Playing With Fire (Phoenix Fire #3)(13)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Hell.

“There have been times when you came back, and all of your memories were with you. It was rare, but it happened.”

“And when it didn’t?”

“They were usually back in a week.”

Usually? He got the feeling the woman was being deliberately vague, and he sure wasn’t in the mood for any games.

Dante waited until he’d braked the vehicle then turned his full attention to Cassie. No one else was around, so he figured he could be honest with her. “I don’t know if I should help you or kill you.”

Her eyes widened. “I . . . didn’t realize that killing me was an option on the table.”

It wasn’t. He’d said the words to get some kind of response from her. Any response. Her words before had been too careful and quiet. Like the woman was hiding what she really felt.

She was still hiding. The slight flaring of her eyes wasn’t good enough for him. “Who are the men hunting you?”

“Hunting us?” she corrected carefully. “That’s what you meant, right? Because they’re hunting both of us. Not just me.”

He locked his back teeth.

“Those men work for the government. A very secret group that humans don’t know about. The paranormals who know about them? Well, let’s say they probably all wish they’d never heard of them, too.” Her gaze darted behind him. There wasn’t anything to see back there. Just a field of wheat.

“What do they want with you—us?” Dante asked.

Her gaze came back to him. “They want us to make them an army. An unstoppable army with your fire and immortality.”

That said why they wanted him. “Why you?”

Her smile was broken. “Because I’m the mad scientist that they believe can create this army for them.” She climbed from the Jeep.

He followed her. “Why the hell would they think that?”

“Because my father already made them one army of enhanced”—she stressed the word as she tried to shove back her loose tendrils of hair—“vampires. Of course, that turned into a freaking nightmare, but the guys in suits just don’t learn, do they?”

Her father? Dante caught her arm and turned her toward him.

Her gaze lingered on his. “Every time you rose, I always wondered . . . will this be the time he remembers nothing? When the memories just don’t return?” The mask was falling away.

He didn’t speak.

“Maybe—maybe there are some things you’d rather not remember. There sure are things I’d prefer to forget.” She smiled.

He knew it was a fake smile because her eyes didn’t light up. So much for her mask sliding away.

“I’ll go pay for the gas. Good thing you had some cash on you, huh?”

He’d stolen the money. Not such a “good” thing. But Dante was realizing he wasn’t well acquainted with good.

He handed her the money. As soon as his fingers brushed hers, he felt the connection again. A surge of lust and need that seemed to pulse all the way through his veins.

She tried to pull away from him.

He didn’t let her go.

“Do you think I don’t remember that we were lovers?” He asked the question deliberately. Again, wanting to see her response.

But she shook her head. Her fake smile fell away. “We were never lovers, Dante.”

Yet he knew her taste.

When she pulled away again, he let her go. He watched her walk away from him and toward the station. Enjoyed the sway of her ass, and then he called out, “Cassandra!”

She stopped. Looked back at him.

“We will be,” he promised her.

He saw her swallow.

“You left me hours ago—just walked out. Now you think you’ll sleep with me?” She shook her head. “You aren’t that irresistible, no matter what you think.”

She headed into the small station. His eyes narrowed. We will be.

The bell over the door jingled when Cassie entered the station. She glanced toward the counter and saw the clerk staring her way.

Older, balding, with a faded shirt and a grizzled jaw, he seemed to be studying her a bit too closely.

She gave him a smile, trying to put on her friendliest face. “Twenty dollars’ worth of gas, please.” She headed toward the counter. A glance to the upper right corner revealed the surveillance video that was currently showing Dante as he put gas in the Jeep.

She slid her cash across the counter and glanced up at the TV that had been mounted behind the counter. A sports show was on—a basketball game.

“Where you headed?” the clerk asked, taking the money and ringing up the sale real fast.

She kept her smile in place. “My boyfriend and I are going to visit some relatives in Georgia.” She didn’t actually have any relatives anymore. They were all dead.

“Maps are in the back,” he told her, inclining his head. “You might want to pick up a few.”

That wasn’t such a bad idea. The old Jeep wasn’t equipped with any GPS, and if they could find a short cut that would take them to Belle, Mississippi, in time . . . “Thanks. I’ll do that.” She turned away from him and headed toward the maps.

The basketball game kept playing behind her. She heard the rustle of footsteps.

“Authorities are still looking for the two suspects wanted in connection with an arson that killed four people in Chicago . . .”

That wasn’t the basketball game. That was a newsflash that she’d rather be doing without. Cassie kept walking. It wasn’t the time to panic. She glanced over at the maps and tried to act casual.

“Federal officials have identified one of the suspects as twenty-nine-year-old Cassandra Armstrong, an ex-doctoral student from Tulane who—”

Ex-doctoral? She’d gotten that doctorate—and an MD.

Cassie turned for the door and found her path blocked by the store clerk. He had a shotgun in his hands. “That same news story has been on every fifteen minutes for the last four hours. They’ve been running a picture of you every time it airs.”

The gun was pointing right at her heart.

“Did you kill those four people in Chicago?”

They were dead, though they hadn’t exactly been people. Or, well, humans, anyway. “Does it matter that they were trying to kill me?”

The clerk was between her and the door. Dammit. She should have realized that her story would be fed to the media. It was a strategy that had been used before.

Give your prey no place to hide. Let everyone hunt them.