Burn For Me

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Eve saw Cain’s eyes widen as he lunged forward. The air seemed to rush against her skin, and, before she could turn around, she felt hard arms wrap around her waist. She was yanked back against someone—a male—and she felt something sharp press against her throat.

“Stand down, phoenix.”

At the vamp’s words, Cain froze. “Ryder, you’re begging to feel the fire.”

Ryder? The vamp who’d sold her out? Her teeth ground together as her nails sank into his arm. She arched her neck and tried to pull away from him. No dice. That vamp’s grip was hard—and painful.

“Where is she?” he snarled into her ear.

Um, she was standing right there. Standing there, and feeling lost. Ryder had known that Cain was a phoenix? All along?

First Trace, now Ryder. She was feeling left behind on the whole paranormal-knowledge bit. Did everyone else know that the ancient phoenix myth was real?

Her breath heaved out and her eyes found Cain’s.

“Where?” So much fury as Ryder nearly screamed the word.

Those were claws at her throat. So much for the scratches that she was leaving on his arm. The guy was about to cut her throat open. Eve stopped fighting, for the moment. With her struggles, she was just making his claws press harder against her skin.

“You’re dead,” Cain promised him.

Ryder just laughed and the sound was wild. “Don’t you think I fucking know that? Without her, I’m dying. Day by damn day.” He spun Eve to face him. “You saw her, didn’t you? When Wyatt took you, I know you saw her.”

Okay, she was dealing with a psycho vampire and she didn’t have a weapon. But she had something better. She had Cain.

“She’s still alive, isn’t she?” Ryder asked, shaking Eve. “She’s—”

Eve kneed him in the groin as hard as she could. She didn’t know if the move actually hurt him or just caught him by surprise, but either way, his grip eased and his claws—two-inch long, razor-sharp claws—pulled away from her throat.

That instant was all she needed. She stumbled back. Cain leaped forward.

“You’re dying, asshole,” Cain snarled and put his hand on Ryder’s chest. Flames were already rising from Cain’s fingers. Eve scrambled back. Vampires burned fast. She’d seen it happen once before.

Twice.

Ryder would go up like a firecracker and—

He was laughing.

Not burning, laughing.

How was that even possible?

Cain tried to pull back. Ryder grabbed Cain’s hand and shoved it harder against his own chest. The fire burned between them, melting away Ryder’s shirt, but the vamp wasn’t dying.

He’s like me.

“See what she did?” Ryder demanded. “Do you see what her blood did to me? Didn’t realize it … not until I had to escape your fire at Genesis. It didn’t burn me. The fire doesn’t … not any more… .”

Cain yanked his hand away from the vamp and punched Ryder. The vampire hurtled over the side of the staircase and crashed to the floor. Cain jumped over the banister and landed in a crouch beside him. Ryder wasn’t rising. He’d fallen on the wooden table and a huge chunk of wood burst from his chest.

Fire might not kill him, but a good, old-fashioned stake to the heart would.

Eve rushed down the rest of the stairs and hurried to Cain’s side. Only … Cain wasn’t finishing the vamp. Cain just stared at Ryder with his hands clenched.

“I crave her,” Ryder said as blood dripped from his mouth. “Every damn moment … I need her.” His eyes locked on Eve. “Tell me where she is!”

Eve grabbed a piece of broken wood. She just had to take out the bastard’s heart. She could do this. Cain had been right. They never should have rescued Ryder from Genesis. Some monsters couldn’t be saved. She needed to stop trying.

Eve pushed forward with her weapon ready, but … Cain stopped her. He grabbed her and yanked the stake from her hands.

“No.” Cain’s voice. Firm. Flat.

What? She could still feel Ryder’s claws at her throat. Her blood had spilled onto her shirt. He’d cut her. Would have killed her.

The kids always taste so good. The voice from her past whispered through her mind. Eve wanted to slap her hands over her ears, but she knew that wouldn’t do any good. The voice was on the inside. It would be with her forever.

Ryder was rising and yanking the wood from his chest. Blood had pooled beneath him.

Mommy! Another echo from the past. the echo of her own scream.

Ryder reached for her, but Cain stepped between them. His hand wrapped around the vampire’s throat and lifted Ryder into the air. “Control yourself… or I’ll kill you right now.”

Ryder’s fangs flashed.

Cain tightened his hold. “I’ll snap your neck, and while your body tries to recover from that injury, I’ll shove a stake in your heart.”

Ryder wasn’t fighting. His breath came out ragged, panting.

“I know crazy,” Cain said, voice a snarl. “Trust me, I fucking know it.”

Eve picked up the shattered piece of wood. A foot long. Jagged on both ends. It would be a perfect stake.

“Get that crazy under control,” Cain ordered, “and tell me what the hell you’re talking about, vampire.”

Eve shook her head. This was a mistake. “He led them to us again.” Didn’t Cain realize that? “He’s sold us out, just like he did before.”

Cain stared at Ryder. “You’re talking about a woman, aren’t you? The thing that Wyatt took. The thing you want so badly … it’s her.”

Her who?

Ryder nodded. Cain dropped him to the floor. The vampire scrambled back and then rose slowly to his feet.

Eve kept her fingers curled around the wood. If he came at her, she’d stake him. She’d already tried to play the Girl Scout with him and that bit hadn’t worked.

The guy probably ate Girl Scouts for breakfast.

“She’s … like you,” Ryder said as he stared at Cain. “She burns, then comes back.”

Eve’s gaze darted between them.

“Just like you did in that bar,” Ryder added. “I saw you.”

“How do you know she’s like me? How can you be sure?” Cain demanded. His voice had lowered, hardened.

Ryder hung his head as if in shame. “Because I killed her, and she came back.”

A muscle jerked in Cain’s jaw. The air around his body seemed to heat up.

“Wyatt starved me,” Ryder said. His eyes were on Cain, but Eve could see the emotion flooding his gaze. Pain. Rage. “I wasn’t there for just a few months—it was a whole fucking year. A year kept in his cage. Trapped. I was so hungry, and then he brought her to me.”

Wyatt had told Eve about the starving vampire. He’d threatened to feed her to him. Goose bumps rose on her arms and pity stirred in her heart for the woman she didn’t even know.

“Her blood—it was different. Tasted different from anything I’d ever had before. I didn’t know what I was doing. I couldn’t stop. I tried and I tried, but I couldn’t… .” Ryder’s eyes squeezed shut, but there was no missing the torment on his face. “Then she was still, and I couldn’t get her to open her eyes.”

“You drained her,” Cain said. His legs were braced apart. His hands loose at his sides.

Eve couldn’t tell if he was about to attack the vampire—or give the guy a free pass out of the cabin.

No free pass. Eve still had her weapon ready.

Ryder’s eyes opened. Darted to her, then back to Cain. “I called for the guards. Begged them to help, but they wouldn’t touch her.”

Eve bet that had been on Wyatt’s orders. The doctor had been waiting, probably eager to see what would happen next.

“Then she burned.” The quiet words came from Cain.

Ryder nodded stiffly. “I was fighting the guards, trying to get back to her. I thought … I thought I could try to turn her.”

Turn her. Eve felt nausea rise in her throat. No matter what else happened to her in this life, she never wanted to become a vampire. Not that most people survived the brutal turning, anyway. If they did, the vamps would have taken over the world long ago.

Ryder jerked a hand through his hair. “Then I smelled the smoke. The fire was everywhere. Wyatt was in the hallway, watching her, smiling. Smiling when she burned, and—”

“When she came back,” Eve said, cutting into his words. She’d seen the same thing with Cain. Wyatt, standing back in his pristine lab coat. Studying the death scene with a steady gaze, then smiling when the fire brought his subject back to life.

“I have to get her out of there.” Ryder’s gaze was on Eve again. Pleading. Demanding. “You saw her, I know you did. When Wyatt took you, you saw her.”

Eve shook her head. “There were only guards. I didn’t see anyone else.”

Ryder lurched back. “You’re lying.” Anger flashed in his eyes and his claws rose up. “Tell me where she is!”

Eve’s hold tightened on the chunk of wood. Why did she have to get stuck with the crazies?

“You need to feed.” Cain’s voice was quiet, calm, such a contrast to the vampire’s frantic words.

Ryder impatiently shook his head. “He did … something to me. I can drink other blood. I fucking have. Over and over. But it doesn’t quench the thirst. It just makes me crave her more. Wyatt did something.”

Yes, but with Wyatt, there was no telling exactly what he’d done. Anything was possible with Dr. Frankenstein.

“He wanted me addicted to her.” A hard rush of breath escaped Ryder. “I am. And I’m getting her out of there. I’m not going to let Wyatt keep hurting her!”

“How do you know she wasn’t at Genesis when it burned?” Eve asked him. How do you know Wyatt still has her? Maybe the woman had escaped—from Wyatt and from the vampire who’d killed her.

But Ryder was adamant. “He had two labs. I know he did. I heard him talking … he was transferring her to the second lab for more study.”

Study or torture? Eve figured they were the same thing in Wyatt’s twisted mind.

“He wants you,” Ryder said, focusing on her with a sudden intensity that made her breath catch. “He’ll keep coming after you. He won’t stop. Once he gets you, we can follow him back to the second lab and—”

Cain punched him in the jaw. The vampire flew a good five feet back and slammed into the side of the fireplace. Two bricks fell to the ground.

“She’s not bait.” Cain’s deadly growl.

No, she wasn’t. The vamp needed to get that bit clear, yesterday.

“He’s hurting her,” Ryder snarled back at him. He pushed to his feet then, voice ragged, said, “I hurt her. I owe her. I have to get her out of that hell.”

Eve knew the vamp would be willing to trade her life in an instant, if it meant he could get his phoenix back. He was like a drug addict, desperate for his next hit of magic blood.

“You aren’t using Eve,” Cain snapped at him. “Think of another plan, because she isn’t your ticket inside Wyatt’s lab, got it?”

The vamp had better get it.

Ryder’s gaze darted between them. “You’re just gonna leave her with him? She’s like you! She’s one of yours!”

Yours? Eve stiffened a bit and glanced at Cain from the corner of her eye.

Cain was staring at her. “Did you know he had another phoenix?”

She didn’t like the suspicion in his gaze. She’d been the one helping his ass the whole time. So why was he looking at her like she might be the enemy? Some trust wouldn’t kill him. Nothing really does. “I didn’t even know you were a phoenix!” Being in the dark sucked. “When I first found you in Genesis, I didn’t know what the hell you were.” She still didn’t fully understand it. Was he a shifter at his core? With a beast that transformed at his death? Or was he both … a blend of man and myth?

She shook her head. Was she supposed to be the all-knowing Oz? Jeez. “I knew there were shifters and a vamp at the facility, okay? I didn’t have intel on anyone or anything else.” Cain had come as a total shock to her. When he’d burned the first time, she’d flipped out. She figured that was a pretty normal response.

Cain just kept staring at her.

Eve straightened her shoulders. “I tried to get everyone out when the explosions started. I was trying to help as many people as I could!” He shouldn’t need the reminder. He’d been there. He’d seen her fighting to save those paranormals.

But her efforts hadn’t been enough. People had died. Wyatt had escaped. And she still hadn’t been able to break her story.

Because she hadn’t broken Wyatt. The asshole was stronger than her, moving freaking pieces on a chessboard while the world went to hell around him.

“Help her,” Ryder demanded, voice ragged.

Cain finally glanced back at the vamp. “You sold us out to Wyatt.”

Ryder shrugged, apparently unconcerned with that not-so-little issue. “You’re both still alive, aren’t you?”

Eve lunged for him, but Cain grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her stomach and hauling her back against him. “You asshole!” Eve screamed at the vamp. “He burned me! He locked me a damn room and he burned me!”

The vamp’s eyelids flickered. His gaze swept over her. “Yet you look surprisingly … unharmed.”

Cain tensed behind her. “Get out of here,” he ordered, voice clipped. “Get the fuck out of here now, or you’re dead.”

Some of the desperation had faded from the vampire’s eyes. Eve didn’t like the way he was looking at her. His stare was too similar to Wyatt’s. “Interesting.” Ryder smiled, but backed toward the door.

Why were they letting him get away? She still had her stake ready.

“I guess you don’t need to save my phoenix”—a trace of cold bitterness had entered the vamp’s voice—“when you have your own.”

What? Eve frowned. “I’m no—”

Cain’s hold tightened on her and she shut up.

“Your mistake,” the vampire whispered. Hate hardened his eyes and his face. “One I’ll make sure you never forget.”

Then he was just … gone.

Crazy. That guy was in-freaking-sane. Eve blinked, chest heaving. She’d been holding her breath at the thick tension in the room. But one minute, the vamp was there, the next—magic act time.

“He’s old,” Cain murmured. He didn’t release her. If anything, his hands pulled her closer against him. “Powerful.”

Eve had made it a policy to learn as much as she could about vampires. Know your enemy. The older a vampire was, the stronger he was. Vamps didn’t usually move at human speed. More like amped-up superhero speed. In a blink, they could run a mile. They could crush steel with their hands. Rip the heart right out of their prey.

Be general nightmares to the human population.

Ryder was a nightmare, no getting around it.

He was also their enemy.

A second lab.

She turned, as much as Cain’s hands would allow, and gazed up into his eyes. No fear there. Just a steady darkness that stared back at her.

How did he feel, knowing another phoenix was out there? One of yours …

He didn’t exactly look overwhelmed by the news.

“Cain, did you know?”

He shook his head. “I thought that was the only lab. Not like Wyatt let me out to see—”

“No.” She shook her head and her hair brushed over his chest. “About the woman. Did you know Wyatt had captured others like you?”

His gaze drifted behind her. He tilted his head as if listening. To see if the vampire was still close by? But after a moment, his eyes turned back to her. “I thought I was the only one left alive.”

Simple. Hollow. Cold.

She shivered. What would it be like to think you were the last of your kind? The only one left on the whole earth? Lonely.

But the vamp had said there was another like Cain. A phoenix female.

A muscle flexed in his jaw. “I’ll have to kill her.”

Shock rippled through Eve. “Why?” His response was the last thing she expected.

“There’s a reason there haven’t been many of my kind in this world.” His hands fell away from her as he headed toward the open door. Sunlight fell inside, but the light just made the angles and planes of his face appear even harder. “Who else knows our weaknesses?” Cain murmured. “Who better to attack …”

She rubbed her arms. “You’re telling me that the reason there aren’t a lot of… of phoenixes running around is because you guys kill each other off?”

He didn’t glance at her. “Only the strong survive.”

That didn’t make any sense to her. Even vamps didn’t hunt each other to extinction. “What about the old phrase that there’s strength in numbers? I mean, come on, Cain. It’s not like you killed your own mother or anything, right?”

His shoulders stiffened. “My mother wasn’t a phoenix.” Slowly, he shut the door and turned back to face her. “And I didn’t have to kill her. My father eliminated her when I was a boy.”

Eliminated her. His words were cold. Callous. Was her face supposed to be feeling so icy? “Why?”

“Because the beasts within us have two drives.”

She didn’t speak. Just waited. Beasts within … the phoenix was a type of shifter. A beast held inside the body of a man. Trapped inside—until the beast broke free.

The fire frees him.

“To mate,” Cain said.

Her breath heaved in her chest.

“And to kill.”

“You kill what you love?” she asked through lips that seemed numb.

He shook his head. “We don’t love.”

So certain. So chilling. Did he hear the too-fast beating of her heart?

He gave her a smile, and she knew that he did hear that telling beat. “Didn’t you realize it, baby? I truly am a monster … the worst one walking the earth.”

He wanted to scare her. He’d succeeded. But Eve made herself walk toward him. One foot in front of the other. He could probably smell the fear rolling off her, but she didn’t care.

“If you are so evil”—as he kept telling her—“why’d you come for me? Why not leave me to die with Wyatt?”

“Wyatt wasn’t going to kill you. Death would have been too easy.”

She flinched. She’d never thought of death as particularly easy.

Cain moved toward her, stopping less than a foot away. His hand lifted and curved around her cheek. “When we rise, we’re at our most dangerous.”

Eve believed that. She’d seen the beast stare back at her when he rose.

“My mother tried to kill my father when she learned that he … wasn’t human. She attacked him. Stabbed him in the heart.”

That wouldn’t have been enough.

“When he rose, the beast had power. The beast was in control.”

Cain kept talking about a beast and she was understanding that … well, despite all his power and fire, maybe deep down he was just another type of shifter. A very, very deadly type.

Trace had often talked about his beast as if he and the wolf were two different beings. Maybe it was the same for Cain. Maybe there was the man. And there was the phoenix. The one she’d seen staring back at her from eyes that burned.

“My mother tried to attack again.” His voice roughed. “She realized that I was like my father, and she tried to kill me.”

A child? Her own child?

“Humans can’t love monsters,” he said, frowning at Eve as if she should understand that fact. “Not even the ones they bring into the world.”

“Cain …”

“She didn’t move fast enough,” he said and shrugged.

Shrugged?

“My father’s fire killed her.”

There were chill bumps on Eve’s arm. The fire had never hurt her, but she felt cold all too well. She was freezing, but the cold seemed to be coming from inside her. “What happened to him?”

“Another phoenix ended him about a century later.”

“A century?” she repeated, stunned.

Cain had turned away from her. “The vampire is out there, either selling us out to Wyatt right now or planning to attack and separate us.”

She grabbed his arm. “Hold on!” Eve forced him to look at her.

“We need to leave. If we don’t, Wyatt’s men will surround the cabin. They’ll try to take you. I’ll kill them all.” One dark brow rose. “I have no problem killing them, but you seem to get upset when others die.”

He was playing the unfeeling bastard, but he wasn’t like that.

Softly, Eve said, “I know you.”

That brow stayed up. “Do you.” Not a question.

He’d revealed a bit of his past to her, and now the guy was shutting down. She shook her head again. It wasn’t going to work like that. “You won’t scare me away from you.”

He laughed at that. Actually laughed. A deep, husky laugh that made her feel strange. He’d never laughed before, had he? His lips were still curved in a smile. “Oh, Eve, I already know the truth about you… .”

No, he didn’t. She had a few secrets of her own.

“You’re fucking terrified of me.” His hand pressed against her chest. Over the swell of her breast and over the heart that raced too fast. His head lowered to her. His lips brushed over her ear. “But part of you likes that fear, don’t you?”

“No,” she gritted out. He didn’t understand her at all.

“Then why do you want me to fuck you, even now, even with all I’ve said …”

Two drives …

To mate.

To kill.

His breath blew lightly on her ear.

She wasn’t going to deny that she wanted him. It was like her body was tuned to his. One touch, and she needed. But the guy was seriously mistaken about her motives. “I don’t like the fear.” She felt it. Wouldn’t lie. “But I want you”—Eve’s lashes lifted, and she stared into his eyes—“in spite of that, not because of it.”

He blinked, and for an instant, seemed lost.

“So remember that,” she muttered and grabbed his head. She pulled him down toward her and pressed her lips against his. The kiss was fast, hard, frantic, and meant to prove a point.

Fear doesn’t make me want you less.

She slipped her tongue into his mouth. Tasted him. Felt the press of his fingers against her ass. She let the kiss linger, savoring for an instant, but … Eve pulled her lips from his. “All humans aren’t the same.” It was a lesson he needed to learn. “I’m not going to come at you with a knife in my hand.”

Another smile from him, but this one … this one made her heart hurt. “Yes, you will.” He pulled away and headed for the stairs.

Eve stared after him. She’d thought that she was the one with the trust issues. It looked like they both had to learn how to deal—fast.

Cain’s hand was on the banister. “We’ll leave in ten minutes.”

Looked like sharing time was definitely over. “Where are we going?”

Another step. “You’re going to a safe house. You’re out of the game.”

She wasn’t going to rush after him. “This isn’t a game.”

“I’ll take care of Wyatt.”

While she what? Sat in the corner like a good little girl? He obviously had her confused with someone else. Wyatt had come after her. He’d killed her friend. She wasn’t walking away from that guy. “I can help you.”

“You can get captured again. Tortured.” Cain turned back to her. “The fire doesn’t hurt you, but from what I can tell, everything else out there does.”

She swallowed. He was right.

His gaze raked her. “You know what I am. I didn’t keep that secret.”

No, he hadn’t.

“But baby, what the fuck are you?”

Eve stiffened. That hurt.

“If you die, will you burn and come back?” he asked her. “Are you like me?”

A phoenix. She lifted her chin. “If I am, does that mean you’ll want to kill me, too?”

He didn’t answer. Maybe that was an answer.

She tried to sound calm. “I’m not a threat to you, Cain.”

“Yes,” he bit out, “you are.”

“Why?”

“Because a phoenix can only die—truly die—in that one moment when the fire rises and pulls us from the ashes. When we’re coming back and the flames surround us … we’re vulnerable.”

But those flames burned so hot.

“Most can’t touch us then. Most …”

Eve understood. Other phoenixes would be able to reach through the fire.

“In that one instant,” Cain said, “we can truly die. And not come back.”

A vulnerability. He shouldn’t be telling her this. Why was he telling her this?

“That’s why we kill our own kind. Phoenixes … we’re the only ones who can stand the fire. The only ones who can reach through the flames to kill.”

But … but she could reach through the fire, too.

“Are you like me?” he asked again, staring down at her. “If you die, Eve, will you rise again?”

She could only shake her head. I don’t know. She’d never known what she was. Maybe that was why she spent so much time looking for the truth about others.

I can’t find it for myself.

Cain said, “You can’t help me fight Wyatt. You’ll just slow me down.”

Well, crap, the guy sure wasn’t pulling any punches. But she had an ace up her sleeve. “Before you go tossing me into some safe house, there’s one thing you should know.”

“And what’s that?”

Eve offered him a smile that showed lots of teeth. “I wasn’t totally honest with the vampire.” So sue me. “Thanks to my little abduction last night, I know how to find Wyatt.” She kept her expression determined. “As soon as we rendezvous with Trace, I’ll tell you both everything I know.”

The wolf shifter wasn’t at the meeting point in Charlotte. Cain’s fingers tapped on the steering wheel. Eve was curiously still beside him. The woman had never been this quiet before, not for so long.

They’d been waiting twenty minutes already. There was no sign of the wolf.

Cain cranked the engine.

Her hand flew out, and her fingers wrapped around his. “We aren’t leaving,” she told him, her voice almost a growl.

He turned his head toward her. Met that bright blue stare. “Yeah, we are.” He was definite on this. The longer they stayed there, the more danger they could face.

She had to see the writing on the wall. She had to. Trace wasn’t meeting them because the wolf couldn’t meet them.

Eve hadn’t been the only one taken last night, but she had been the only one rescued.

Two vamp bars. Two traps. One missing wolf.

Cain frowned. He should have known that Wyatt would have a backup plan in place.

They’d picked the old park as a meeting point because it was isolated. Private. But it looked like the meeting wasn’t going to happen.

Cain eased the vehicle—another stolen ride—away from the curb.

“Take me to the bar,” Eve whispered.

From the corner of his eye, Cain saw her hands clench in her lap. He knew which bar she meant.

Thirty minutes later, they were in front of Bite—the vamp bar that Trace had visited the night before.

There wasn’t much left of the place. Charred bricks. Ash. The shell of a wall in the back. Humans—probably arson investigators—were combing through the wreckage and yellow lines of tape marked off the area, keeping the gawkers back.

Hell.

“Wyatt has him,” Eve said. There was no emotion in her voice.

Cain kept driving past the bar. Nice and slow. Their windows were tinted so no one would get a good look at him and Eve, and he sure wasn’t doing anything to attract attention to them, not yet.

He also didn’t respond to Eve’s comment. Wyatt could have the wolf shifter—

Or Trace could be dead. If the wolf had fought back, death was a strong possibility. Cain knew other paranormals who hadn’t been taken alive. Wyatt just burned their bodies and moved on to his next target.

“You said that you knew how to find Wyatt,” Cain said instead, trying to keep her focused and away from the wall of worry he could almost feel growing around her. As soon as he learned what she knew, he would be dropping Eve off with a supernatural who owed him more than a few favors. The guy would keep her safe—until Cain made sure Wyatt wasn’t coming after any of them ever again.

“He wasn’t supposed to take Trace.”

A red light flashed. He slowed the car. Glanced in the rearview mirror. No sign of a tail. Yet. “He did.” Maybe the words were too cold, but Cain didn’t know any other way to be.

He heard the sharp rasp of her breath, then she said, “Turn right.”

He did.

“Left.” The word was clipped. Eve was worried about her shifter, but she was holding herself together. The woman was strong. Far stronger than Cain had initially realized. “Head straight for two miles,” she told him, “then turn at the federal building.”

He followed her instructions without question, wondering what Eve had planned next.

She had him stop in front of a small tattoo shop called Death Ink. The lights were off, and the place looked abandoned.

“Last night, while I was fighting that guard who locked me in that room to burn”—she exhaled on a heavy breath—“I saw a tat on his arm.”

“Wyatt has a shitload of military guys working for him.” Or ex-military assholes who’d been kicked out because they were psychotic. “Most of ’em are probably sporting ink.”

“Not like this. Not like this.” She shoved open the door and headed for the small shop.

Death Ink was located right in the middle of a bar strip. Since it was early afternoon, those bars were shut down tight. Cain’s gaze scanned the street. He didn’t see another person anywhere around. He eased from the car. Watched the nice sway of Eve’s ass as she headed for Death Ink. Her ass truly was fine.

It was such a pity the woman could be so lethal.

She slammed her hand on the glass door. “Dru, open the hell up!”

There was no sound from inside. No rustle of movement. No footsteps.

Cain sauntered toward her. She was a wanted woman, her face splashed on the news. Maybe she shouldn’t be screaming so loudly—deserted street or not. “I don’t think anyone’s home,” he murmured.

“Yeah, she is. She’s always here during the day. Dru’s just trying to ignore me.” Eve obviously wasn’t in the mood to be ignored. She lifted her foot and kicked at the door. Glass broke in a long, thin crack. She swore and kicked again. Harder. Again.

It was going to take forever her way.

Cain cleared his throat. She kept kicking. He picked her up, scooted her back, then rammed his fist through the glass. One nice, clean punch. The glass rained down on the ground around them.

“Supernatural show-off,” Eve said, but there was an edge of appreciation in her words.

Cain caught himself smiling. It wasn’t the time or the place. But Eve … kept sliding under his guard. Dangerous.

He reached inside and jerked the lock, opening the door. When he stepped inside the shop, the scent of incense and oils burned his nose. But he still didn’t hear anyone. Didn’t see anyone, either. “Told you,” he said as he turned back to glance at her. “No one’s—”

The floor creaked a few feet away from him. Cain whirled to face the threat—and a baseball bat slammed into his head.