Once Bitten, Twice Burned

If they were smart. He actually wasn’t certain that any of the guards qualified as smart. If they had any brains, they wouldn’t be keeping him captive. They’d know to run, fast and hard, away from him.

Because he wouldn’t be in a cage forever, and Ryder made a point of always getting payback.

“Why?” Wyatt demanded. “Why do you need a stake?”

Ryder cast his gaze to the two-way mirror. “Because if I can’t stop drinking her blood, then I want her to stake me.”

Sabine gasped.

Ryder smiled. “Like you said, it’s a new deal.”

“You’re insane,” Sabine told him, words tumbling out quickly. “I might be new to this whole supernatural bit, but even I know that vampires aren’t supposed to ask for stakes.”

He shrugged. “You’d rather I just drink from you without—”

“I want that stake!” Sabine shouted.

“Fine,” Wyatt bit out. Static crackled for an instant on the intercom, then Ryder heard the guy say, “Mitchell, give the man his stake.”

A few tense moments later, Mitchell, body sweating and twitchy, edged into the room. He pulled a stake from his back pocket.

The guards should have used these when they tried to take her from me before. Instead of shooting him, they should have staked him. But Ryder knew why they hadn’t. Wyatt had wanted him alive then.

Now? Now it looked like the guy was still playing with him.

Let’s play, bastard.

The stake was the first weapon that he needed.

Mitchell tossed the stake to him. Ryder grabbed it with his right hand. “Now get the hell out,” he ordered the humans with bared fangs. “Before I decide to drop some bodies to the floor.”

They got the hell out. Weapons or not, they were still scared spitless.

Who has the power, Wyatt? He knew the doctor would see the challenge in his eyes. Wyatt kept him locked up tight because he knew that if Ryder ever got free, the humans in Genesis would all be dead.

That’s why you want me to take her blood, isn’t it? Because it’s all about control.

Ryder was ready to rip that control away.

He caught Sabine’s wrist with his left hand and pulled her toward the bed.

Her heels dug into the hard floor. “Oh no, you’re not—”

He was. They were.

He pushed her onto the bed. She immediately bounced right back to a sitting position on the mattress. He almost smiled at her. The woman was fast.

He was faster.

He pushed the stake into her hand. Her fingers closed around it, and she stared up at him with dark eyes that looked as if they could steal his soul.

Not that he had a soul to steal.

Not anymore. He’d lost that long ago.

He knelt in front of her, pushing between her legs. She swallowed but didn’t speak. His fingers wrapped around hers, tightening her grip on the stake.

Then he lifted the weapon to his heart. If this act didn’t earn her trust, he figured nothing would.

The experiment between the vampire and the phoenix was progressing far better than Richard Wyatt could have hoped.

He watched the two of them through the observation glass, anticipation filling him.

Sabine had the stake against the vampire’s heart.

The door opened behind Richard. “You think she’s gonna kill him?” the guard demanded. There was no missing the eagerness in Mitchell’s tone.

“Doubtful.”

“But he drained her!” Mitchell snapped. “The woman’s got to want some revenge! She should want to hurt him!”

Like you do? Richard knew that Mitchell hated the vampire. Mostly because the man knew just how powerful Ryder was.

We hate what we fear.

A lesson he’d learned long ago. His father had taught him that lesson when Richard had been a child.

“She won’t kill him.” Richard knew the truth was actually that Sabine couldn’t kill the vampire. Ryder was the fastest vamp that Richard had ever seen, and plenty of the undead had been brought through the doors of Genesis.

Ryder wasn’t like those others. At first, Richard had thought that Ryder was just another test subject. Another vampire that could be used as a genetic donor for his experiments but Ryder’s reflexes were too fast. His body healed too quickly. He didn’t need the weekly blood supply that the others required in order to keep living.

And the man’s strength was incredible to behold. He’d ripped the heart right out of one guard’s chest. An unfortunate incident, but one that had taught them all—

Never get too close to the vampire.