Phoenix Fury Box set

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

“He’s gonna be pissed when he wakes up.” Cain dropped Dante’s body in the cell—a reinforced cell that Cassie had never used before.

“I’ll deal with his anger,” Cassie replied. And he could deal with hers. He’d been using her all along. He’d never intended to help. He’d only wanted to kill.

It felt like the jerk had carved out her heart. Or maybe he’d just burned it out of her chest with his damn fire.

Cain glanced toward the chains. She saw his face tighten and knew he was remembering his own time with Genesis.

“You putting him in those?” he asked, voice flat.

“No.” She’d never thought she would actually be the one locking Dante up. But she’d thought wrong. “The room will be secure enough. It’s fireproof. He won’t be getting out unless we let him out.”

Cain nodded.

Cassie glanced down at Dante once more. His eyelashes cast dark shadows beneath his closed eyes. His face was still tense and hard, even when he was unconscious. As if he never let down his guard.

Why? Why did you do this, Dante?

She’d trusted him. In just a few moments time, he’d destroyed that trust. From sex to betrayal in five minutes flat. What woman was supposed to handle that?

“We need to get back to Trace.” Cassie squared her shoulders. She’d drugged him already, dosing him with tranqs that had stopped his shift, but she still needed to treat the wounds on his body.

She noticed that Cain made sure she exited and then he came out after her, swinging the heavy metal door shut behind them.

And sealing Dante inside.

Cassie lifted her chin and tried to act like Dante hadn’t just killed a part of her. If only she were a better actress.

They went back to her lab. Eve was helping to patch up Charles. Poor Charles. The man looked shell-shocked.

“Are you going to leave?” she asked him quietly.

Charles had been Cassie’s assistant for so long. His half-sister had been a shifter, one who’d been taken into the Genesis program on a very much not voluntary basis. By the time Charles had found her, it had been too late. She’d been broken by what Genesis had done to her.

Kerri had taken her own life.

He’d wanted to work with Cassie, to help others like Kerri, but there was fear in his eyes now.

“I think this is all too much for me,” Charles muttered. “I thought I could handle it, but the ones here are just too strong. Too dangerous.”

Wasn’t that what Cassie’s father had told her? That some of the paranormals were too strong and dangerous? That they had to be put down for the protection of the humans? She hadn’t wanted to believe he could be right.

And she hadn’t wanted to believe that Dante would betray her, either.

“If you want to leave,” Cassie said, holding Charles’s gaze, “I understand.”

Charles nodded. His gaze drifted away from hers, and she knew…Charles would be leaving soon. There was too much fear in his posture.

And too much blood on his clothes.

He’d come close to dying, and she knew that he didn’t want to join Kerri in death.

Cassie glanced toward her exam table. Heavy metal strips closed over Trace’s arms, legs, and chest. A mask was over his face, and the drug that he was being given was designed to keep him out.

Stable, comfortable, and definitely out.

Charles shuffled out of the room. Cassie bit her lip and didn’t stop him. He had been her confidant, and because she liked him so much, she couldn’t stop him. If he wanted to walk away and forget monsters for a time, didn’t he deserve that chance?

When the doors closed behind him, her shoulders hunched a bit.

“What happened?” Eve asked as she crept closer to Cassie. “The last report that you sent said Trace was getting better.”

“He was.”

Cain came closer. “You also didn’t mention in that report that you had a homicidal phoenix waiting to kill me.”

She flinched. “I didn’t know. Dante said he would help me.”

“He lied.”

Yes, he had.

“He’s the oldest phoenix I’ve ever met,” Cassie revealed as she rolled her shoulders and attempted to push away some of her tension. “I thought his DNA would be the key I needed in order to find a cure.”

Eve brushed her fingers across Trace’s forehead. “He’s not going to ever be the same, is he?”

The same? “No, but that doesn’t mean he can’t still have a good life.”

Eve nodded and kept caressing his forehead. A tear slid down her cheek.

“I don’t understand how he got out.” Cassie glanced around the room, and her gaze lit on the smashed remains of the closet.

She’d been in that closet, calling for help. Screaming for help.

The memory of Trace’s rough voice slipped through her mind. Help…Cass… She stilled. Was it even possible? No, no. Surely he hadn’t heard her—

But his whole body had been enhanced by the Lycan-70 drug. That enhancement had made him bigger. Stronger. Had it given him enhanced hearing and vision? Possible. So very possible. It had been hard to fully gauge his enhancements because his beast side had been so powerful.

“He didn’t hurt me,” Cassie noted softly. He’d tackled Cain because Cain had been holding the gun to her head. She frowned at Cain.

He blinked. “What?”

“Thanks for shoving the gun at me.”

He flushed. “I was trying to do something to keep your attack phoenix off me!”

But he hadn’t been able to stop Trace from attacking. Trace had sliced him and then Trace had come back and tried to shield Cassie.

“How are your wounds?” Cassie asked Cain.

“Hurting like a bitch,” he replied instantly. “But don’t worry. It’s nothing that will kill me.” His smile was bitter. “I’ve felt death coming too many times. The bastard isn’t here now.”

Eve had already taken out some bandages for Cain. Once upon a time, she had done a stint in med school. Eve would be able to patch up her lover, no problem.

Patching up Trace? That would take much more of an effort.

“He calmed down when you talked to him.” Eve nodded toward Trace. “Whatever was happening to him, he remembered your voice.”

Your voice is your power. That was what Dante had told her.

She backed away from Trace. Turned slowly to face Cain. “Do you hear anything odd when I talk to you?”

He frowned at her. Eve was cutting away his shirt.

“Um, do I sound normal to you?” Cassie pushed. “Do I smell normal?” How bizarre is this conversation? Speaking of bizarre…she’d just broken up a fight between two phoenixes and a werewolf. Her world was nothing but a bizarre bonanza.

Cain leaned toward her and inhaled deeply. “You smell…sweet.” He winced when Eve applied a bit too much pressure to his wound. “Not like you,” he hurried to reassure her. “Love, you know you smell like paradise and temptation. Every damn dream I’ve ever had.”

Eve smiled at him.

Cassie glanced away, feeling like an intruder just to have seen that intimate smile. “I-I knew it wasn’t true. I don’t know why he said—”

“But…there is something about your voice,” Cain muttered.

She tensed.

“It makes me feel calm.”

Calm was the last thing she was feeling.

Cain shrugged. “Maybe that’s what is supposed to happen, though, right? You’re a doctor. You soothe your patients.”

Not all of them, she didn’t. Swallowing back her growing fear, Cassie focused on Trace. She had to do the best she could to heal him and to stabilize his beast.

***

Dante slowly opened his eyes. He was on his back on the hard floor, and a shining, silver ceiling waited above him.

She drugged me.

He surged to his feet. Disbelief coursed through him as his gaze flew around the room. No, not a room. A holding cell. He recognized the silver metal that surrounded him. He’d seen it plenty in Genesis.

Cassie had thrown him in a special, fireproof cell. Just like the ones he’d been held in before.

Not her.

“Cassie!” Dante bellowed her name.

He knew she was there.

To the right, a one-way mirror waited. The rest of the pricks at Genesis had thought they were safe behind mirrors like that one. Fools. He’d always been able to hear them. And, when he focused his gaze just right, he could see them, too.

At first, as he headed toward that mirror, Dante saw his own glowering reflection. But when he focused his eyes, he saw Cassie standing there. Staring back at him.

For an instant, the past and the present merged for him.

She did this to me.

“Why?” Dante snapped.

She had her hands crossed over her chest. “That’s just what I was going to ask you.” Her voice was soft. She knew that she didn’t need to shout. “Why did you lie to me? Why did you make me think I could trust you?”

“Cain is a threat! If I don’t eliminate him, he’ll come for me.” Dante had been protecting himself and her.

She shook her head. “Cain had no plans to kill you before you attacked him.” Her breath whispered out, and he picked up even that small sound. “Now, yes, I’m sure you’re on his hit list.”

Bring it on. He didn’t fear the other phoenix. He feared no one.

“You lied to me,” Cassie charged, her voice hardening. “Dante, I trusted you.”

“You caged me!” he threw back at her.

“Because you’re dangerous. I was told that, so many times, but I was so sure you were good inside.” She sounded sad and lost—and that just pissed him off.

“I’ve never been a threat to you,” he told her. He’d saved her from that jerk at the ranch. Had the woman already forgotten that? He’d been the one to rescue her from the lieutenant colonel jackass.

“No, you’re just a threat to what matters to me.”

Her words stopped him. He frowned at her.

“I want to help Vaughn. I want to help Trace. I want to cure all the primals out there—I want to undo what my family has done! How many times do I have to tell you this?” Her voice was rising. “But you nearly destroyed everything I wanted. Everything that I’ve been working toward. You shoved me in a closet and walked away.”

“I wanted you safe!” Was that so wrong? He hadn’t wanted her caught in the crossfire.

“You wanted to fight a battle that didn’t exist. This bullshit about phoenixes going after their own? There’s no need for that. Whatever war you think is happening? It’s over.”

“I don’t think, ” Dante told her, suddenly desperate for her to understand, “I know. I was there. You weren’t. I watched them all die as they turned on each other. I saw the fire. I saw the death. I saw it all.”

She stared back at him, only that glass separating them. He wanted to punch through it and touch her, but knew it wasn’t normal glass. It wouldn’t break. The glass at Genesis had never broken. No matter how many times he’d punched it, and he’d punched until his knuckles were bloody and raw.

“When?” Cassie asked him as her hands fell to her sides. “When was this battle?”

“When I became immortal.” That was what he was. There was a reason he’d been given that name at Genesis. “You ever wonder where the phoenixes came from? They came from my village. My blood. We were powerful—unstoppable. We burned and we rose and our enemies fell beneath us.”

Until her.

“What happened?”

“All creatures of myth start somewhere. We started in the mountains near Greece. Rumors and whispers about us spread. No one wanted to face an unstoppable army.”

She wasn’t speaking.

“Back then, the paranormals didn’t have to stay in the shadows. And there were more paranormals than you can imagine. So many different monsters, even monsters that hid under a beautiful woman’s smile.”

She crept closer to the glass. “You’re talking about a siren.”

He nodded.

“Someone like me.”

Dante frowned. She was nothing like Zura had been.

“Zura fell in love with my brother, and he…Wren would do anything that she asked.” Dante’s voice was bitter. “When a siren sings her song and asks you to do her bidding, you cannot refuse.”

Cassie took another step toward the glass.

“She learned of our weaknesses. She knew that another phoenix could reach through the fire and kill at the time of the rising.” Memories were as bitter as ash on his tongue. “She didn’t want any threat to my brother. Zura wanted to live with him forever and never be threatened again.”

“What did she do?”

“She called all of the phoenixes. She sang her song, and she commanded us to kill each other.” All but his brother. Wren hadn’t been there for the summoning.

He’d been far away, locked up by Zura for his protection. At first, Dante hadn’t thought that his brother even knew the wickedness that she had unleashed.

He’d thought wrong.

“How did you survive?”

“I drove spikes into my ears, so I wouldn’t hear her voice.”

Through the glass, he saw Cassie flinch.

“I tried to stop the others. Tried to get them to do the same. We just had to turn off her voice, but they were beyond listening. Once the bloodlust hit them, there was no stopping the phoenixes they carried.”

He lifted his hand and touched the glass.

She did not lift her hand.

“The phoenix is always with us, but in those moments, when it felt the blood of its own kind…a new hunger hit me. Hit us all. And the fight for dominance began.” Dante swallowed the ash. “When the fire died away, I was left standing. I thought it was over, but then my brother came for me. Wren cut my head from my body.”

Her hand rose. Pressed against the glass over his. “Dante…”

“The fire started. I began to rise, and, through the flames, I saw him coming at me again. I knew Wren was going to kill me. My hearing was coming back, and Zura’s words were ringing in my ears, even over the crackle of flames. ‘Kill him…kill him…let us be free!’ ”

His brother had tried his best to kill him.

“What happened?”

Dante forced a shrug. “I didn’t die. They did.” His fire had exploded—going for Wren and Zura. When Zura had begun to burn, Wren had lost his last hold on sanity.

I’m sorry, brother. Dante had wished again and again for a different ending.

“Because of what happened back then, you think every phoenix will come after you now?”

He shoved away the image of his brother. “It’s what we do. That wasn’t the only attack. Word spread after that—a phoenix’s weakness is his own kind.”

“So it’s better to be the only one, than to have a threat out there? That’s crazy!”

“That’s the way of the phoenix,” he told her quietly.

“That’s the way of the insane. Cain isn’t a threat to you. He isn’t—”

“He’ll realize what you are.”

“No, he doesn’t think I’m anything but human. I asked him if I sounded different. If I smelled different. You know what he said? That his Eve smelled like paradise and temptation. Like every dream he’d ever had.”

There was an odd note in her voice. Almost…envy?

“He’s not hearing any siren song from me, and I’m starting to wonder why you’re still lying to me.”

“He’s mated,” Dante said, understanding at once. Smelled like paradise and temptation. That was the way a mate smelled to a phoenix. The way that Cassie smelled to—

“He’s in love with Eve, yes, but that shouldn’t impact the man’s ability to smell a difference in me.” Cassie turned away. “Get some sleep, Dante. We can talk tomorrow.”

“You’re leaving me?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Sucks, doesn’t it? Now you know how I felt when you locked me in that closet.”

“I was protecting you.” Cassie should understand that.

“No.” A sad shake of her head. “You were protecting yourself from a threat that doesn’t even exist. Wake up, Dante. This isn’t a world full of sirens and phoenixes any longer. You don’t have to battle your own kind. But you do have to learn to trust them.”

And she truly did just leave him.

The door closed behind her with a soft click.

But she didn’t leave him alone.

Dante had known that another was there, even if Cassie hadn’t realized it. Another had been standing just outside his cell door the whole time they were talking. Listening to them. Waiting for the moment when Cassie left.

The lock turned slowly, disengaging.

Cain stalked inside. The phoenix pulled the door shut behind him.

No Cassie. No Eve.

“I think we have some business to finish,” Cain murmured.

Yes, they did.

***

“Why are you crying?”

Cassie stiffened at Jamie’s voice. She’d thought that he was asleep. All safe and secure for the night.

But there he was, standing inside the doorway of the small makeshift bedroom she’d claimed for herself.

Cassie was sitting in a wobbly, wooden chair, and it trembled a bit as she hurriedly swiped her hands over her cheeks. “I’m not crying,” she immediately denied.

He lifted a brow and looked far too old for his young years.

“Fine. I was crying. A little.” She sniffed.

He crept toward her. “Because of what I did?”

“No, because of something I did. Something that I wanted to make right. I’m not sure I can anymore.” She’d clung to hope for so long, but it was vanishing.

Jamie came closer. Hesitated, then awkwardly patted her shoulder.

Cassie almost started crying again. “We…we’re still looking for your family, Jamie. The foster family that you were with has moved and—”

“I don’t want to go back to them.” His voice had chilled.

Frowning, she looked up at him.

“I told you that. Not ever. When I was there, they didn’t want me.” His shoulders straightened. “They got a check for having me, and that’s all they needed.”

“Jamie…”

“Did your father…Did he really make the primals?”

She swallowed the lump that wanted to choke her. Jamie had a right to know. “My father was a scientist. He worked with the paranormals. He was supposed to be making a stronger soldier to help protect the country.”

Jamie frowned. “Did he?”

She shook her head. “He got lost.” That was the way she’d always thought of him, even as a child. “He stopped noticing the danger of what he was doing. He took humans, tried to give them the strength of vampires, but none of the weaknesses.”

Jamie’s eyes widened.

“He made the primal vampire virus, then he tried to keep the vampires he’d created contained, but you just can’t—” She had to swallow again because that damn lump was choking her. “You just can’t hide some things in the dark.” Like she’d tried to hide her true identity. Her name wasn’t just Cassandra Armstrong. It was Cassandra Armstrong Wyatt.

Jamie studied her a moment, then said, “If you can’t cure them, then we have to kill them. Every single one.”

Vaughn .

“Not yet,” she whispered. “There’s still—”

“How many humans are you gonna let die before you realize those primals all have to be stopped? Not cured? Just wiped away from the earth.” Jamie’s hands had fisted at his sides. “We need the freaking marines in here! It’s a war—and we have to fight them.” He roughly shook his head. “Not cry over them. Not them. ” He rushed from the room.

She didn’t blame him, not for his anger and not for running away. How many times over the years had she wanted to turn and run away? More than she could count. But it was her mess. One she’d inherited. One she had to fix.

Her steps were slow but certain as she made her way to the lab.

Eve was there, keeping vigil over Trace, when Cassie entered the room.

Eve glanced up. “Do you think,” she began quietly, “that we’ll ever cure him?”

“Yes.” It was what Cassie had to believe. And she knew what she had to do.

Dante had said that his tears hadn’t healed her in New Orleans. If the tears of the most powerful phoenix weren’t what she needed, then maybe…just maybe…she already had the cure.

Inside of her.

“During your research on Genesis, did you come across any information on a Lieutenant Colonel Jon Abrams?” Cassie asked her curiously.

Eve inclined her head in a slow nod. She might have attended med school, but she’d dropped out of the program to pursue her true passion—journalism. Cassie had leaked information about Genesis to her, and then Eve had gone undercover at the facility in order to see firsthand just what was happening.

It was because of Eve that Genesis had been destroyed.

“He was one of the recruits in the shifter program,” Eve replied. “A success, from all accounts. Enhanced hearing, vision—”

“Strength and speed,” Cassie finished. “And he got the bonus of having ready-made weapons in the form of his claws.”

“Why are we talking about him?” Eve wanted to know.

Cassie walked toward her instrument tray. “Because Genesis isn’t fully dead. Uncle Sam is still conducting experiments, and Jon Abrams was the man handpicked to carry on the work started in my father’s labs.” Her fingers curled around a scalpel. The sharp blade gleamed. “Jon tracked me when I went to Chicago. He caught me, locked me in an exam room, and then he started taking samples from me.”

Eve’s chair squeaked as she rose. “What kind of samples?”

Cassie’s hold tightened on the scalpel. “The same kind that you’re going to help me take now.” She couldn’t do it on her own. And Charles was gone. She’d seen him slip away earlier. He hadn’t stopped to tell her goodbye.

She didn’t blame him, but it still hurt.

“Why did he want samples from you?” Eve asked as she crept closer.

Cassie gave her a sad smile. “You knew my brother.”

Eve stilled.

“You had to notice the resemblance,” Cassie said. “I’ve been told that we have the same eyes.”

“You do.” Quiet. Careful. “But other than your eyes, you are nothing like Richard Wyatt.” There was anger there, rage.

Hate.

Most people hated Richard. He’d been as determined to carry through on his twisted experiments as her father had been. But Cassie didn’t hate him. She still remembered a boy who had rushed to her bedside just before her father put her under yet again.

Daddy. Daddy, no! Don’t hurt Cass anymore. Use me. Use me, Daddy!

And their father had. He’d started to use Richard more and more in his experiments.

Her brother had tried to save her. Until he’d become twisted, too. From the experiments? She thought so. “I don’t like to remember him the way he was at Genesis,” Cassie murmured. “I like to remember the boy he was—back when we were both too young to see the monsters.”

She looked up and read the pity in Eve’s stare. Cassie handed the other woman the scalpel. “My father experimented on me and Richard. He made us different.”

“Is your blood poison, too?”

Eve had always been resourceful. Cassie wasn’t surprised that the reporter knew Richard’s secret.

“To vampires, yes, but I think there’s more that is…different with me.” Cassie stumbled over the words. She had almost said… I think there’s more that’s wrong with me. “In New Orleans, I-I think I died when I was attacked by a vampire.”

Eve sucked in a sharp breath. “And your Dante saved you?”

Cassie’s laugh held a touch of bitterness. “No, I thought…He said I brought myself back. Richard had a great ability to heal. I didn’t think I had the same capability, but since New Orleans, I’ve been different. My injuries heal at an amazing rate.”

Eve blinked.

“So let’s find out how I am doing that, okay? We’re going to take samples and we’re going to see just what my father may have done to me.”

“Uh, fair warning. I never finished med school. That was just a cover, you know that, right?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll guide you through it.”

Eve’s breath rushed out on a relieved sigh. “So I’m just taking your blood. Nothing major—”

“No, it will be quite major, but we have to get it done.” The secrets that Cassie needed, the cures, could be within her own body. “Just lock the doors. Dante is secure, but I don’t want to take any chances on being interrupted.”

“Cassie…”

“People need our help. Vaughn, Trace. Let’s see just what my father did. Maybe we can use it.” Use me. “And some of the nightmares can end.”

Eve moved her head in a jerky nod, and they went to work.

***

“I don’t want to kill you,” Cain said.

Dante very much doubted that. “Have you killed others of our kind?”

“Have you?” Cain tossed right back.

“Yes.”

Cain’s hands clenched into fists. “You’re the one they kept in the other lab at Genesis, aren’t you? The one they called the Immortal.”

Dante nodded.

Cain’s gaze raked over him. “Were you the first?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t know, either. You don’t know where the hell we came from.”

Hell was a pretty apt description. “Our home was on an old volcano. One that was dormant by the time I lived there, but, according to the stories, our village was born of that ash. Born from the fire and brimstone and hell that exploded onto earth.” Dante had first heard those stories when he’d been a child running around the countryside with Wren at his back. Wren. “From that fire, the phoenix came to be.”

Cain just stared at him.

“There were so many of us in the village,” Dante said, shaking his head as he remembered what it had been like before .

“Until you turned on each other.”

“Kill or be killed,” Dante murmured. In his mind, he saw the rain of ash that had hit during the deadly battle. A battle started by one woman’s whispered words.

“It doesn’t have to be that way.”

“Are you sure?” Dante pushed him. “Even now, don’t you want to go for my throat? Your mate is in this building. I know exactly what she is. I know her weaknesses, I know—”

“And I know exactly what your mate is,” Cain snapped out, temper biting in the words. “I know Cassie’s weaknesses, but I’ve never hurt her. I won’t hurt her. We may have a battle between us, but I don’t pull in the innocent.”

Dante could respect the other phoenix. He nodded.

“So don’t threaten Eve. Don’t even look at her sideways.”

Dante’s brows lifted. “Does your Eve know that you’re in here now?” he asked, curious despite himself. The phoenix across from him was not at all what he had expected.

But then, he’d made sure to stay away from other phoenixes, except for the young female in New Orleans that he’d foolishly tried to save a few months back. Too late, he’d realized that she hadn’t wanted to be saved from her vampire lover.

“No,” Cain answered. “Eve is in the lab.”

With Cassie and the werewolf. “Why would you let her be near the wolf?”

“Because that wolf was her best friend once, and I owe him. I’ll do anything I can in order to make him better.”

Again, the phoenix had surprised Dante. “Would you even give up a phoenix’s tears?”

“I’d give up anything to make Eve happy.” Said simply and without any hesitation.

Dante frowned at him.

“Now, are we going to rip each other to pieces or what?” Cain asked, sounding bored. “Because I need to get back to Eve’s side.”

Dante wanted to get back to Cassie’s side. Except, she’d imprisoned him.

Cain slanted him an assessing gaze. “You hurt her, you know.”

“I did not touch your Eve—”

“No, not Eve. Your Cassie. You hurt her.” Cain sighed. “Not physically, but inside, maybe where the pain can be the worst. Especially for someone like her.”

Despite what Cassie had said earlier, Dante realized that Cain knew exactly what she was. “Do you hear her song? When she speaks, do you—”

“The power rarely slips into her voice. It’s like she’s not aware of it.”

Because she wasn’t.

“When she gets stressed or nervous, it comes through.” Cain paused. “It was damn powerful when she was up on the surface and trying to soothe Trace.”

Yes, it had been.

“I’d heard stories about her kind,” Cain continued carefully, “but I’d never met one, not until her. It took me a while to realize what was happening.”

That was a siren’s power. Before you knew what she was doing, you were already under the spell of her song.

“Is it true that a siren can make you feel the same emotion she feels? When she’s happy, her words make you happy, and when she’s sad, she can gut you?” Cain asked.

“Yes.” The word hissed from Dante.

Cassie was sad. That would explain why Dante felt like someone had shoved a knife into his stomach and twisted it.

“You aren’t going for my throat,” Cain pointed out as he rolled his shoulders. “Are you waiting for me to make the first move?”

“I killed my own brother,” Dante began.

“Uh, yeah. I heard rumors about that bit. Not like you’re the first to commit fratricide. Alas, it’s rather common in the paranormal world.”

Dante’s jaw tightened. “I killed him, but only after he came at me . I will do you the same courtesy.” For Cassie. Because the phoenix held value to her. Because I broke her trust. He’d acted on instinct and was afraid that act might have cost him something precious. “You can live, until the moment you come at me with death in your eyes.”

Surprise flickered over Cain’s face. “I don’t want your death. We work for the cure, then we go our own separate ways. You won’t see me again, and I won’t see you.”

Cain also understood how dangerous phoenixes were to their own kind.

“You have killed other phoenixes,” Dante said.

“Some don’t want to listen to reason. They attack first, without waiting to see if an enemy is really at their door.”

Ah, yes, he saw that hit for exactly what it was.

“Some let their beasts rule them.” Cain’s stare was hard. “Do you rule your beast? Or does he rule you?”

“It depends on the day.”

Cain blinked.

Dante strolled by him. He was ready to ditch the cell. He needed to find Cassie. They had to talk. Had to clear the air between them. I might have to grovel some. Humiliating, but he’d try it, for her.

Cain had conveniently left the door unlocked. Another point in the fellow’s favor. If Dante wasn’t so worried about dying by the man’s hand, he might—

Cassie’s blood.

There was no mistaking the scent. No mistaking her. He whirled back around to face the other phoenix. “What have you done?” Tricked him, kept him busy—while Cassie suffered?

Cain shook his head. “I didn’t—”

Dante locked him in the cell and raced toward that scent. With every frantic footstep, the scent of Cassie’s blood deepened.

He shoved open the doors to the lab.

Eve jumped up, yelping. She had on white gloves—gloves that were stained with Cassie’s blood.

“You…” Dante began as he closed in on her.

“Stop.” Cassie’s voice. Weak but steady. “I…asked her to do it.”

She was on a nearby exam table. So pale.

“You said…I brought myself back…from death. Have to find out… how. ”

Eve had backed up a step. “She wanted me to do this, big guy. I didn’t like the plan, but Cassie insisted.”

“It has to…be done. If tears…won’t work. F-find something…else.”

He crossed to Cassie. Took her hand. Held tight.

“How are you…here?” She didn’t pull away from him.

Maybe she was in too much pain to pull away. Maybe he was using a weak moment for her. Dante didn’t care. He was touching her again. Holding tight to her.

“How are you…here?” Cassie asked again as she blinked up at him.

“Cain let me out.” Uh, yeah, and Dante had locked Cain in. They’d cover that part, later.

Eve inhaled sharply.

“He’s…alive?” Cassie asked.

“We came to an agreement.” Dante frowned down at her. “How much more has to be done?”

Her smile was weak. “Don’t watch, if you…don’t want.”

“I thought you were going to use me. I thought I was the cure you needed.”

“Have to hurry…every day that passes…someone else…”

Someone else could be transformed into a primal. Someone else could die, like Jamie’s brother.

“Testing me, testing…you,” Cassie whispered. “Maybe together—”

“We can find a cure,” Eve said quietly. She bit her lip. “Should I wait? Should I—”

“Finish,” Cassie directed quietly. “Please.”

He hated seeing her like this. But if it was what she needed to do…Dante held tight to her hand. “Look at me.”

Her gaze found his.

“I won’t let you down again.”

“No more…closets?”

He shook his head.

“Don’t…believe you.”

The ache was back in his chest. “Then I’ll just have to prove myself to you.” He could. He would.

Eve went back to work, and Dante never took his gaze off Cassie’s face.

***

Charles Trenton hurried away from the lab that he’d called home for the last six months of his life. He’d wanted to help Cassie. To make the world safer. Better. So that no one would end up like Kerri.

Only…

He hadn’t counted on monsters who could conjure fire or werewolves that tore down doors to get to him. It was too much.

He was too weak.

He’d always known that Kerri was the strong one. Always Kerri. But she’d been broken and had taken her own life when the experiments got to be too much for her.

I told Genesis about her. That was his secret shame. He’d been the one to first alert Genesis to his half-sister’s condition. Because he’d known that Kerri had always wanted to be normal.

He’d given up his own sister to that hell. When he’d lost her, he’d wanted to atone. He and Cassie had that in common. The sins of the past often choked them.

He gunned his car’s engine and shot out into the night. The car had been hidden in the old shack down the road, out of sight. Safe and secure.

He hadn’t told Cassie that he was leaving. He hadn’t been able to look her in the eyes—

Not the strong one.

Maybe…maybe he’d be able to go back after a few days. Maybe he’d be able to face what waited in Cassie’s lab.

His headlights cut through the dark.

Maybe not.

For now, he was just going home. A little town that waited just across the state line in Louisiana. A speck on the map that didn’t have monsters or nightmares.

He hoped.