Once Bitten, Twice Burned

Ryder slanted a glance at the observation mirror. “Us?” Sabine had been right, but then, he’d suspected that truth for a long time. When Sabine had fired her gun, Ryder had seen the truth with his own eyes. Her bullet had plunged into Richard Wyatt’s chest.

But the guy was still alive. Humans didn’t recover so quickly.

“No one’s in the observation room,” Wyatt said, voice rough. “Do you think I’d risk talking while others could hear?” Wyatt bent down and yanked out a pair of jogging pants from a duffel bag at his feet. “Fuck, put these on.” He tossed the pants to Ryder.

Raising a brow, Ryder yanked on the pants. “Guess that little na**d scene didn’t work quite as you wanted, huh, ass**le?”

Wyatt’s eyes narrowed. “You think you’ve helped her? If you’d had sex with her, maybe gotten lucky enough to get her pregnant, you would have helped us all.”

“Guess I’m not a helper that way.” Ryder gazed back at him. “What happened to the whole, ‘I’m not interested in birth, but transformation’ bit?”

“That was before,” Wyatt replied flatly.

“Before?”

“Before I knew just what you were!”

“The fangs and blood-drinking didn’t give me away?” Ryder asked, baiting. “And here I thought we’d long ago established that I was a vamp. Your science really must not be that good.”

The flush deepened on Wyatt’s face. “I knew you were a vamp, but I didn’t know you were the first.”

“Back to that, are we?”

“A child with your DNA, Twenty-Nine’s DNA—that would be a transformation.”

Or an abomination, depending on the person you asked.

Wyatt yanked a rough hand through his hair. “Don’t you get it? We need a cure!”

“I’m not sick. I don’t need anything.” He’d never been sick. Never would. A vampire didn’t—

“I’m not the only one who did experiments.” Hushed. And yes, Wyatt tossed a nervous glance over his shoulder. Thought the big boss wasn’t worried about someone overhearing him. “Some of those experiments, they went damn wrong.”

Ryder forced a shrug. “Then I bet you terminated them.” Wasn’t that the guy’s MO? To terminate his failed experiments? When he’d broken free, Ryder had caught the scent of death. Bodies. So many.

A rough laugh escaped Wyatt. “Sometimes, it’s harder to terminate experiments than you think.” His eyes blazed at Ryder. “Imagine vampires who didn’t retain their humanity. Vamps who were just killing machines, beasts with fangs and claws that have only the most basic of primal instincts—the instincts to kill and feed.”

Ryder didn’t let his expression alter. He did casually pull on the chains, testing them.

“Those aren’t going to break.” Wyatt waved his hand with a disgusted air. “It’s a new metal, one we’re having to use on another subject, too. Subject Thirteen has proven too strong.”

“Subject Thirteen,” Ryder repeated. So the mad doc was giving them all numbers now. “What’s he? A vamp? A shifter?”

Wyatt’s eyes narrowed. “Cain’s like Sabine, of course.”

A phoenix.

“Just stronger,” Wyatt shook his head. “I’d hoped that Cain—Subject Thirteen—might be able to stop the—”

“The vampires? The ones who’ve gone all primal on you?” Ryder cut in, voice mocking. His gaze lasered in on Wyatt’s. “All vamps have fangs and claws. That’s not exactly a newsflash.” He raised his own growing claws. “So forgive me if I don’t give a shit.”

“These vampires are different. Don’t you get that? Every tooth is sharpened to a killing edge. Every tooth is a fang.” Wyatt bit out these words. “Their claws are long, black, sharper than knives, and they never retract. The vamps stay in killing form, day and night, and the hunger they feel can never be quenched.”

Ryder’s brows climbed. “Sounds like someone made the wrong kind of monster.” Bastard, is this why you took my blood? To make more of them? Because the world needed more monsters.

“You could be the cure for them. Maybe the cure for all vampires.” Wyatt wiped a hand over his sweaty forehead. Huh. Looked like the doc was starting to fray at his edges. “You are the first, aren’t you?”

“No, not even close,” Ryder said, voice as mild as could be.