Playing With Fire (Phoenix Fire #3)(12)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Cassie’s eyes were still open, and her wild stare saw that the other vamps were rushing toward Dante. He sent balls of fire flying toward them. The flames hit the vampires, and they ignited.

“Get . . . off . . . me . . .” Cassie yelled as she twisted in the redhead’s hold.

The redhead jerked her head up. Blood dripped down her lips. Her eyes widened with horror, even as a tendril of smoke rose from her mouth. “What . . . the hell . . . are . . . you?” She stumbled back.

Cassie had told her to run. “I warned you . . .” She put her hand to her throat, trying to stop that gushing flow of blood that she could feel on her neck.

Dante was rushing toward the female vampire, coming with his fire and fury, but there would be no time for his attack.

She hit the floor. The vamp was screaming. Every bit of color bleached from her skin, and her body stiffened, contorting, and she died . . . thirty seconds after tasting Cassie’s blood.

What . . . the hell . . . are . . . you?

“Poison,” Cassie whispered, then her knees buckled.

She didn’t hit the floor, though. Dante was there. There with the fire in his eyes and a touch that should have scorched her, but didn’t. His arms wrapped around her, and he lifted her high into his arms.

“Tell me that you’ll heal,” he ordered, voice thick.

He’d come back for her. She swallowed, but felt the pain of that small movement rock through her whole body. “I’ll . . . heal.” If that was what he wanted to hear, then she’d give him the words.

“You better not be lying to me.”

She tried to smile. Then she realized that the fire was still burning. Seeming to rage out of control, the flames had raced up the walls and were rolling across the ceiling.

The fire surrounded them.

It had pretty much destroyed Trace’s safe house.

“Dante . . .”

His hold tightened on her. “I’ve got you.”

Even though the fire crackled around her and blood dripped down her neck, she felt safe. Her eyes closed. She didn’t want to see the flames. She felt the heat lance over her skin, a hot wind, but there was no more pain.

A few moments later, she could taste fresh air again. They were outside, and Dante was running toward the Jeep. The faint light from dawn lit the sky.

He put her into the Jeep and started to rush around to the driver’s side. “No.” She grabbed his arm. “My blood—”

“When are you going to heal?”

She had no idea. “My blood . . . lured the vampires here. The men who are after me . . . after us . . . can use vampires to track us.” Cassie shook her head. “The blood will lead them to me. As long as I bleed, I’ll make you a target.”

“If anyone comes after you, I’ll turn them to ash.”

Her breath caught.

He leaned in toward her. “Do I look like I’m afraid of vampires?”

“N-no.”

He’d touched them. They’d burned. End of story. Vampires were particularly susceptible to the flames.

He started to walk away.

She grabbed his arm again. Yes, they needed to go. The flames currently stretching high into the sky would attract humans and paranormals, but first she had to know. “Why did you come back?”

Tell me it’s because you needed me. That you couldn’t stand the thought of something happening to me, that—

“Hell if I know.”

She glared at him.

But he didn’t even notice. He’d pulled away. Hurried around the front of the Jeep and jumped into the driver’s seat.

They drove away with a squeal of tires.

Cassie wasn’t bleeding anymore. The woman really could heal at an amazing speed. But Dante didn’t know if he believed that her healing talent came from him.

Or from his tears.

He might not remember his life, but he didn’t exactly think that he was the crying sort.

They’d stopped at a pharmacy earlier. She’d run inside, bought a cheap new T-shirt, changed, and ditched her bloody old one. She came back out with only a faint red mark on her neck.

At the moment, they were driving on the interstate. The wind whipped through the Jeep, the sun beat down on them, and—

She was sleeping.

He slanted a glance toward her. She’d yanked her long hair back into a ponytail, but tendrils had escaped with the wind and they blew lightly around her face.

In sleep, she looked innocent. Delicate.

But then, she’d looked delicate in his dreams, too. Right before she’d killed him.

Did she have dreams? Nightmares? He’d like to know.

“Stay on the interstate,” she said, her voice barely rising over the whipping wind. “We need to head down south.”

Huh. So she wasn’t sleeping. “What’s in the South?”

“People who are counting on me.” She shifted in her seat, stretching a bit. When she stretched, that T-shirt pulled across the round curves of her br**sts in the best way.

His fingers tightened around the steering wheel, and he forced himself to focus on the road. He had been driving for four hours already. He eased toward the nearest exit, thinking that they’d gas up, and head out again.

“You are coming with me, right? You aren’t planning to ditch me at this exit?”

There was no missing the worried edge in her voice.

He hadn’t thought about, uh, ditching her, but then, he didn’t know why he was still with her. Why he felt the need to stay close to her.

Dante slowed down the Jeep as they turned toward the lone service station that sat at the top of the hill. He wasn’t even sure what state they were in, but the Jeep’s engine had started to sputter, and he was worried that sound meant the vehicle wouldn’t make it much farther.

“How the hell do I know,” he asked, not answering her question, “how to drive? How to tell that it sounds like the radiator might make it a few more hours? I didn’t know my own damn name before you told me, but—”

“It’s a type of source amnesia.” Her words were soft. “That’s what I figured, anyway. You can remember how to do things, like drive a car or—or kiss.” She cleared her throat. “But you don’t remember when or where you learned them. It’s all the specific, explicit memories that you lose when you burn.”

“They come back.” Hadn’t she said that?

“Usually. You never told me what it was like when you burned. You never told anyone for certain, so I don’t know what happens to you. Where you go.”