Once Bitten, Twice Burned (Phoenix Fire 2)

Since she wasn’t fighting him any longer, Ryder let her go.

She immediately ran for the broken door. “I have to help him!”

Damn it. He grabbed her and yanked her back—just as flames raced toward them. The bar was turning into an inferno, burning far too fast.

That’s what happens when you light up a place filled with booze.

His gaze swept through the smoke and flames. Most of the humans had already gotten out. They’d broken through windows. Crashed through the front doors. Rhett was still there, trying to use an extinguisher to battle the fire that just kept rising.

“I have to help him,” Sabine whispered.

No, what she had to do was get her sweet ass out of there. Ryder spun back around. He kept his hold on Sabine, knowing better than to make the same mistake twice. The room they were in was about twenty feet long, and, hell, wouldn’t it figure? No windows. No exit doors.

And, just his luck, the room was filled with bottles of liquor.

The fire snaked inside the room with them.

He caught Sabine’s chin. “We’re getting out of here.” Because the place was about to combust. “You stay with me, got it?” I’m not losing you again.

“Not without Rhett! I won’t go without—”

The streaking fire had nearly reached the boxes and bottles of alcohol.

Ryder pulled Sabine from the storage room. They leapt over flames, rushed over fallen tables. The exit door was in sight. Big, gaping—

“Help!”

And, yes, there was a human, yelling for help. Figured. Ryder tried to shove Sabine toward the exit.

She shoved back—and rushed right toward that screaming human. It was her brother. He was on the ground, trapped beneath what looked like a big chunk of the ceiling.

The ceiling was falling now? Talk about your bad days. Before she reached Rhett, the wood around her brother began to burn. He screamed in pain then, his face contorting as he burned.

Ryder grabbed for Sabine because he knew what she was going to do. But she moved too fast. She slipped away from him. Then she put her hands right on that burning wood and tossed it away from her brother.

Tossed it away without so much as a blister appearing on her skin.

Then she was reaching for her brother’s hand. Hauling him up. Holding him easily when the guy had to weigh over two hundred pounds.

Ryder helped another human—the redhead, Douglas—get toward the door. They all stumbled out in a rush of smoke and flames.

Humans were outside. Choking. Gasping. Staring with wide eyes and whispers as The Rift burned.

His gaze swept the crowd. This fire had started too suddenly. Erupted from nowhere. Burned and consumed.

One person in the crowd wasn’t staring at the inferno with shock and horror. One person wasn’t covered with ash.

A man stood with a slight grin tilting the corners of his mouth. His dark hair brushed over his shoulders and his eyes . . . they burned.

Another phoenix. One who’d followed her. One who’d just made a building burn down around her.

The bastard had a death wish.

The phoenix was turning away. Oh, the hell he was.

“Ryder!”

He realized that he’d already started after the guy. Sabine had grabbed his arm, holding him now. “You can’t,” she whispered.

Sure, he could.

“If he’s like . . .” She shook her head. “You can’t kill him, but he can kill you.”

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But either way, no one was going to send out an attack like that against Sabine.

“See you soon, love,” Ryder whispered, and he brushed a kiss against her cheek.

She blinked and her lips parted in surprise. “Ryder?” This time, he was the one to leave. He pushed through the crowd and didn’t flash his fangs. Not until he was away from the pack of humans.

Then his fangs flashed and he started hunting.

Following him was a mistake. Sabine knew she should have just gone with her brother. Gotten into the ambulance with him. Gone to the hospital. Tried to forget about her vampire lover and the crazy phoenix in town.

But there was no forgetting, and she wasn’t about to let Ryder head off on a suicide mission.

She made sure Rhett was all right. Minor burns, but he’d make it. The guy had suffered worse injuries on a casual Saturday night. Bar fights were bitches.

Then she raced after Ryder. As soon as she cleared the crowd, Sabine started to move fast. Too fast for a human’s eyes to follow. And she wasn’t even sure how the hell she did it.

Vamp speed.

Another reminder that her old life was very much over.

She rushed faster and faster, chasing after Ryder. She rounded a corner and—

The narrow stretch of road before her was empty. Dying azaleas wilted on the northwest corner, but there was no sign of Ryder.

She’d been so sure that he’d gone this way. So very certain.

“Lose someone?”

Not Ryder’s voice.

The phoenix.

And his voice was coming from behind her.

Slowly, Sabine turned to face him. He stood a few feet away, arms crossed over his chest, his body propped against the exterior brick wall of an abandoned house.

“You set the fire,” Sabine charged. Because she wasn’t an idiot. A phoenix was in town. The Rift had just burned.

He shrugged.

“My brother could have died.”

“Humans die every day.” The words weren’t even the least bit concerned. “It’s kind of their thing.” His eyes sharpened on her with . . . interest? Curiosity? “They aren’t like us.”

“I’m nothing like you.” She’d never started a fire for the hell of it. Just to watch the bitch burn.

Never had. Never would.

“Did you like the darkness?” he whispered and he didn’t look quite so relaxed then.

“What?” The only thing she’d like right then would be to hurt this jerk. If Rhett had died in that blaze . . .

“When you burned and you came back . . . and all you knew was the fire and fury, did you like the way you felt?”

The wind blew over her skin, but it wasn’t a cooling touch. In New Orleans, the breeze was humid and hot, like a scorch on her flesh.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told him, making sure to keep her eyes on his. She wouldn’t let this guy see that she was afraid.

But if his senses were as acute as she suspected, then he could probably tell that truth, anyway.

“Pity.” Now he seemed disappointed. Much less curious. “It’s been so long since I talked to another phoenix. I’d hoped you’d be . . . more.”