Burn For Me (Phoenix Fire 1)

Not her.

Even in the midst of his fury, the beast didn’t ever want to hurt her. Neither did the man.

“Yes,” he said slowly and his voice didn’t sound quite right. Too rough. Too raw.

Her legs slid down his body, her smooth skin brushing over him. He pulled out of her, hating to leave her body. He was still aroused. Not close to being satisfied, but . . .

His sanity was back . . . for the damn moment. Shame burned through him.

A f**king tunnel? Against a dirt wall? With dead vamps yards away?

Had he really taken her there? Why the hell wasn’t she attacking him?

“I’m sorry,” she told him. “I didn’t want to shoot you. But they were coming. They were biting you and—”

He saw her eyes close and kissed her. Not with the wild roughness of before . . . softer. “I know.” He’d already been dying. Slowly. Moment by moment. He’d been watching her suffer. Helpless, his spine broken, he hadn’t been able to fight back against the monsters coming for them. “I was dead anyway.” He’d just lost the memories for a time. Lost everything—to the greedy claws of the fire.

He could never tell how he’d rise. If he’d be sane. If he’d remember . . .

Or if the fire and beast would strip his memories away.

I remembered her. He had, dammit.

Mine. He’d remembered Eve before, too. Even back at Genesis, when he rose, he’d thought of . . .

Her.

He knew what that meant. Knew how dangerous such a connection was. For him. For her.

Before he could speak, Cain heard the thud of approaching footsteps. He caught the stench of fear and sweat. Humans. Racing through the tunnel.

Coming after them.

He grabbed Eve’s clothes. “Get dressed.” He needed to tell her how sorry he was, but the beast was still too close to the surface. And with those men coming . . .

Kill.

Burn.

He wasn’t exactly battling the most gentle of instincts.

“We just want the woman!” a man’s voice called out. “Send her to us! We want to make sure she’s safe.”

Now they came to save her? Where had the fools been when the vampires were attacking?

When I was attacking?

He couldn’t look in her eyes.

Her hand brushed over his arm. “I wanted you, Cain. I’ve always wanted you.”

His breath was ragged. His chest aching.

Cain pushed her behind him. Heard the rustle of her clothing as she dressed. “Come any closer,” he yelled to the humans, “and you die.” Fair warning. The only warning they’d get before he let his fire end them.

“The tunnel’s already falling in . . .” a voice shouted back. Not Wyatt. Another male. One with a death wish.

I can grant that wish.

More rocks and rubble fell onto him. Onto Eve.

“It’s not stable. The vampires dug this hole, but it just kept falling on them. With your fire . . .” The voice was coming closer. So were the footsteps. Six, seven men? Eight. “If you blast again, the whole place will collapse.”

Their shouts weren’t exactly helping to stabilize the tunnel. Did the ass**les know that? He bet they did—and that they didn’t care.

A light shone in the darkness. A bright light that caught him and Eve in its illumination. “You’ll just die and come back,” the male voice said, “but what about her? You really think she’ll survive a cave-in?”

No, she wouldn’t.

Ryder had said Eve didn’t have the blood of a phoenix. Why would he have lied about that?

Why would he have told the truth?

Never trust a vampire.

Cain didn’t trust anyone. Except . . . Eve. Somehow, some way, she’d gotten beneath his skin. Beneath the fire.

“I couldn’t find a way out,” she said, rising to whisper in his ear. “Just stones. Dirt.”

A dead end.

That bright light kept shining right on him.

“I’ve got a better idea,” the voice told him. It wasn’t sounding so afraid any longer. More like cocky.

A bad mistake. Cain had never been able to tolerate cocky jerks.

“Why don’t you send the woman over here . . .”

Behind that light, Cain saw the man’s gun point toward the top of the tunnel.

That bastard was going to shoot the tunnel at its weak points and force a cave-in.

The fire began to rage inside Cain. The beast hadn’t been calmed, not appeased nearly enough. This jerkoff was tempting him. All but begging for death.

“Send her here, or I’ll send this whole damn place crashing down on you both.”

The men behind the leader lifted their weapons. They pointed them not at Eve and Cain, but at the tunnel’s top, its sides.

When they fired, Cain knew the tunnel could collapse. Eve would die. She’d suffocate or be crushed.

And he’d rise to find her broken body.

“Go,” he forced out to Eve.

She didn’t move. “And what happens to Cain?” Eve asked.

Silence, then . . . “Nothing,” the lying human told her. “We’ll leave him just where he is.”

Such bullshit. Cain caught Eve’s hand. So soft. His gaze stared into hers. “They can’t kill me.” Well, not for long, anyway. “They’ll just piss me off.”

She shook her head. “But when you rise”—her voice was so soft that it barely whispered in his ears—“you come back . . . different, Cain.”

Each time, he did. Darker. More lost. But he’d been fighting to hold his sanity.

For her.

What would happen if he rose and she wasn’t there?

He forced himself to release her hand. “If you stay with me, they’ll kill you.” He couldn’t allow that.

He couldn’t protect her, not there. Too much fire could destroy the place, and then he’d be the one to destroy her.

Not gonna happen.

“Wyatt wants her alive.” The leader’s hard voice came again. His weapon was still pointed at the ceiling. “So just send her over, and we’ll get her out of here.”

But they wouldn’t do the same for him. He knew what would happen next, even if Eve didn’t.

He wanted to kiss her. Taste her. But time was running out. So he stepped away from her. Let all emotion wash from his face. “Go.”

Eve still hesitated.

“Shoot the wall!” the leader barked.

“No!” Cain screamed right back. He caught Eve’s shoulders and pushed her away from him—and right at the guards. “Get her the hell out of here.”