Playing With Fire (Phoenix Fire #3)(43)
Author: Cynthia Eden

She cared. Cared so much that she was risking her life for a werewolf who could choose to take his own life at any moment.

“You aren’t like them.” Her tear was cool on his finger. “You were never like them.”

She swallowed and gave a slow nod. Then she exhaled. “You should get some rest. I need to run these tests.”

She pulled away, straightened her shoulders, and headed back down the hallway.

Dante didn’t move. His gaze followed her until she turned the corner.

He had two choices. He could destroy the lab and everything that linked her to it. Then he could take her. She would know only him.

Or . . . he could help her. Help her save the werewolf. Help her try to stop the primal virus from spreading.

He’d never been one to help.

He just took what he wanted. Let the rest of the world save or destroy itself.

No, that wasn’t exactly true. Centuries before, he had tried to help.

Madness had swept through his village. Turning all those of his kind against one another. He’d tried to fight the madness, tried to save his brother.

But there were some who couldn’t be saved. No matter how hard he’d tried, he couldn’t save them. He’d been forced to fight Wren.

And, in the end, he’d sent his brother to hell.

Dante glanced at the closed door.

Help or destroy . . .

For Cassie, maybe he’d do a bit of both.

CHAPTER TEN

When the alarm rang, shrieking through the lab, Cassie jumped to her feet. She’d been working with her samples for hours, and silence had been her only companion.

Until then.

Her gaze flew to the monitors. The alarm was coming from room eight.

Not Trace’s room.

Oh, crap. Room eight. It was for the only primal vampire she had in the facility.

She grabbed a wooden stake from her desk drawer, even as she prayed that she wouldn’t have to use the weapon. That primal—she’d promised his father that she would do everything possible to save him.

But if he was loose and tried to attack someone, she’d have to stop him.

Charles was in the underground lab. Jamie was there, too. He wouldn’t make it through another attack.

Cassie grabbed for a dosage of tranqs, then hurried forward. She shoved open the sliding doors that led from her work area and raced toward room eight. Her shoes slapped against the tile even as her heart thundered in her chest.

The door to room eight was open.

No, no, it shouldn’t be—

She sprang into the room.

Vaughn Adams, the vampire, had his arms wrapped around Jamie. The primal’s teeth were inches from the boy’s throat.

One bite, and Jamie would be infected too.

“Stop!” Cassie yelled.

Vaughn’s head jerked toward her. His nostrils widened.

“Let him go, Vaughn.” She’d had no treatment success with Vaughn so far. All of the serums, the drugs—nothing could give him back even a hint of his humanity.

Jamie whimpered.

Cassie’s fingers curled around the stake. She’d agreed to help Vaughn, but she would not let him hurt the boy.

She stepped forward, and her right foot kicked against—another stake? Her gaze followed the stake as it rolled a few inches away, then her eyes whipped back up when Vaughn hissed.

“Tasting . . . you . . . soon . . .”

So he’d told her before. Once upon a time, Vaughn Adams had been a New Orleans cop, a guy torn between the paranormal and normal world. A bite from a primal vampire had sent him into a walking nightmare. One that, after months, he still hadn’t been able to wake from.

“Why wait?” She lifted the sharp point of the stake and slid it over her wrist, drawing forth some blood. “Come and get it now.”

“No!” Jamie shouted, his eyes bulging.

Vaughn shoved him aside and came right at her, all those terrible fangs in his mouth snapping.

“Cassie!” Dante’s roar. The alarm had drawn him to their little party.

She didn’t look back at Dante. She couldn’t take her eyes off Vaughn. One taste of her blood, and he’d be dead.

She wasn’t ready to give up on him yet.

When he came at her, she yanked up her left hand—the hand that had been in the front pocket of her lab coat. Her fingers were curled around a syringe—one full of enough tranqs to knock the guy out for a week.

She drove that syringe into his heart.

But he didn’t stop. His hands locked around her shoulders and he yanked her up against him.

No, no. He should have been on the floor. He should have . . .

“Bad mistake, vampire.” Dante’s voice was lethal and cold, so at odds with the sudden heat in the room.

Vaughn’s mouth was inches from Cassie’s throat.

But . . . he wasn’t biting her.

Cassie lifted her lashes. She stared into Vaughn’s eyes. Bloodlust stared back at her.

But he wasn’t biting her.

In the next instant, he couldn’t bite her. Dante had yanked her away from the vampire then turned, putting his body between her and Vaughn. Dante’s hand was suddenly lit by fire as he reached for the primal.

Vaughn fell to the floor before Dante could touch him. “He dies,” Dante said. “He dies.”

Cassie couldn’t let that happen. “No! Don’t touch him!” She pulled Dante back. “He’s not a threat now.”

“He wanted to bite you.” Dante stared at her as if she were crazy.

Only a little.

“He could have killed you!” Dante charged.

“You know that’s not true.” Her words were quiet. “My blood would have killed him in an instant.”

Dante’s eyes blazed at her. “And what about the kid?” He jabbed a finger toward the cowering Jamie. “Do you want him to become like his brother? Like this bastard here?”

She flinched. “You know I don’t! I’m trying to help—”

“Some beings are too dangerous to help! Some only need to be put down.”

She’d heard those same words before. They’d come from her father. “My father said the same thing about you once.”

Dante’s hands fell to his sides. “He was right.”

She shook her head.

“Why is he here?” Dante’s gaze was on Vaughn’s prone form.

“I need a test subject if I’m going to find a cure.” She hated those cold words, but they were true. “I have to see if I can reverse the primal state with the vampires, and Vaughn—Vaughn’s father begged me to try and help him.”