Playing With Fire (Phoenix Fire #3)(21)
Author: Cynthia Eden

While she could never forget him.

The helicopter turned, circling around, and she stared down below. A circle of fire surrounded him, showing his splayed body. He’d fallen so that he stared straight up at the sky. He wasn’t moving at all.

But she knew that, soon enough, he would be.

Please, please, remember me.

Without him, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to escape.

The fire swept around him. The flames were like voices. Laughing. Mocking. Burning.

He felt claws dig into his skin. White-hot knives that cut and tore as he fought his way out of hell.

He couldn’t stay in the fire. There was something he needed.

Something he had to have.

He shouted as the flames spun around him. Dante fought his way through that fire, determined to get to—

Her.

The flames flickered, and he rose to his feet. The fire was burning beneath his skin, clawing him from the inside, but he took a step forward.

Another.

He could hear the distant whir of a helicopter.

They’d taken her on the helicopter.

The memories were there. Strong and sharp. He could see her face. The delicate beauty. The stark fear that she’d felt as that bastard had taken her away.

A fatal mistake.

The man would die for that.

Dante looked up into the air and saw only the stars. The helicopter was gone.

His Cassandra was gone.

But every memory that he’d ever had—so many lifetimes—those memories were back.

He smiled and began to hunt.

No one takes her from me.

Cassie stared at the door of her cell, and wondered if Jon was planning to feed her any time soon. She wasn’t exactly sure how much time had passed, but the gnawing in her stomach told her it had been at least a day since she’d left Dante.

When the helicopter had touched down, Jon had met up with more of his men and, of course, they’d immediately drugged her. The better for her not to see where the hell they were taking her.

She’d woken in her cell. And it was most definitely a cell for prisoners, not some nice room for guests, no matter how Jon wanted to spin the place. All of eight feet wide and seven feet long, Cassie had been pacing that cell for hours. No windows. One door.

And lights that were too damn bright.

She heard the click of a lock and spun toward her door just as it swung open.

Jon stood there. He arched a brow as his blue gaze swept over her. His lips quirked in that mildly amused smile she detested. “Cassie, who would have thought we’d end up like this?”

She wanted to rip him apart. But she had to play it smart, so she didn’t move at all. “Like this?” she repeated carefully as she raised a brow. “You mean with you being a kidnapper and a killer and me being your prisoner?” She shook her head. “Um, no, I didn’t ever think we’d end up quite like this.”

The first time she’d seen Jon, he’d been one of the new recruits brought in to Genesis. One of the actual volunteers—because he’d been human. A soldier who’d agreed to become part of an experimental unit for Uncle Sam.

Humans who had their bodies enhanced by science. He’d wanted to be a true super soldier.

She’d tried to warn him to leave then.

He hadn’t.

Of course, back then, she’d just thought he was being misled. That he was clueless about what the government was doing to the paranormals.

Her gaze cut to her cell. Not so clueless anymore.

“Cassie . . .” He sighed out her name as he came closer to her. “You know it doesn’t have to be like this. We need you—”

“We?” She shook her head. “In case you missed the dozens of news stories that have been running lately, Genesis is dead. My father? Gone. Public opinion is against you. No one wants the paranormals tortured—”

“I’m not torturing anyone.”

Bull. “I’m about to collapse from hunger. You’ve held me here without—”

His fingers skimmed down her cheek. Goosebumps immediately rose on her flesh, and not the good kind of goose bumps.

“Baby, do you really think a little hunger equals torture?” His eyes hardened. “I could show you real torture. The kind that makes a man scream for hours.”

Her throat went dry. “When did you become like this?” she whispered.

He smiled. “You were always so blind. But . . . hey, my timing was good, right? If your phoenix hadn’t just broken out of the facility when I arrived for my therapy—”

Therapy? Was that what he was seriously calling it?

“Then we never would have gotten as . . . close . . . as we did.”

She knew her cheeks had flushed. She’d been twenty-two when Dante escaped—the first time, anyway.

She’d been sure that he’d never come back. Jon had pursued her for months, and she’d been hesitant to trust him.

Should have stuck with my instincts.

But she’d been so lonely and she’d missed Dante so much. When the months had slipped into a year, she’d finally agreed to date Jon.

He’d wanted more from her and had made it clear. She just hadn’t realized quite how much more he wanted, not until he started talking marriage.

I couldn’t marry him. How could I marry one man when I wanted another? Even when that “other” had forgotten her.

“We have a chance to do something very special together, Cassie,” Jon said as his gaze held hers. “With your brains and my resources, the world could be ours.”

No. “I don’t want the world. I just want away from you.” Because she’d seen, after she’d turned down his proposal, the real Jon. The Jon that was cold and diabolical—and willing to do anything to get what he wanted.

His eyes narrowed. “Getting away isn’t an option.” His nostrils flared. “You know . . . you smell even better now than you did when I first met you. But that’s part of what he did to you, isn’t it?”

He . . . Jon wasn’t talking about Dante. He was talking about her father.

“No one knows the full extent of my father’s experiments,” she said. “His files were destroyed when the two Genesis labs were—”

“Obliterated?”

They had been.

“I know what your blood can do.” Jon was staring at her neck.

She could feel her heartbeat drumming madly and wondered if he saw the frantic movement of her pulse just beneath the skin.

With his enhancements, she bet he could.

“You’re a weapon, Cassie, one that I intend to use.”