Playing With Fire (Phoenix Fire #3)(41)
Author: Cynthia Eden

But she was gone.

Gone.

He whirled and grabbed Shaw, yanking her up against him. “You said you could find her!”

Fear rolled off Shaw in waves that he could smell. Then she was gasping, twisting in his hold as she tried to break free.

Smoke rose from her arm—from the touch of his fingers.

He was blistering her flesh. In a few more moments, he’d give the bitch third degree burns.

“I’m sorry!” she yelled. “Stop! Please, stop!”

He didn’t want to stop, but he stepped back. For the moment. “I need Cassie.”

Tears leaked down Shaw’s cheeks. “I know. You have to find her.”

He did. The throbbing was back, nearly ripping through his temples. “She’s gone. There’s no tracker.” Fire burst from his fingertips. It would be so easy to put that fire against Shaw’s skin. “I have no f**king clue what kind of car she is in or where she went.”

“Please! Keep the fire away!”

The fire wasn’t touching her. He had control. For now. “She’s with the phoenix. Dante isn’t going to let her go. He’ll keep her close and—”

Shaw stumbled back.

He smiled. “A phoenix’s weakness.”

She had fallen to the ground. “What?”

“Do you know why there aren’t many phoenixes around?” His voice was mild.

Shaw shook her head.

“Because they can kill each other. They have, actually, over and over again.” He glanced at the wreckage. All of that wonderful fire. “They don’t know I’m alive.” A huge advantage for him. “When I start to burn, they’ll think it’s another phoenix.”

“Burn? Burn what?”

He glanced over at her. “Everything.”

Every damn thing that Cassie had ever held dear. Good thing he knew her well. “I’ll light up Cassie’s world until Dante has to come for me, and when he comes, she’ll be there.”

If he couldn’t find Cassie, then he’d smoke her out—literally.

She’d come to him, and he’d get exactly what he wanted.

I need her.

Something inside Jon was pushing him to find her. Clawing to get out and get to her. Was it the phoenix? Dante’s beast had recognized Cassie as a mate. Jon knew that from the Genesis reports he’d read. During one of Dante’s desperate risings, that confession had broken from him. He’d claimed Cassie only once, but that slip-up had been noted by Genesis.

Maybe Jon’s own, newly developed phoenix was experiencing that same instinctive recognition.

“Why did Dante come for her at the ranch?” he asked.

Shaw shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Dante had risked himself to go and rescue Cassie. Now . . . Jon was finding himself obsessed by her.

Cassie’s blood was poison to vampires, a little tweak that her father had performed on her.

But what if there was something . . . else . . . that had also been done to sweet little Cassie?

Something that was drawing him to her. Something that was making him think . . .

Mine.

“We light up her world,” Jon said again. “And we bring her to me.” He’d find out what was happening and he’d get the tears that he needed.

Failure wasn’t an option.

Shaw rose slowly to her feet once more and nodded.

“Cassie!”

Dante grabbed her and yanked her away from the—what the hell? The howl had sounded as if it had come from a fully shifted werewolf, but Dante wasn’t staring at a beast.

He also wasn’t staring at a man. Not really.

But rather, he was looking at a combination of both.

This was Trace?

Trace saw him, and his lips peeled away from his teeth, revealing fully extended fangs. He jumped toward Dante, but the silver chains that were locked around his wrists and ankles jerked Trace back.

Claws burst from the man’s fingers—long claws, easily as sharp as knives. Trace was big—too tall, too wide—with muscles bulging over his body. His eyes were wild, feral, glowing. Currently looking at Dante with a bright hatred.

Trace’s features were sharp, hard, very much like a wolf’s, but he wasn’t a wolf.

Was he?

“Trace, please. Calm down!” Cassie said as she pushed Dante back. “I’m a friend, remember? Friend.”

Those glowing eyes slid to her. The man-beast’s muscles bulged, and Dante was afraid that the guy was about to rip those chains right from the wall.

He sure looked strong enough to do it.

“I’m Cassie, remember? I help you.”

“Help.” That guttural growl was no human’s voice. If a wolf could talk—that one could—Dante figured it would sound just like that snarling sound.

Cassie nodded. “That’s right. Dante and I are both here to help you.”

The glowing stare came back to Dante once more.

Then the man-beast gave a sharp shake of his head. “Kill,” he growled as he looked straight at Dante.

Dante’s eyes narrowed. Come on and try, beast. I’ll fry that fur right off you.

Cassie hurried toward a cabinet on the right. She pressed her thumb against the screen on a small locking pad, and the lock hissed open. “I need to give him his dosage. He’s due for one now, and Charles always gets nervous when he has to come inside and do it.”

Charles was afraid the wolf would eat him.

The glowing stare followed Cassie’s movements. The beast looked like he wanted to make a meal of her.

Not happening.

“How much of him is man?” Dante demanded. He wanted to know just what he was dealing with in that room.

“All of him,” Cassie snapped as she pulled out a needle from the cabinet. “Trace is in there, and from what I’ve determined, he understands everything we say.”

Dante realized the beast was staring at him. He bared his own teeth. “Screw off.”

The beast heaved against his chains.

So he did understand.

“Dante! Don’t! Don’t antagonize him in any way. Trace is inside, but the Lycan-70 dosage that he was given put his beast in charge. He can’t change back to his normal form, and he can’t shift fully. He’s”—her breath exhaled on a rush—“trapped like this.”

In a form somewhere between man and beast.

She headed toward Trace, acting like she didn’t see the claws and fangs that would rip her apart.

Dante grabbed her.

The man-beast snarled.

Dante snarled right back then told Cassie, “You aren’t injecting him! Get Charles and his cowardly ass back in here to do the job!”