knife-slice of those teeth as they sank deep into her jugular. She tried to push the redhead away, but the vampire was too strong.