Phoenix Fury Box set

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

It didn’t look like much of a lab to Dante.

He braked the truck. Checked the scrawled directions that Cassie had given to him before she’d passed out. Yes, this was the place. It looked like a hole-in-the-wall.

His head turned, and he glanced down at Cassie. She was beside him with her head sagging on his shoulder. The boy had finally asked to come up front when the sun rose, and they’d all crammed in together.

The boy hadn’t slept though.

Not that Dante blamed the kid. When you watched your family die, it didn’t usually put you in the mood for sleep.

“What did she do to him?” Jamie asked, his voice a whisper. It was the first time the kid had talked to him since he’d joined their little road trip from hell.

Dante glanced over at him and found Jamie’s eyes on his.

“My brother. She killed him, didn’t she?”

“He killed himself.” The minute he’d taken her blood, he’d been dead.

Jamie shook his head. “I saw…he was convulsing after he drank her blood.” His gaze darted to Cassie even as he kept his voice whisper quiet. “What did she do?”

“She lived.” Dante wanted to brush aside the hair that had fallen over her face, but the kid was watching him far too closely.

“What are you?” An even softer whisper.

Dante held his stare. “I’m the man you don’t ever want to cross, because if you do—if you do anything to hurt me or to hurt her, you won’t have to beg me for death.” The boy needed to get this message. Clearly. “I’ll kill you before you can even scream.”

Jamie’s eyes widened, nearly filling his face, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “You don’t scare me.”

“Yes, I do.” Dante scared everyone. Even Cassie, though he knew she tried to act like she didn’t fear him. He’d caught glimpses of the fear in her eyes. “She wanted you to come with us, so you did. If it had been up to me…”

“You would have left me alone out there.”

Damn straight . Dante gazed steadily back at him. “Don’t ever give me reason to regret hauling you out of that swamp.”

“Dante?” Cassie’s husky voice asked. “We aren’t moving. We’re—” She sat up, snapping to attention. “We’re here!”

Yes, wherever here was.

She shoved against him, trying to get out. Dante slid over and when she hurried toward the ramshackle buildings, he followed her.

Jamie was on his heels.

“This is your lab?” Dante asked, voice doubtful. They were in the middle of an old corn field, and the buildings that surrounded them looked like abandoned barns.

“Don’t let appearances fool you.” Her voice was strangely perky. “This place was set up by the government back in the fifties. They forgot about it.” She pushed aside some wood that was near the door of the nearby barn and quickly punched in a code on a security screen. “My father didn’t. I didn’t.”

“Identify yourself,” a computer voice demanded.

“Doctor Cassandra Armstrong,” she said at once.

The barn door opened, but they didn’t head into a real barn.

The door slid open to reveal an elevator.

“Told you,” Cassie said, sounding pretty satisfied with herself. “Appearances can deceive you.”

“That is freakin’ cool,” Jamie announced.

Dante frowned at him.

“Now, we’re heading down to the lab.” She bit her lip. “I’ll send Charles back up to hide the truck.”

Who the fuck was Charles?

They were descending, a fast descent that Dante thought took them down two floors. When the door opened again, a thin man with curly hair was standing in front of them.

“Cassie!” He rushed toward her. “I was afraid you weren’t coming back!”

The jerk was hugging her far too tightly. Dante decided that he didn’t like him.

“I’m sorry, Charles. It took a bit longer than I’d thought for the retrieval mission.”

Charles glanced over at Dante. His gray eyes doubled in size. “It’s him. ”

The him could hear.

“Is he going to kill us?” Charles whispered as he edged behind Cassie. “It looks like he wants to. It looks like he wants to fry us both!”

Cassie laughed, and the light sound caught Dante off guard. Her laugh was so sweet he wanted to hear it again. And again.

“No, he’s not going to kill us,” she replied. “He’s here to help us.”

Not really, but they’d get around to the true reason for his visit later.

“And the boy?” Charles asked with a questioning glance toward Jamie.

“We need to keep him safe and use our resources to find some of his family who can take care of him.”

Jamie’s chin jutted up in the air. “I told you, my family is—”

“There was a primal attack,” Cassie stated quietly. “His brother didn’t survive.”

Charles’s gaze dropped to the bloody cloth that was still wrapped around her arm.

Jamie’s shoulders hunched.

“Can you put him in one of the unoccupied rooms?” Cassie asked softly. “Give him something to eat?”

Charles nodded. “As long as he doesn’t mind the locks on the doors.”

Jamie backed up, edging toward the elevator.

“It’s okay!” Cassie quickly reassured him. “Some of the…patients here can’t be let out.” Her voice was soothing. “You won’t be locked in, Jamie. You’re free to go anytime you want. I was just offering you a safe place to stay while we look for your family.”

“I told you, I have no family.” The kid was pretty vehement on that point. “Tim and I were in the foster system till he turned eighteen, then he got me out.” Jamie’s hands had fisted in front of him. “He said we weren’t ever going back.”

And now Tim was dead.

No, there would be no going back for him.

“If you decide to leave…” Cassie kept talking in that same soothing voice. “I just ask that you tell no one about us. Forget this lab. Forget me. Forget Dante.”

Damn if she wasn’t soothing Dante, too, and he hadn’t even realized he’d needed soothing.

The kid’s eyes were like saucers. “Are you making monsters down here? Like I saw on the news—that Genesis place that got blown up—”

“We’re healing the monsters,” Cassie answered carefully. “Not making them.”

Did she believe that lie? It sure seemed as if she did.

But Jamie was nodding. Ah, he bought the lie, too. “I-I’ll stay, for now.”

“Good.”

Charles hurried forward. “Come with me, uh—what’s your name?”

“Jamie.”

“Come with me, Jamie.”

Dante noticed that Charles gave him a particularly wide berth as the man took the boy down the hallway.

And just like that, he was alone with Cassie again.

“I need to check on Trace.” She turned away from him.

Hold the hell up . He caught her arm and turned her right back around. “We’ve been traveling non-stop.” For more hours than he wanted to think about. “You were captured by some military assholes, you were bitten by vampires—and the first thing you want to do is go and check on him ?” Jealousy was there, clawing at him.

“I have to see if Trace’s condition is still stable.”

Screw that. “Cassie…”

She pulled away from him. “I have a room down at the end of the hall.” Her hand rose, and she pointed to the left. “You can go rest in there. I’ll see you in a little bit, okay?”

No, that isn’t okay.

But Cassie didn’t wait for an answer. She just spun on her heel and went down the hallway that branched to the right. Did she think that he was Charles? About to jump at her every little command?

She needed to rethink that shit.

He began to stalk after her. He wanted to see this Trace that she talked about so often. The man that she was desperate to save.

The man that was in his way.

Dante needed Cassie to have ties only to him. In the life that he would have with her, there would be room for no others. She needed to leave everything behind. Everyone else.

She would. It was just a matter of time.

He headed down the hallway, his steps silent. Cassie was up ahead of him. He could see her as she tapped on a control panel before one of the rooms.

The place might have been built in the fifties, but it had undergone some serious upgrades. Just who had made those improvements? Suspicion swelled in him.

Cassie entered the room.

A wolf’s howl seemed to shake the lab as it echoed up that hallway.

That was no man. That was a beast.

A fully transformed werewolf.

Shit . Bellowing Cassie’s name, Dante raced after her.

***

Jon wasn’t following a trail of breadcrumbs. His eyes narrowed on the wreckage. He was following a path of fire.

The phoenix had been at this location. And he’d left a dead vampire in his wake.

“I’ve never seen a vampire like him,” Shaw noted as she stared at the man’s claws. “Did you see his teeth?” Fear whispered through her words.

Jon’s gaze left her. Slid around what remained of the lot. The motorcycle was there, tossed on its side. Cassie and Dante must have switched to a different vehicle. They wouldn’t have gone into the swamp on foot.

“What is he?” Shaw asked.

“He’s a primal,” Jon told her, the words coming quickly. “Trust me, it’s a good thing he’s dead.” But a very bad thing that he’d been out in the open. Someone needed to alert Uncle Sam to the fact that more of those freaks were out and infecting others.

That someone wouldn’t be Jon.

“Cassie’s tracking signal led us here.”

He glanced over and saw Shaw frowning down at the phone in her hand—and at the tracking screen that had appeared on that phone.

“She should be here.” Shaw seemed confused.

Jon headed toward the primal vampire. “You put the tracker in her arm?”

“Yes, I—”

“Is the signal still transmitting?”

Shaw pointed to the vampire. “It says that she’s right there.”

Dammit. “She isn’t, but the asshole who fed on her is here.” That was why the vamp was frozen. “Got a taste of her poison, didn’t you, dumbass?” Jon muttered to the dead man.

“Wait, you’re saying he—”

“When the vamp fed on her, he ate the tracker, and Cassie is long gone.” Fucking hell. Fury flooded through his body. He’d thought that he was close, that he would have her back by now—

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 and 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 fucking 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 to reveal 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 and 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 probably 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.” Her breath exhaled on a rush. “He’s trapped like this.”

In a form somewhere between man and beast.

She headed toward Trace. Cassie acted as if 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!”

She shook her head. Her hair brushed over his arm. “Trace isn’t going to hurt me.”

Dante wasn’t in the mood to test that theory.

“He won’t,” Cassie said, sounding so sure. “I’ve given him dozens of injections, and he’s never attacked me.”

“There’s a first time for everything.” Dante didn’t let her go. “If his beast is in control, he could attack at any moment.”

Her fingers tightened around the syringe. “He won’t. Just give me a minute to do this, all right? Once he gets the dosage, he’ll be calmer. He always is.”

Dante wasn’t sure he bought that bullshit. The thing he was sure of? He didn’t want Cassie getting any closer to Trace.

“Give it to me,” Dante gritted because he knew what he had to do.

She blinked.

Dante smothered a sigh. “Give me the damn syringe. If anyone’s getting close to the guy, it sure won’t be you.” He could handle himself if the wolf got wild. He’d just burn the beast.

But Cassie was hesitating. “I don’t want you killing him.”

Dante took the syringe from her. “Then he’d better not attack me.”

Sure enough, as he stepped toward that man-beast, the bastard tried to lunge for him.

“You don’t want to piss me off,” Dante told him, voice flat. “You won’t like it when the anger burns through me. No one ever does.”

The man-beast snapped his teeth together.

And Dante drove that syringe into the fellow’s throat in one fast, hard hit.

A loud, echoing howl broke from Trace, and he sagged in his restraints, falling down to his knees.

Dante carefully eased back. He watched Trace closely.

The claws didn’t vanish. Those bulging muscles didn’t change. So far, that injection wasn’t doing anything. How long was it supposed to take before—

Trace’s head tilted back. His eyes weren’t quite so wild. The beast still glowed there, but Dante could have sworn he saw a hint of the man, too.

“Thank…you…” Trace gasped as his shoulders sagged forward.

Cassie took the syringe from Dante. Disposed of it. Then she was back and heading toward the kneeling werewolf. “I told you,” she said as she glanced back at Dante. “He’s calmer after the dose.”

Calmer, and far more human.

Dante frowned but he didn’t try to stop Cassie when she approached Trace.

Cassie reached out and slid her hand against the werewolf’s arm.

Trace looked at her. “You…came…back.” Each word seemed to be a struggle for him.

Cassie nodded and smiled at him.

Yes, the werewolf was calmer, but Dante wasn’t. With that touch and smile, the tension in his body deepened.

“I told you that I’d be back. And Dante over there? He’s here to help you.”

The werewolf’s eyes turned to him. Weighed him. “How?” Trace rasped.

How indeed.

“Let me work on that part,” Cassie said. “But first, I need to check you out. So let’s just keep those claws away.” She started to check the werewolf. Putting a stethoscope against his heart. Drawing his blood.

Running her hands over his back.

Dante’s back teeth clenched.

It was a clinical exam. Nothing sexual there at all, but—

He remembered the lieutenant colonel’s words. Her lover is sick. Not sick so much as transforming. If she can’t help her werewolf, she’ll lose him, and Cassie doesn’t want to lose Trace.

Cassie wasn’t Trace’s lover. Dante knew that. Cassie had never been anyone’s lover.

But mine.

He stayed close during the exam, not trusting those knife-like claws, but Trace made no move to attack Cassie. By the end of the exam, Trace was sitting in a metal chair, the chains pulling against him.

“Okay, that’s all for now.” Cassie rose to her feet. “I’ll run the blood work and see where we are—”

“Cure…” Trace growled.

Cassie nodded. “I think we’re close, Trace. I do. With Dante here—”

But Trace gave a hard shake of his head. “Cure…or kill…”

Dante eased closer to Cassie. The werewolf had better not be threatening her.

“Cure…” Trace said again, his face locked in desperate lines as he struggled to speak. “Or…kill…me.”

Dante felt the ripple of shock go through Cassie’s body. “We’re not to that point, Trace! There’s hope. You just need to give me more time.”

Dante wasn’t seeing hope in Trace’s gaze. And that gaze swung to him. The same plea the werewolf had just voiced to Cassie was in his stare.

“Why the hell is everyone asking me to kill them?” Dante groused. He didn’t like the pain that he could suddenly feel emanating from Cassie. She shouldn’t know pain. “You.” He pointed at the werewolf. “Save the death wish for later. Dying is easy. I know—I’ve done it more times than I can count. Use the power of your beast and live.”

Anger flared in Trace’s eyes. He surged to his feet, but the chains stopped him from advancing.

Dante smiled at him. “Maybe one day those chains won’t be on you. Maybe—if you stop asking folks to kill your mangy ass—you can be free.”

The anger made the glow deepen in Trace’s eyes.

Good. Anger was far better than desperation.

Better than hopelessness.

Dante pushed Cassie toward the door. She had her tests to run, and, well, now that the wolf was getting amped again, Dante didn’t want her close to him any longer.

Cassie slipped from the room.

“Her…smell…”

Dante looked back at the werewolf ’s rough words.

“Mate,” Trace growled.

Anger pumped through Dante. “No, she’s not yours, so don’t even think—”

“Dangerous…protect her.”

“I’ll keep her safe, because she’s mine. ” Had been, for longer than Cassie even realized.

Dante left the room. Cassie sealed Trace back inside. Had she heard what the wolf said? What he’d said?

A tear slid down her cheek. Dante bent and wiped the tear away.

“He didn’t deserve this. Trace was just trying to help his friends. He was helping them when my brother injected him with Lycan-70. Richard knew how dangerous that mix was, but he didn’t care.” Her hand raked through her hair. “That’s always been my family’s problem. They just don’t care who they hurt.”

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 strode 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 others.

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. Attempted 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.