Once Bitten, Twice Burned (Phoenix Fire 2)

“Yes.” But find him alive . . . maybe not.

“Don’t tell my parents what I am,” she said, swallowing.

Rage hummed beneath his skin. “Ashamed?” The public knew about vampires. They weren’t just a myth any longer. Some humans loved the idea of becoming immortal. Some were all too eager to offer up their blood to a vamp.

But some thought vamps were abominations. That they needed to be sent straight to hell.

She didn’t speak. Just stared up at him.

His lips twisted. “There’s no point in hating what you are.” What he’d made her. A sliver of what could have been guilt pierced his gut. She didn’t want to burn again. She begged for my help.

Only he was starting to wonder . . . was she fully a vampire? Or by giving her his blood, by forcing all of those exchanges between them, had he made her into something else entirely?

Transformation, not birth.

He had to find out for certain.

“Why not?” she whispered back even as she pulled away from him and headed down the stairs. “Don’t you hate what you are?”

Her words surprised him. “No, love, I don’t hate what I am.” Why would she believe that?

Frowning, Sabine glanced back at him.

He smiled, knowing his fangs would look sharp and deadly. “I love being the monster in the room.” He’d never been one of those fools who railed against the gift of immortality. He had power. Strength that humans could only wish to possess.

Why bitch and moan about that? Why consider vampirism a curse when it could be a blessing?

As her frown deepened, a faint furrow appeared between her brows.

“Soon you’ll love the power just as much as I do,” he promised her. She just had to stop thinking like a human.

She wasn’t prey any longer. She was the predator. At the top of the food chain.

And now it was time for anyone hunting her to realize just how powerful Sabine had become.

He was tied to a chair. Bound hand and foot with thick, rough ropes. Rhett jerked against his bonds, twisting and trying to break free. “What the hell is going on?”

Dim light spilled across the room. An old, dust-filled room that looked like it had to be in some abandoned building. The small bit of light came from a lantern, the kind you used when you went camping.

The kind Vaughn usually took when they went out into the swamp.

And Vaughn—that crazy jerk Rhett had mistakenly thought was his friend—was standing against the right wall, holding a gun in his hand.

Vaughn’s jaw tightened as he stared back at Rhett. “Your sister . . . she’s not the same anymore.”

Turns out I’m not exactly human. Sabine’s soft words drifted through Rhett’s mind. The fire had erupted before he’d been able to question her more, but she’d been wrong. She was the same.

She was his sister. He’d been by her side when she learned how to ride a bike without training wheels. He’d been there the day she broke her arm because she’d tried to follow him up Old Man Lawson’s oak tree. He’d been there when that handsy jerk Johnny had tried to get past first base with—

“Did you ever wonder about Sabine’s birth parents?” Vaughn asked him. The gun’s barrel was pointed at the ground, not at Rhett. At least, it wasn’t pointed at him yet.

Rhett shook his head and jerked harder against the ropes. “Why should I care about them? Sabine’s my sister. We’ve got great parents, we don’t need—”

“Her birth parents knew they had a monster on their hands.”

Rhett froze, then he snapped, “Watch that mouth, Vaughn.” Gun or no gun, no one talked about his sister that way.

“So they got rid of her. They dumped her in the river.”

Sabine had been found in a river, barely alive. Everyone had been stunned to find such a small child alive in that dark water. She was called Sabine because that was where she was found. In Sabine River.

His dad had been one of the first responders on the scene. He’d taken care of the little girl. Loved her. Moved heaven and hell to get her brought into his home.

“I guess they hoped the water could kill her, but she was too strong.” Vaughn gave a sad shake of his head. “Now she’s even stronger.”

“Get me out of these ropes!” Rhett yelled. His burns hurt like a bitch, and the ropes just cut right into the blisters, making the wounds throb and ache even more.

Vaughn shook his head again. “You don’t understand what’s happening. And I wish I could have told you. I wish I could have warned you—”

Warned me about my own sister? “You’re a cop!” The guy shouldn’t need the reminder. “This shit is illegal. You don’t kidnap your friends!” You don’t tie them up. You damn well don’t pull a gun on them.

Vaughn lifted his hand. The gun looked way too comfortable in the guy’s grip. “You don’t get it. You’re lucky you aren’t dead already.”

Rhett’s heart slammed into his chest.

“She’s going to come for you. When she does . . .” Vaughn sighed, a long, low sound. “I’m sorry, man.”

“You’re sorry?” Rhett heaved against those ropes. Screw the pain, he’d keep struggling until his body was a bloody mess. “If you’re sorry, then let me the f**k go!”

“I liked her, you know?” Vaughn’s voice dropped. “When we were kids, I didn’t know the truth, either.” He tucked the gun into the holster on his hip. “But some people are too dangerous to walk the earth. Times have changed. We can’t let the supernaturals take over.”

I’m not exactly human.

He strained against the ropes. He could feel his own blood dripping behind him. “You hurt my sister, and I’ll kill you.” It wasn’t an empty threat. Rhett didn’t make empty threats. He’d get out of there, sooner or later, and if Vaughn hurt Sabine, the guy would die.

But Vaughn’s eyes had narrowed. “You have it wrong. If I don’t stop her, then you’re the one who’ll be dead.” Then Vaughn stalked forward and grabbed the lantern. He took it and its small light from the room. Rhett yelled after him, calling out again and again, but Vaughn didn’t look back. And soon Rhett was alone in the dark, with his blood slowly soaking the thick rope.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sabine nervously shifted from her left foot to her right. The house before her was just as she remembered. Tall, brick, with a long wraparound porch. Big bay windows.