Once Bitten, Twice Burned

“Primal,” Keith whispered. Sick horror filled his eyes. “I know.”

“Then you know the only way to stop your son is to kill him.” Ryder’s hold on Sabine pushed her forward. “So if you really want to help him, put the man out of his misery.”

Her heart ached.

She could only imagine what Keith’s heart felt like. Maybe like it had been ripped from his chest?

Unable to help herself, Sabine looked back over her shoulder. The humans were retrieving their guns and closing in on Vaughn’s prone body.

He didn’t take Sabine back to Bran’s Castle. Her body shook against his, her rage and pain so clear on her face that it almost hurt to look at her.

She should have let me kill them all.

But she was soft inside. Sentimental.

Still human in that respect.

He braked his motorcycle—one he’d kept stored at Bran’s Castle—near the edge of the St. Louis Cemetery. “Where do you feel safe?” he asked as he turned to face her.

Her gaze was so dark and deep. But before, when she’d faced off against the humans, her gaze had changed.

For an instant, I saw flames.

Ryder knew that his growing suspicions about her were right. She wasn’t vampire, at least, not completely. The power of the phoenix was still inside her, struggling desperately to get out.

Which side would win? The vamp side? The phoenix? Or would they both just tear her apart?

I won’t let that happen. He would do anything necessary to protect her, even if he had to protect Sabine from herself.

“Where do you feel safe?” he pushed her. Because wherever the hell that was, he would take her there. Her trust in her family and friends had been ripped away. She needed reassurance, and he’d damn well give it to her. She needed—

“With you.” A soft confession.

He blinked.

Her lips lifted in a sad smile. “It’s probably crazy, I know it is, but I feel safe when I’m with you.”

He could only stare at her. Did the woman realize just how much power she was starting to wield over him?

No one. No one had ever made him feel the way she did. No one else ever would.

Her legs were on either side of his. Her body hugged his.

And each breath that he took made him need her more.

He wanted to take her out of the city. Get her as far away from everyone else as he could. They could disappear. Vanish. He had plenty of money. They could start a life somewhere else.

Anywhere else.

Jaw locking, Ryder turned away from her and revved the motor. Her arms curled around his stomach, and he felt her put her head over his shoulder blade. The woman fit his body. So well.

Too well.

His gaze cut into the dark. Were more enemies watching? Seeing the weakness that he couldn’t deny?

The motorcycle flew away from the corner. Ripped through the waning night.

He took them from the city. Away from the lights of the town and away from the danger that waited in New Orleans.

“A cabin.” Her voice came quietly, barely rising over the growl of the motorcycle. “At the edge of the swamp. We’d go there all the time when I was a kid.”

Her safe place?

I’m her safe place.

“Take the next exit,” she told him as her hold tightened. “Then turn right.”

The motorcycle sped off the exit ramp. Rushed around the narrow turn.

“Go straight. Drive until the road ends.”

He’d do anything to make the sadness leave her voice.

He followed her instructions, taking the turns, and glancing back to make sure that no headlights appeared in the distance. The road looked empty.

Appearances could be so very deceptive.

Then they were barreling down a small, dirt road. A gate waited up ahead with a NO TRESPASSING sign hanging from its gates.

Ryder drove right through the sagging gates. The cabin waited near the edge of the water. Small, but it looked clean.

He parked the bike in the back. Then Ryder let Sabine lead the way inside. She took a key from beneath a brick—did they always hide their keys in such a spot? And she opened the door, ushering him inside.

He expected the cabin to smell musty, closed-in, but the area was filled with a sweet, light scent.

The place was as clean on the inside as it was on the outside. A tidy table. A comfortable couch. The walls were lined with pictures of a much younger Sabine and her brother.

Damn but she’d been a cute kid. A heartbreaker, even when she’d had long pigtails.

“I was happy here. Always . . .” She rolled her shoulders. “But I guess it was stupid to come here. My dad or Rhett could have told Genesis about this place.”