Once Bitten, Twice Burned

  And she remembered sitting on the couch with him and Rhett. Watching scary movies. Eating popcorn.

  Swimming in the lake.

  Laughing while they roasted marshmallows.

  How in the hell had things come to be this way?

  “You’re going to be okay,” she told him, pressing her fingers against his neck. His blood soaked her hand. The blood wouldn’t stop gushing out. “Hang on, Vaughn, okay? Just hang on.”

  They shouldn’t be enemies. They should just be people. Friends.

  And her friend was dying right in front of her.

  “Four . . . two . . .”

  She leaned toward him. “What is it? I can’t understand.”

  “One . . . nine . . .”

  He was telling her numbers? She shook her head. “Save your strength, okay?” Sabine glanced over her shoulder. Ryder and the other vampire—what was wrong with him? Why did he look that way?—were running toward each other. Both had their claws up. They were yelling and they hit in a thud of bodies. Fists pounded. Claws flew.

  The other vampire was going for Ryder’s neck. His claws cut into Ryder’s skin.

  “No!” Sabine screamed.

  Ryder lunged up, his claws slicing back at his attacker.

  Her mouth hung open in shock, and then she had to look away.

  Ryder had . . . he’d . . . just taken the vampire’s head off.

  Her eyes squeezed shut. That sound, that slush that she’d heard right before the vampire’s head toppled back . . .

  Vaughn had stilled beneath her hands. Her eyes opened and she stared back at him. His face had gone slack. “Vaughn?” She shook him.

  He felt cold to her. He shouldn’t be that cold, not so soon. His body should still be warm. Not so icy. Not yet. Not ever.

  “Vaughn!” Footsteps thudded behind her. She didn’t look over her shoulder. She knew those footsteps had to be Ryder’s.

  He’d taken the other vampire’s head. With one slice of his claws. But she couldn’t think about that. Not then.

  Vaughn wasn’t moving. The blood was thick on the ground beneath him.

  Ryder’s hands wrapped around her. He lifted her against him. “The humans are coming.”

  She felt numb. Vaughn was—

  Moving?

  His mouth was opening wide, and he started to groan. A low, pain-filled sound.

  Relief rushed through her. Vaughn was alive!

  His hands flew into the air, and—and claws were sprouting from his fingertips. Long, thick, black claws.

  His mouth was open so wide because his teeth were growing, elongating into sharp points. Every. Single. Tooth.

  Ryder jerked her back, keeping his tight hold on her. “Son of a bitch.”

  Vaughn rolled over. Slowly rose to his hands and knees as his back bowed. “Help . . . me!”

  Sabine tried to reach for him. Ryder just wrapped his arms tighter around her. Hauled her farther back.

  Then, over Vaughn’s growing screams and the desperate pounding of her own heart, Sabine heard footsteps. Her head swung to the left. To the right. Men in black cargo pants and bulletproof vests were surrounding them. And leading those men, she recognized Keith Adams, Vaughn’s father.

  “What the hell did you do to my son?” Keith demanded. He had a small gun in his hands. A gun currently aimed at Sabine’s chest.

  She couldn’t help but wonder if, like her father’s weapon, that gun was loaded with wooden bullets, too.

  “We didn’t do anything.” Ryder wasn’t letting her go. His body vibrated with fury. “You can thank Genesis for this one. They’re the ones who wanted to build bigger, stronger vampires.”

  Keith staggered back. His gaze went to the ground. To the fallen vampire and his disconnected head. The vamp’s mouth was wide open, and you could see his mouthful of fangs.

  Keith’s horrified gaze flew back to Vaughn. “No, son, no!”

  But there was no denying what was happening to Vaughn. He was screaming and crying and his body kept twisting as the brutal change swept over him.

  Sabine held herself still in Ryder’s arms.

  “I’m going to kill them all,” Ryder whispered the words in her ear, barely seeming to breathe them.

  She counted seven men. All with their eyes on Vaughn, not her or Ryder. All appearing frozen with horror.

  One of their own was changing right before their eyes.

  “I’ll kill them all,” Ryder said again, “and you stay behind me. It’ll be fast, I promise. Just close your eyes, and you don’t even have to see what I do to them.”

  She had no doubt that he could kill all of those humans in just moments. She knew how fast he could move. How strong he was. He could take their heads easily or cut their throats.

  “No,” Sabine whispered. She didn’t want more blood on her hands. She already had enough coating her fingers.

  “I’m not going back into a cage.” Anger now, rage, roughening Ryder’s words. “Not even for you, love.”

  Then he pushed her behind him.

  He sprang at Keith.

  Only . . .

  Keith was firing his weapon. Aiming not for Ryder, but pointing his gun at Vaughn.

  Vaughn . . . who was on his feet. Chest heaving. Body shaking.

  Vaughn . . . who was rushing toward Sabine, snarling and opening his mouth to take a bite.

  The bullet slammed into his chest. Another blasted into Vaughn. A third.

  Vaughn fell to the ground.

  Keith looked up.

  Too late, Keith. Too late.

  Because Ryder was at his side. Ryder had his claws at Keith’s throat.

  “Tell them to drop their weapons,” Ryder’s voice was deadly calm.

  Keith didn’t speak, but he gave a fast gesture with his hand. All of the humans immediately tossed their weapons to the ground.

  “Good,” Ryder praised and offered a hard smile to the man. “For that, you can die quickly.”

  “Ryder!” Sabine hurried toward him. “Don’t!”

  Keith’s eyes, grief-stricken, lost, met hers. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  No, she was sure that she and Ryder were the ones who were supposed to be on the ground.

  “I-I wanted to help you,” Keith muttered. His throat was bleeding. Ryder’s claws were sinking into the skin. “When I found out what Genesis was really doing . . .” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and Ryder’s claws sank deeper into him. “Since then . . . I-I’ve been trying to get you out . . . trying to save the others.”

  It was too late for saving them.

  “My son . . . my own son.” Tears slipped down his cheeks.

  Sabine realized all of Keith’s guards had frozen. No one was moving. No one seemed to know what to do.

  She took a deep breath and closed the distance between her and Keith. “Were those wooden bullets?” she asked him. Wooden bullets on vampire prey.

  Keith nodded.

  “He’s not dead,” Ryder said, sounding almost bored. “Down, but not dead. Guess you couldn’t go straight for the heart with your own son, huh? And you couldn’t order your men to take that heart shot, either.”

  Her gaze cut to Ryder. “Stop.”

  He lifted his brows.

  “Take your claws away from his throat,” she demanded. It was all too damn much. Rage was pumping through her own body. Hot. Blistering. Vaughn . . . turned? Keith shooting his own son? Her dad betraying her.

  Too much.

  Ryder’s eyes widened. Then he let go of Keith. Instead of backing away, Ryder grabbed for her. Figured. When had the vamp ever backed away?

  His hands wrapped around her arms. “Sabine?” He shook her once, lightly. He didn’t sound so bored then. He sounded worried.

  She took another deep breath and could have almost sworn that she tasted ash on her tongue.

  “Sabine . . .” His voice had dropped, become an intimate caress.

  She met his stare. Tried to pull more air into lungs that su
ddenly felt starved for oxygen.

  “Breathe,” he whispered to her. “Everything is going to be all right. You know I’ll keep you safe.”

  She didn’t feel like she really knew anything anymore. But she sucked in more deep breaths. Tried to calm a heartbeat that raced too fast. Her eyes stayed on his.

  Finally, finally, the air stopped tasting like ash on her tongue.

  She realized that Ryder was staring at her with a deep, intense gaze.

  “Is your control back?” Ryder asked softly.

  Back? When had she lost it?

  But she gave a nod. His arms wrapped around her shoulders. She realized that the humans were just standing there, waiting.

  For what?

  Keith’s head hung down, his chin almost touching his chest. Blood dripped onto his shirt. “Vaughn . . . he and I . . . we both wanted to make things right.”

  What was right anymore? Sabine wasn’t sure she knew.

  Keith’s head lifted. “He was trying to protect Rhett. We knew Genesis had a hit on him. Once we realized what they were really doing, we put a plant inside the facility. We were trying to help.”

  Ryder stared dispassionately at him. “You want to help? Get the hell out of our way and stay out of our way.” His arm was a warm weight over her shoulders. “Because if I see you again, I will kill you.” A vow.

  She gazed at Keith and shook her head. “How were you going to help me?”

  “There’s another doctor.” He licked his lips, glanced over at Vaughn’s still body, and drew in a ragged breath. “She’s not like Wyatt. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone. She wants to help the supernaturals.”

  Right. Like she hadn’t heard that one before. “Come on,” Sabine said to Ryder. “Let’s go.”

  “She’s not experimenting on anyone!” Keith’s voice broke. “She’s just fixing the mistakes that Wyatt made.”

  Like she’d trust another human in a lab coat.

  Her gaze darted to Keith. Before they left, she had to know one thing. “Where’s my brother?”

  But he shook his head. “I-I don’t know. Vaughn was sent to secure him. To get him to a safe location before . . .”

  Before someone else could put a bullet in his head?

  “Find out,” Ryder told the man. “Find out, and you send the location to me at Bran’s Castle.”

  Keith nodded. His gaze swung back to Vaughn. “She can fix him.”

  The words were so low that Sabine barely caught his murmur, but when the words registered, she frowned.

  “There’s no going back once you become a vampire,” Ryder snapped. So he’d heard the man’s murmur, too. “And you need to put him down, for good. That bite spread the virus. Wyatt mutated his vampires. They aren’t like me. They’re—”

  “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.”

  He pulled her into his arms. Pressed his mouth to hers. “Let them come.” Didn’t she understand yet? No one was going to take her again. He wasn’t leaving her side, no matter what the hell happened next.

  Her hands rose to his shoulders. Held tight. He liked the bite of her nails on his skin. Liked her bite more.

  He kissed her again and his tongue pushed into her mouth. The kiss wasn’t wild or rough, not like before. Because this time, he wanted t
o comfort her.

  To make her feel safe.

  He kept the kiss light. A hard task, when his instincts demanded that he take. When Ryder felt his body tightening, he pulled his mouth from hers. Ryder pressed his forehead against Sabine’s. “You’re not alone.”

  She’d never be.

  He caught her hand. Pulled her toward the couch. She looked up at him, so sexy that she made him ache. His cock was fully erect, eager for her.

  But this time, she needed more.

  “My family betrayed me, too.” A confession that few had ever heard from him, but he wanted to share his past with her.

  She sat down on the edge of the couch and stared up at him. Waited. Her lips were red from his mouth.

  “I’ve walked the earth for a very, very long time, Sabine.” Longer than she probably realized. He’d stopped aging long ago. “As far as I know, I was the first vampire.”

  Her eyes widened. “You—”

  “I took a sickness when I was human. A disease that ravaged through me, seeming to consume me from the inside out.” He could still hear the sound of his own desperate screams. His mother’s wild pleas for help.

  Help had finally come.

  But it hadn’t been what he’d expected.

  “The disease spread to others in my family.” A plague, that was what they would call it in the Middle Ages. A virus. A sickness, now.

  “I recovered.” Flat. He held her gaze. “Most did not. Only my brother and I were spared. Everyone else . . . they perished.” The deaths hadn’t been easy. So much suffering. Agony. The bodies had been twisted. Spotted. Blackened. The rotting stench had filled the air. Death had come to his land.

  “My brother was weakened from the disease. He could barely walk. His skin was mottled, scarred, but I—I was fine within a few nights.” His body had been strong.

  Too strong.

  “My blood has always been different.” Or else the virus would have ravaged him, too. “Something was . . . off with me.” He’d known it from the time he was just a child. There had been a darkness in him. An instinctive urge to hunt. To be the predator.

  To destroy prey.

  Evil? Maybe. Maybe that’s what he was. But he’d always tried to fight his deadly instincts, as best he could.

  “Within just a few days, I noticed the new . . . hunger.”