Burn For Me

CHAPTER THREE

Eve knew the role that she had to play, and she was willing to do her part, up to a point. So she rose onto her tiptoes and pressed her mouth against Cain’s.

Even as her hand unfurled against his, she pressed the keys to his chains into his palm.

Yeah, she hadn’t been some pathetic, hopeless weeping machine for nothing. She’d used that time to get close to Wyatt. While he’d been trying to pry her loose, she’d been relieving him of his keys.

That summer of pickpocketing didn’t feel quite so shameful right then.

Her lips moved softly on Cain’s. Just pretending. Just keeping up appearances until he could unlock those cuffs.

Then he’d better get them the hell out of there.

Only … only Cain wasn’t using the keys to break loose. His arms were wrapping around her, pulling her tighter against him. His mouth hardened on hers, became rougher. More demanding.

She brought her hand up between them. He was hot to the touch. “Cain—”

“They’re watching.” His voice was an almost soundless whisper. “Not yet …”

Oh. She stopped pushing against him. Forced her body to relax.

He was just so damned … big.

“Let me in …”

A shiver slipped over her, and because they had to make this look good, look … real … she opened her mouth.

Who was she kidding?

I want to kiss him.

His tongue pushed into her mouth. She kept standing on her toes to better meet the kiss because, oh yes, her pyro could sure kiss. His tongue thrust against hers, licked the curve of her lip, and a moan rose in her throat.

Even as she felt a very distinct part of his anatomy rising against her.

Her left hand was still between them. Still against his naked chest. She’d never touched anyone who felt as hot as he did. It was like he was burning with a fever.

Eve tore her lips from his. Cain’s eyes blazed down at her, not with the fire she’d seen before, but with lust. Need.

Before she could speak, he spun her around and pushed her against the wall behind him, caging her body. No, not caging her, blocking her with his body.

“Open the lock.” He pressed the keys back against her hand.

Oh, okay. The lock on his right wrist still looked like it was secured, even though she knew he could pop free of it at any moment.

His lips slid over her throat. “Do it.”

He was covering her while she freed him. Check. Not about sex. Not about …

He licked her neck, his tongue sliding over the spot that always made her knees go weak. Then he … bit her.

Her breath heaved out even as she slid the key into the lock.

Wyatt stared through the glass, grim satisfaction filling him. He’d finally done it. Finally found a way to break Subject Thirteen.

Who would have thought the reporter would come in so handy?

Thirteen could withstand any torture. Any pain. But … he wouldn’t be able to hold out against her. She’d be the key Wyatt needed.

Once Thirteen broke, there’d be no stopping the next stage of the project’s development.

He turned away from the test subjects. After all these years, all the time and blood he’d poured into Genesis, he was finally close to a breakthrough.

Subject Thirteen would be that breakthrough.

A being that couldn’t truly die. One that could withstand gunshots, poison, dismemberment … because he’d tried them all. Each time Thirteen died, he just burned, and rose up again. Stronger than before.

Just like a mythical phoenix.

Only … clearly that story hadn’t been merely a myth.

The guard’s eyes widened. Barnes licked his lips. The guy was obviously enjoying the show.

That had to mean that things were getting hot in there. Just what Thirteen needed.

Wyatt glanced down at his watch. They’d barely had ten minutes of the promised hour. He’d let Thirteen enjoy himself for a little while longer …

Until the flames started.

The lock snicked open, but Cain moved quickly, twisting his wrist so that the mechanism still appeared to be closed. If those watching saw that he was loose, they’d turn on the gas again.

Cain needed Wyatt to open the door for him. If that door would just open …

He’d unleash hell.

He brought his lips close to Eve’s small ear. “We have to make this look real.”

She shuddered against him. Fear. Had to be in fear. She’d seen what he could do. She had to be terrified that he’d hurt her.

He wouldn’t.

Cain had his control gripped as tightly as he could. He just had to hold on for an hour. Then the fire could rip free.

One hour …

At least fifteen minutes had passed already. Had to have.

He grabbed her hips, lifted her up against him. Held her easily.

Her breath caught as her hands curled around his shoulders. To the men watching, it would look like he was pinning her to the wall and driving his aroused flesh against her.

Because … he was.

She just felt so good. Soft. Silken. Her taste filled his mouth and her body trembled against his.

It would be easy to strip her clothes away. To thrust into her. To let go.

Her hands lifted and sank into his hair with surprising strength. “It can look real.” Her lips skimmed over his jaw. “But it won’t be.”

His lips curled. Maybe it will be.

Then he heard the door slide open behind them. Metal grated. In an instant, he spun around, putting his body in front of Eve’s.

He expected Wyatt. Instead, Barnes stood smirking at them. “Change of plans.”

“I have an hour!” Cain’s voice thundered out.

Barnes backed up a step. “That was before the vamp started convulsing. He needs fresh blood—and guess who’s gonna be his donor?”

The hell she was.

“Now come on, lady.” Barnes lifted his gun and pointed it at Cain’s chest. “We’re leaving.”

“No.” Cain stalked forward. One step. Another. More, a few more feet … and the chains weren’t supposed to let him advance any farther.

His leash stretched taut behind him.

The guard was sweating. Sweating, but still looking too confident.

If those chains had been locked, the guard would have possessed the power.

Would …

“You shouldn’t have hit her with your gun.” Cain kept his eyes down. Barnes couldn’t be allowed to see what was coming, not yet.

The guard’s feet shifted on the floor.

Eve stayed pressed against the back wall. Smart woman.

Cain flexed his hands. One lunge, and the chains would fall away. He had to be fast. Fast enough to get through that open door.

“And you really shouldn’t have fucking cut out my heart in your third experiment …” That shit had hurt.

The bastard guard had laughed while he cut into Cain’s chest.

Cain glanced up. Barnes wasn’t laughing now.

He’d never laugh again.

Cain lunged forward. He shoved his hand into Barnes’s chest and threw the asshole back through the doorway.

Barnes screamed, calling out for help. Help wouldn’t come in time.

Cain cleared the doorway. No more locks. No more chains. He felt the power swelling inside him. Building higher and higher.

Barnes was on the floor. Shooting at him. The bullets were like bee stings on his flesh.

Eve screamed behind him. Cain didn’t stop advancing. He grabbed the gun. The metal melted in his hand. Then he grabbed Barnes.

Flames erupted, burning so bright… .

The shriek of the alarm froze Wyatt as he entered his private office.

He turned to the right and pulled up the security feed.

Sector Three. Subject Thirteen. He stared at the monitor. Thirteen stood before a pile of ash. Outside his holding cell.

Dammit. They had to tranq him. Had to knock him out before—

Thirteen looked up at the security camera and smiled.

Wyatt could see the flames burning in Thirteen’s eyes. The beast was out, and he was ready to destroy.

“Stop him,” Wyatt whispered into the intercom. His message would feed into the earpieces of every security guard in the facility. “Use the SP-tranq.” It was their all-purpose drug to take out the supernaturals. Sure, the weaker ones never woke up after getting an injection, and the stronger ones, well, it didn’t keep them out for long… .

But they didn’t need too long, just—

Thirteen wasn’t on the monitor anymore. Shouts and gunfire echoed through the facility, and Wyatt could smell smoke. Thirteen was leaving a path of fire in his wake.

He wasn’t just escaping. He was keeping his promise.

Sending us all to hell.

Wyatt wasn’t ready for hell. Not yet.

He sealed the door to his office.

Not yet.

There was too much work to do first.

Cain had just … incinerated the guard. Eve stared in horror at the pile of ash at her feet. He had touched Barnes and in the next second, flames had consumed the man.

Cain raced down the hallway, and fire seemed to be taking over the facility. Eating at the walls. Snaking up to the ceiling. Burning everything.

Eve jumped back, away from the flames.

“Run.”

Her head lifted and she found herself staring into Cain’s eyes. He’d turned back to look at her. Only … fire was in his eyes. She could actually see the flames burning right in his gaze.

“Run … or die,” he told her, the words more growl than anything else.

When he put it that way … Eve ran. The facility was going down, burning around her—some guards were fighting, shooting at Cain. But the guards weren’t the only ones in the facility.

If this place went up in flames, and it sure looked like it would, then all the other test subjects would die.

The corridor sprinklers burst on from overhead. About freaking time. They drenched her clothes and fought the fire. Some of the flames died. Some grew stronger.

Chaos reigned.

She grabbed a white lab coat from a storage closet. Yanked it on. Tried to blend with the other researchers who were running for the exits.

Only … Eve didn’t head for the nearest exit. She raced for the stairs that would take her down to the next level of the facility. The level she’d never accessed.

More test subjects waited down there.

She shoved her hand against the stairwell door. The alarm blared constantly, driving her crazy. She hurried, nearly fell, but caught herself as she staggered down the steps.

She opened the next door—and came face-to-face with an armed guard.

“What are you—” he began.

Eve hit him. Just punched him right in the face. She guessed that she hadn’t looked particularly threatening, because he sure seemed caught by surprise. She grabbed his gun when he stumbled back. “Now get the hell out of here!” she told him. Screams reached her from upstairs. “Before you burn.”

His eyes bulged, but then he ran up the stairs.

He was smarter than he appeared.

She hurried toward the guard station. Heard some order on the intercom system about using something called an SP-tranq. Whatever. She got down on her knees as she yanked open the drawers, shoving her hands in. She found key cards—had to be for the cells—grabbed them, and jumped to her feet.

More guards rushed by her, but she just tucked the gun down next to her leg, and they barely glanced her way. They were too busy fleeing to pay her much attention. No, they were hauling ass.

And leaving the paranormals as prisoners. Not on my watch. The test subjects weren’t just going to be left to die.

She found the first room down a twisting hallway. A two-way mirror let her see into his room. A man. Tall. Muscled. Pacing back and forth. Back and—

He whirled to face her, and Eve caught sight of his gleaming fangs.

Hell.

“Fresh blood …” he whispered.

Okay. Eve hesitated. Maybe freeing him wasn’t the—

Smoke drifted toward her. The vamp’s head snapped up. He wasn’t looking right at her, not the way Cain had, but the vamp sure seemed to be … smelling her. “Fire.”

Yeah, his sense of smell was working just fine.

And even though he was a vampire … I can’t leave him. Vampires were just like humans—some good, some bad. She just had to keep reminding herself of that. He doesn’t have to be bad.

Eve rushed around the corner. Flipped through the key cards and tried to find the one that would give her access to his cell. This holding room didn’t have a manual code, not like Cain’s. The door looked thicker, heavier, and—

The third card she swiped had the lights near the door’s handle flashing green. She brought her gun up in an instant even as the door flew open.

“Don’t bite me!” Her quick yell.

The blond vampire had already lunged forward, but he froze at her yell—or maybe he froze at the sight of her gun. Didn’t really matter why to Eve.

Freezing was good. Better than biting. “I’m here to help you.”

His eyes narrowed. “Says the woman with the gun aimed at my chest.” His fangs were way too sharp.

“Look, that’s just to—”

He ripped the gun from her hand in a lightning-fast move. Grabbed her. Shoved her back against the door and yanked her head to the side.

“Hungry …” Cain had said something like that, too, only he hadn’t raked his fangs against her skin the way Dracula was doing.

“I’m … helping …” Eve muttered. “Trying … to … help …” Damn the vampires. Always biting the hands—or the necks—of those who helped.

“Need … you …” the vampire rasped.

Then he was the one being yanked away. The vampire’s body hit the wall with a thud. “Too fucking bad,” Cain snarled at him. “Cause I saw her first.”

Uh, what?

Cain offered her his hand. Eve glanced at his open palm, then back at his blazing eyes. She didn’t move toward him. Right then she wasn’t sure who was safer—the guy who’d almost torn out her throat, or the man who was destroying the whole building.

“You have to get out of here,” Cain told her, a muscle flexing along his jaw.

The vampire rose slowly to his feet.

“Touch her again”—Cain’s deadly focus was on the vamp—“and I’ll turn you to dust.”

A very real threat. Vampires and fire didn’t mix so well.

Cain stopped waiting on her to take his hand. He grabbed her wrist and hauled her to his side. “Come on.”

Every instinct she had screamed for her to run from the fire, but … “There are others. They’re trapped and—”

An explosion shook the building. A fierce detonation that had the walls shuddering and thick cracks breaking across the ceiling.

The vampire stared at Cain for an instant, then when the screams started—screams that seemed to come from everywhere—the vamp shoved past Cain and Eve and raced away.

So many screams … and more explosions.

“He’s not letting us out.” Cain’s grip was unbreakable. “The fucking bastard … Wyatt is gonna kill everyone before he lets his experiments get away.”

Wyatt was blowing up the lab? She shook her head. This wasn’t supposed to happen. None of this should have happened. “We have to help the others!”

A chunk of ceiling fell down, barely missing her leg. Cain pulled her down the hallway. She fought him, dragging in her heels. “No, the others—”

She choked on the smoke.

They were almost at the stairwell.

“Please …”

The one word stopped him.

“They’ll die.” Unless they were like Cain, and that was highly doubtful. She’d never met anyone else quite like him.

He grabbed the key cards from her hand. “Then I’ll get them out.” A push sent her into the stairwell. “You get that sweet ass out of this place.”

Another explosion rocked Genesis, and Cain left her—rushing back down the winding hallway even as the building began to collapse.

The smoke was thicker than Seattle fog as Eve fought her way down the corridor toward Wyatt’s office. The coldhearted bastard was trying to kill everyone, even his own research teams. The detonations had gone off with near perfect timing. Sealing doorways. Destroying equipment.

Burying evidence.

He wasn’t going to get away with this. She wouldn’t let him. People deserved to know the truth—and the truth was that vampires and shifters weren’t the only monsters.

Some humans could be the worst monsters out there.

Her lungs burned as she shoved against his office door. Locked. Sealed tight from the inside. Eve snarled as she pushed against that door. Just—

The door opened with a hiss, and she fell inside. The place was perfect. Freaking pristine, while hell stalked the hallways outside.

She stumbled to Wyatt’s desk and yanked up the laptop that looked like it had been waiting for her.

“I was wondering when you’d come my way.”

She whirled around. The bookcase to the left wasn’t a real bookcase. Wyatt had rigged the place, all right. Given himself the perfect exit, one hidden so easily.

“There’s no data there.” He inclined his head toward her and the laptop. “I erased those files.”

More screams. Cries for help.

Eve shifted forward, moving onto the balls of her feet, then she went completely still when she saw the gun in his hand.

“You really fucked things up for me.” Wyatt sighed. “And to think, I had such hopes for you.”

What? Hopes to do what—torture and maim her? Freak. “It’s over, Wyatt. Your facility is burning. Your people are dying—it’s over.”

Wyatt shook his head. “I’ll take my data. Go forward, but you …” That gun didn’t waver. “You’re not going anywhere.” His clinical façade was cracking right before her eyes as the rage swept through him.

“Why?” The question tore from her. “Why are you doing this to them?”

“Because they don’t deserve to be the ones with the power.” Disgust tightened his mouth. “They won’t be the strong ones. They won’t destroy us!”

Sounded like the doc had some personal issues going on. She could understand. Seeing as how vampires had killed her family, she wasn’t exactly warm and tingly when it came to all the supernaturals. But killing them?

Torturing them?

No.

“We don’t get to play God.” She edged behind his desk. The laptop was clutched in front of her. Like it would stop a bullet.

“Some of us do.” Wyatt’s response, arrogant and so cold, drifted across the room.

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re gonna blame all of this”—her free hand waved toward the smoke filling the room—“on them, aren’t you?” He was setting up the explosions to make it look like the paranormals were the ones who’d attacked. I bet he blames everything on Cain.

Wyatt smiled. Sometimes, it was easy to see madness. Sometimes, it was harder to see evil.

Wyatt kept the gun up as he said, “When no one walks away but me … there will be no other story to believe.”

“Cain … Cain will walk away.” The fire wouldn’t stop him. Not when he could control the flames so easily. “You know he’ll live, you know—”

Wyatt laughed. “Cain’s the worst monster there is. You think I’m bad? You don’t even know what he’s done.”

Then he shot her. Not in the heart or head, as she’d expected. But in the stomach. She fell down, gasping at the pain. The laptop fell from her fingers.

“You will, though,” he promised her. “You will.”

He stepped back into the small opening made by the bookshelf. His perfect exit strategy. He’d planned so well—and now the jerk was going to get away.

“No!” She couldn’t stand. Her whole body felt heavy, weighted. She tried to crawl to him. “You can’t—”

The bookshelf closed, sealing him inside. No, sealing her inside the room and letting him get wherever the hell he wanted to go.

“Help!” She yelled, crawling a bit more. She’d find something. Something she could use to help her and she’d get out. She’d—

Fire raced into the room.

Fire … and Cain.

“Help me,” she begged him, staring up—and looking right into his eyes. Into the fire.

He’s worse than me.

Cain lifted her into his arms. Held her against his chest. Fire blocked the door. Blazed down the hall.

“Can you …” The smoke was choking her. Dammit, if they didn’t move, that would be what killed her. Not the fire.

Never the fire.

She’d lied to Wyatt. To Cain. To just about everyone. She had plenty of secrets that no one knew, not even those who were supposed to be her closest friends.

“Can you … get through … the fire?” she asked him. It was getting hard to speak. Hard to focus. Wyatt hadn’t shot her with a regular bullet. More like some kind of drug, a tranq that was making her numb.

Cain nodded. “I can.” His face was grim. “You can’t.”

The drug was making her hallucinate. Why else would she think that the guy’s voice had sounded all gruff and sad? “I … can. Trust … m-me.”

But he wasn’t moving. Just standing there.

What? Waiting for death?

“I … lied.” She could barely whisper the words.

Fire caught the bottom of his jogging pants. Burned higher. He tried to yank her away from the flames.

Eve reached out and touched them. The flames slid right over her skin. She could feel the heat, but there was no burn.

For her, there never had been.

“I’m not … exactly … human.”

His eyes widened, but he didn’t speak. Not then. Just held her tight—and raced through the fire.

As the drug pushed through her body, everything slowly faded away. The last thing she saw was the fire.

Burning so bright.