Playing With Fire (Phoenix Fire #3)(4)
Author: Cynthia Eden

“Why should I trust a woman who’s killed me before?”

“Because I’ve saved you, too.” She’d risked so much to save him. “Believe it or not, you actually owe me.”

“I don’t believe it.”

Her lips trembled.

His gaze dropped once more to her mouth.

“Dante . . .”

He kissed her.

She hadn’t been expecting the move, and when his lips closed over hers, shock froze her for a moment. Then she realized—Dante.

Her lips parted eagerly for him, and the wall that she’d built to hold back her need for him started to fracture. His tongue pushed into her mouth. Not sampling, but taking, and it was just like she remembered. He kissed her, she wanted. Lust tore through her, and her wrists twisted in his grip because she wanted to touch him.

She wanted—

His head lifted. His eyes blazed down at her, the gold starting to heat. “I remember . . . your mouth. Your taste.”

She’d never been able to forget his kiss. He’d been the first man that she ever kissed. The first to make her feel like she belonged to someone.

A someone who sometimes seemed to hate her.

“You can trust me,” she whispered, desperate to make him believe her.

He gave a hard shake of his head. “No, that’s the last thing I can do.” He moved away from her, leaping back.

For an instant, she didn’t move. His eyes were on her, sweeping from the top of her hair down to her small sandals. He seemed confused. Yeah, well, so was she.

Don’t kiss me and jerk away. She didn’t have the damn plague.

“I woke up a week ago,” he told her quietly, his voice still making her ache. “In an alley that had been scorched. I was naked, and there were ashes all around me.”

Her heart beat faster as she straightened on the table. “What happened to me?” he demanded.

“Dante, I—”

“Is that my name?”

The memory loss seemed more severe than it had been in the past. “Y-yes. That’s what you told me to call you.” But was it really his name? She wasn’t sure. He’d never confessed too much about his life—at least, not his life before he’d come to be a prisoner.

“How did I get in that alley?”

She pushed away from the table. Her knees were trembling so she locked them as she faced him. “I don’t know. The last time I saw you, you were down in New Orleans.”

A faint furrow appeared between his brows. He appeared to be a man in his prime, maybe close to thirty-four or thirty-five, but the truth was that Dante was much, much older.

There was a reason he’d been called the Immortal at the facility.

“New Orleans?” He yanked a hand through his hair. “What was I doing down there?”

That was an easy answer. “Saving my life.”

His hand fell. Suspicion was on his face as he asked, “Are you sure I wasn’t trying to kill you?”

Actually, no, she wasn’t. But she was still breathing, and if he had truly wanted her dead, she’d be ash.

His enemies had a way of ending up as ash drifting in the wind.

“What happened to me in the alley?”

Okay, if she was going to get his trust, she was obviously going to have to share with him. “I think you died.”

He laughed. The sound was bitter and hard, just like the laughter she’d heard from him a dozen times. She’d tried for years to get a real laugh from him. That hadn’t happened.

“If I died,” he asked, “then how am I breathing now?”

That was the tricky-to-explain part. “Look, Dante—”

Shouts erupted from the other room. High-pitched, desperate screams that were immediately followed by the rat-a-tat of gunfire.

They found me. Cassie’s heartbeat froze in her chest then she was the one leaping forward and grabbing Dante’s hand. “We have to go. Now.”

She yanked him, hoping he’d follow with her.

He didn’t move. Not even an inch. “I don’t run from anyone.”

Well, yes, that was true. He didn’t.

She did. When you weren’t a paranormal powerhouse, you learned to flee pretty quickly.

More screams. More blasts from guns. “If they catch me,” Cassie said, voice soft, “they won’t let me get away.”

His gaze held hers.

“If they catch you, they’re going to toss you back in a cage, and you won’t see daylight again anytime soon.” Her heartbeat seemed to thunder as loud as the gunshots. He had to believe her. “They’ll keep you in that cage, and they’ll torture you again and again.”

“How do you know this?”

She licked her dry lips. “Because that’s what they did to you before.”

His jaw hardened. “Then I think it’s time I faced these bastards.”

Wait—what? Hadn’t she been trying to sell the guy on running?

He pulled from her and rushed toward the broken door, heading right toward the sound of gunshots and screams.

As she watched him run away, her heart iced. She’d followed Dante to Chicago because she’d needed him. She’d hunted for him, searching desperately . . . and she’d led his enemies right to his side.

Dante, I’m sorry.

But he wouldn’t believe that apology. He never did.

Men wearing black ski masks had rushed inside of Taboo. The drumming music had died away, and only the screams of those still trapped in the club remained.

Most of the patrons had run away. Those wounded on the floor appeared to be mostly vampires. It seemed they were fine with walking amongst the humans these days. There were shifters, too.

Dante hadn’t felt even mild surprise when he’d seen a man shift into the form of a fox just the night before. Maybe it was because his memories were gone that he felt no surprise. It seemed that vampires and shifters were a normal part of the world.

Or at least, they felt normal to him.

“You there!” A male’s voice called out. “Stop!”

A big, black gun was pointing at his chest.

Dante. She’d said my name was Dante. The name had felt right in his mind. Just as the sexy brunette had felt right in his hands.

“Are you a human?” the voice snapped out from behind a mask. “Or a Para?”

He’d learned yesterday that Para was the slang for a paranormal being. He didn’t quite know what he was, so he just stared back at the man, not particularly feeling the urge to answer him.

“What are you?” the man demanded as he came closer.