Once Bitten, Twice Burned (Phoenix Fire 2)

Grayson lunged up and staked him.

Ryder stood there, chest heaving, fury boiling his blood. His head turned, and he met Sabine’s wide-eyed stare. She had her hands at her throat. Her lips were trembling.

As she stared at him, there was no missing the fear in her gaze.

His racing heartbeat began to slow. Ryder shook his head and glanced around. Bodies littered the floor. Blood. So much blood.

All of the primals were dead. Their eyes stared sightlessly ahead. Some of them . . . His chin lifted. He didn’t remember even making the brutal attacks, but he knew the kills were his.

I lost it. When they went for her . . .

And the vampires that had thought to attack him? All but one of them had already died. The only one left was Julia. She lay sprawled on the floor, a giant chunk of wood in her chest. Her gasping breaths seemed to echo in the room.

Ryder didn’t want to touch Sabine. Not yet. Not with so much blood on his hands. And there was still one more piece of business to finish.

He turned away from her. Walked toward Julia’s desperate form. His shoes slid in the blood that surrounded her.

Then he was bending over her. Her gaze met his. A faint smile lifted her lips. “You think . . . won?”

Yes, he f**king did. His hands closed around the stake.

“Did you . . . give her a . . . choice?”

Ryder’s eyes narrowed. He heard the faint rustle of steps behind him. Felt Sabine standing at his back.

Julia’s gaze wasn’t on him. It was on Sabine. “Did you . . . ask to be . . . like this?”

Grayson had come from his position behind the bar. He stood on Julia’s right side. Not touching her. Just staring at her with a mix of pity and fury in his eyes.

“Did . . . you?” Julia pressed as her chest heaved.

“I asked to live,” Sabine said, her voice soft.

“But you didn’t know . . .” Julia’s lips curved in a faint smile. “The price he’d . . . make you pay.”

Ryder stiffened.

“I . . . didn’t . . . know . . . I didn’t . . . ask . . .”

“Is that why you sent me to Genesis? Because you and the others hadn’t asked to be vampires?” Ryder asked, voice rough. “I didn’t turn you, I didn’t—”

“You . . . started it. You turned . . . him. Made us all.”

Him. Malcolm.

“Some things . . . shouldn’t be made.”

His fingers were curled around the chunk of wood in her chest. One twist of his hand, and she would be dead. “And here I thought it was all about you wanting to be free of me. Because I controlled you all.”

“They wanted . . . said you couldn’t control them.”

They? Would that be the dead vamps on the floor?

“I wanted . . . free . . . in different way.”

“She didn’t want to be a vampire,” Sabine said, sadness tingeing her words. “She just wanted to be normal.”

“Normal’s overrated,” Grayson muttered.

“There’s no going back,” Ryder said. Surely Julia realized that. “You can’t be human once you’ve changed.”

“I know . . .”

Ryder stared at the wood in her chest. She’d been in on the plan to take him out. Not the leader, he sensed that, so maybe one of the broken vamps behind him had planned everything. But Julia . . . she’d known.

And she wasn’t fighting death.

It would be so easy to take her out.

But Sabine was touching the back of his shoulder. Gentle fingertips. Sabine . . . who also hadn’t known exactly what she was getting into when she became a vampire.

Ryder hadn’t been given a choice.

He’d just woken to bloodlust. A new life.

Julia . . . he remembered her story. She’d been attacked by a vampire. Raped. Bled nearly dry. But then that vamp had transformed her.

That vamp . . .

“I killed him,” Ryder said as his fingers slid away from the wood. “I killed the vampire who made you.” And she’d still come after him?

Julia laughed. The wood shifted deeper. Blood trickled from her lips. “Judge . . . jury . . . executioner. You’re the vampire . . . l-law.”

He tried to be. They needed law. They needed—

“Why didn’t you . . . stop him . . . sooner? Why didn’t . . . you . . . save me?”

And that was it. That was f**king it. She blamed him for not killing Moses, the vamp who’d attacked her and four other coeds in Mississippi.

Shame hit him then. Yes, he could see what she meant. Every vampire . . . they all come back to me. If he’d never bit Malcolm, never learned to spread this f**king curse, then monsters like Moses wouldn’t have preyed on the humans.

Julia would still be human.

Ryder rocked back, stood, and stepped away from her.

Hundreds, thousands of others would still be alive.

If I’d just died.

“I’m . . . gonna be free . . .” Julia whispered. Her gaze came back to Ryder. “You . . . won’t be . . . Retribution . . . coming.”

Then her fingers lifted.

Too late, Ryder realized what she was doing.

He reached for her.

But Julia had already shoved the wood deep into her heart.

She died with a smile on her face.

Ryder’s fingers were around hers. He yanked the wood free from her chest. Tossed it aside.

Then his fist slammed into the floor near her body. Again and again and again, he beat the floor.

All because of me. Everything. All the death and pain. “My f**king fault,” he snarled, and Ryder leapt back to his feet.

He grabbed the nearest table. Smashed it. Hurled chairs. Threw glasses.

So many deaths. On him.

Every f**king one. It all went back to him.

“Someone needs some chill time.” Grayson’s tense voice.

He’d made Grayson into a monster. Found him on a battlefield. Moments away from death. A hero’s death.

He’d turned the guy into a killer instead.

Ryder whirled and grabbed Grayson by the throat. “You didn’t want this life.”

Grayson’s eyes widened. “You . . . don’t see me . . . complaining, do you?” He gasped out the words.

“Ryder, stop!” Sabine.

Sounding more furious than he’d ever heard her before.

He dropped Grayson.

“Definite chill time,” the guy muttered as he began to edge toward the back door.

Ryder turned away from him. Faced Sabine. She had her hand at her throat. Over the damn bite the bastard had given her.

Ryder took a step toward her. Almost slipped and fell in the blood. So much blood.