Burn For Me

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

When she slept, Eve looked so peaceful. Always beautiful, but sleep made her appear … innocent, too.

Cain leaned over her and brushed the back of his knuckles over her smooth cheek. He’d gotten them away from the nightmare in the mountains. Taken her to Charlotte. Booked a room in the fanciest hotel he could find.

Then they’d both crashed.

The silk sheets were soft beneath him. But they weren’t even close to being as soft as her skin.

His lips pressed over the curve of her shoulder.

Eve stirred beneath his touch, and her eyes opened. “Cain.”

He smiled. He liked the way she said his name when she woke. The husky whisper. The purr of sound. The hint of sex.

Her arms rose and wrapped around his shoulders. “Is it really over?”

He didn’t let his expression change. “Almost.”

She licked her lips. “They’ll be here soon, won’t they?”

He nodded, though he knew the words weren’t a question.

She glanced over at the bedside table, at the glowing face of the small clock. “How much time do we have?”

“Just enough,” he told her, but the words were a lie. They wouldn’t have enough time. Soon, he’d have to leave her.

Their lives were waiting for them. Time to get back to the way things had been.

So why did his chest feel so hollow when he thought of being without her?

“I called the reporters,” he told her, “ just like you asked.” An anonymous call. To the press … and to the cops. “We probably have about ten minutes before our company arrives.”

Her lashes lowered. “I want longer with you.”

He pushed back the covers. Slid his body over hers. “And I want you.” Cain kissed her, putting his mouth against hers and letting his tongue drive deep. Every instinct within him screamed for him to take, take, take …

But for this time, this last time, he forced himself to be gentle. He could be gentle, for her.

Her legs parted, and he slid between them. His cock pushed at the entrance to her sex, but he didn’t thrust inside her. He kept kissing her. He stroked her with his hands.

Her moan teased his ears. Her hips arched against him.

His fingers slid over her breasts. Caressed the sweet flesh. He had to taste her there. A long lick, a kiss on her tight nipple.

“Cain …” A demand. He knew she wanted more than the soft caresses. He’d learned that Eve liked the sex hard, demanding. Normally, so did he.

But he wouldn’t go harder. Wouldn’t be rough with the passion that wanted to rage inside him. When she remembered him, Cain wanted her to remember more than just fire and fury.

He wanted her to remember the man he could be, too.

His fingers slid over her sex. His thumb pressed against her clit. Her gasp told him how much she liked that touch, and when one finger slid into her, her sex was warm and tight around him. Ready.

But … not yet.

His head lifted. Cain stared down at her. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but all that came out was, “I won’t forget you.”

Her eyelids flickered. Her chin lifted just a bit. “No, you won’t.” Her nails scraped down his back. “You never will.”

Cain thrust inside her. Her sex was paradise. Clasping him tightly, squeezing all along his length. He wanted to thrust and thrust, to drive in as deeply as he could go, but Cain kept a stranglehold on his control.

Hold back. For her.

He didn’t want Eve to forget him, either. He wanted her to remember the pleasure he’d given her.

He kept the rhythm slow. Steady.

He heard footsteps coming in the hallway.

But he kept thrusting. Her eyes were on him. Only him.

Another thrust. Withdrawal. His thumb pressed over her clit even as he pushed into her creamy sex.

He saw the pleasure flash in her eyes when she came. Felt the ripple of her inner muscles around his length. Only then, then, did he thrust harder. Deeper.

He took. Her hips arched, and he went inside her as far as he could go. Mine.

The pleasure lashed through him. Strong enough to make him go blind. Strong enough to make him wish that he was someone else.

Someone who didn’t have to leave.

Someone who could love.

His heartbeat thundered in his ears.

No, that wasn’t just his heartbeat. That was a hard knock at the door.

“Mr. Smith?” a thin voice called out. Probably the hotel manager. “Mr. Smith … there are … people here to see you.”

Cain stared down at Eve for a moment longer. “Don’t mention my name.”

It was what he’d told her before.

Her lashes lowered.

He wanted to stay. But staying—that would mean more danger for Eve. She had a chance now. A chance to do what she’d wanted all along.

She didn’t need him.

I need her.

He pulled away from her. Yanked on his clothes and headed for the adjoining room. One jerk, and he broke the lock. There wasn’t anyone else in that room, he’d already checked and—

“I’ve never seen someone so good at walking away.”

He glanced back at her words. Eve stood beside the bed, pulling on her clothes. Had that been an echo of pain in her voice?

He didn’t want Eve to hurt. Not ever. Not her.

And that’s why I’m leaving.

Eve didn’t understand, but he still had to hunt. There was something—someone—who would be coming for her.

The werewolf hadn’t died. But he’d sure been hell-bent on his target.

Eve.

I’ll find him. I’ll stop him. Before the wolf could go after her. Cain couldn’t afford to be caught in the bright light of the press. Not when he needed to stay in the shadows in order to hunt.

And to keep surviving.

“I’m not going far,” he told her, wondering if she realized the words were a promise. Maybe she couldn’t tell. He knew they sounded like a threat.

Her lips parted. “Cain?”

“Not far,” he repeated. The beast inside him wouldn’t allow him to leave her, not for long.

“Mr. Smith?” That nasal voice called again. “I-I … they want me to let them inside.”

“See you soon, baby,” Cain told Eve and watched as she turned away.

He shut the door and strolled through the connecting room. He unlocked the room’s main door and headed into the hallway, appearing right behind the pack of reporters and cops who’d closed in on Eve when she opened her own hotel room door.

For a moment, he hesitated, but then he heard her say, voice clear and commanding, “My name is Eve Bradley, and I have proof that not only did Richard Wyatt set me up for a series of crimes, but Wyatt and Genesis Corporation have been abducting and experimenting on supernaturals …”

The reporters were filming. The story would be hitting televisions all across the state within minutes. The networks wouldn’t miss out on a juicy story like this one—they’d want in on the action.

Eve’s tale wouldn’t be hushed up. The cops wouldn’t be able to block the reporters.

The truth would get out.

Cain began to whistle as he walked toward the elevator. She’d get her headlines.

Eventually, he’d be back to get her.

“All charges are being dropped, Ms. Bradley,” Detective Jason Roberts told Eve as he leaned across the table and pinned his baby blues on her. “By this afternoon, you’ll be a free woman.”

Her lawyer, an attorney sent by the local Channel Seven news team, leaned forward with an intent look on her face. “I want my client free within the hour.”

Detective Roberts glanced her way. Those blue eyes—Eve was sure the guy used them to lull suspects into a false sense of security every single day—hardened a bit. “Then you need to go out and take that up with the judge, Ms. Hancock.”

With a sniff, the lawyer rose. Janice Hancock stared down at him from her five-foot-three height and gave a smile that could have frozen Hawaii. “I will.” She leveled her stare at Eve. “Don’t say anything else to these cops, understand?”

Eve nodded. But talking wasn’t a problem. Her whole bit was that she was talking. Sharing everything she’d learned about Genesis and Richard Wyatt.

It turned out that Uncle Sam wasn’t exactly thrilled to be caught in the PR nightmare. Humans were outraged that supernaturals had been held captive and killed for genetic experiments.

When the public got outraged, the government took note—and started playing very, very nicely.

Eve waited until the door shut behind her lawyer. She liked Janice well enough—the woman was a shark, and sharks were always great creatures to behold—but she was planning to ask the detective a few questions of her own while she had the chance. “Did they recover Wyatt’s body?” She knew the detective had gone back to Genesis in order to see for himself what waited in Beaumont.

She also knew … Roberts wasn’t human. She’d caught the flash of fang when he’d been reviewing some of her evidence. The pictures of the mutilated shifters she’d taken from Wyatt’s desk—those had really pissed off the cop.

“We found him,” Roberts said with a shake of his head. “He was just where you said, lying with the stake next to his body and—”

Eve held up her hand. “Wait. Where was the stake?”

Roberts picked up a manila folder and thumbed through the notes. “Next to Wyatt’s left hand.”

Goose bumps rose on her arms. “When I left him, that stake was in his heart.” She’d made sure of it.

Someone else had gone back in that room. Someone who’d taken the stake out—why? To try and help Wyatt?

She looked up and found Roberts staring at her. “Maybe the … Subject Thirteen that you mentioned? Perhaps he pulled the stake out?”

No, he’d been the one to shove it into Wyatt’s chest … but Eve had claimed responsibility for that desperate act. She knew Cain wanted his anonymity, and she was trying to give it to him. Trying to protect him, as much as I can. Eve shook her head. “Maybe a guard, maybe someone else …” She exhaled. What did it matter? Wyatt was still dead. Genesis was a pile of rubble. Uncle Sam was cleaning up the mess.

“I want to put protection on you.”

Eve stilled. After a heartbeat of time, her palms curled around the sides of her chair. “This protection had better not involve me being locked up someplace.”

“A safe house—”

Eve shook her head, cutting through his words. “No.” Simple, flat. “I’m finishing my story, I can’t—”

“Every media outlet in the country is running with your story.”

Yes, she knew it. And that was pretty damn awesome.

“While most humans are coming out as being on our side”—Roberts rolled his shoulders and the faint lines bracketing his mouth deepened—“there are others who still think we’re just monsters who need to be put down. Those guys aren’t going to like all this attention and support you’re raising.”

“And I’m supposed to do—what?” Eve asked him, lifting her brows. “Cower somewhere because I might get some threats? I was nearly killed—over and over—in the last few days. I’m tough, detective. I can handle whatever comes my way.”

“Like you handled Subject Thirteen?”

She hadn’t seen that hit coming.

Roberts cocked his head to the side. “We found more files on him in that lab, you know. Wyatt believed that Thirteen had a sociopathic personality and that he was an extreme menace to the human population.”

“Yeah, well, Wyatt was also a lying sack of—”

The door opened. Another detective stood there. A balding guy with tired brown eyes. “She’s clear. Her lawyer just raised hell with the captain. Bradley gets to walk out now.”

Perfect.

Roberts swore. “You need protection.”

Eve leaned toward him. “What aren’t you telling me?”

The other detective turned away.

Eve wasn’t about to let this drop. “You found something else at that lab, didn’t you?”

A muscle jerked in Roberts’s jaw and he gave a grim nod.

“Tell me.”

“It’s confidential. Can’t be leaked to the press and you—you’re the most famous reporter in the whole state right now.”

She stared back at him. “This might shock the hell out of you, Detective, but I’ve managed to keep some secrets in my time.” But if he didn’t want to tell her what had him so all-fired determined that she needed guards, fine.

Eve pushed away from the table and headed for the door.

“Like you kept the wolf’s secrets?”

Her breath burned in her lungs. Eve didn’t go out that door. She slammed it shut then spun to face the detective. “What do you know about him?”

“I saw Wyatt’s files on him.”

And? What? Was she going to have to pull the truth from the detective?

“Wyatt was working on a drug that would amp up a shifter’s physical strength.”

Yeah, Trace had sure looked like he’d been amped up. His muscles had bulged.

“Wyatt didn’t want shifters to transform into animals in order to get that power boost.” Roberts’s voice was low. “He wanted them to have that power, twenty-four seven.”

Eve waited.

Roberts jerked a hand through his hair. “When he first started working with the werewolves, Wyatt used a mix of adrenaline and a drug called Lycan-69, some brew he’d made. It was supposed to blend the animal and man within the shifter. To always make them one.”

She remembered the way Trace had looked. Not just a man. Bigger. Stronger. With claws and fangs. But he hadn’t been able to shift into the form of a wolf, not even when he attacked her and Cain.

Because he couldn’t change?

“He’d given that dose to two other werewolves, but according to Wyatt, those test subjects had to be terminated.”

Terminated. “Why?”

“Because their beasts took over. They lost the ability to reason as men. They had only one desire—to hunt and to kill.”

Wyatt had better be burning in hell. “And he gave that same dose to Trace?”

Roberts shook his head. “He was adjusting his formula. Experimenting. Your wolf got Lycan-70.”

So maybe the results wouldn’t be the same. Maybe—

“Wyatt’s report indicated that within five minutes of injection, your friend Trace killed three guards. He couldn’t speak. Only growl and snarl. There was no sign of humanity in him. He was just …” Robert’s voice trailed off.

A monster? A wolf in the body of a man.

She swallowed and hoped she kept the emotion from her face. “So that’s why they had his body ready to be burned.” Wyatt had been attempting to cover up his failed experiment.

The detective gave a slow nod as his gaze seemed to weigh her. Those deceptive eyes of his had to be seeing far too much. “There’s a drugged werewolf out there, Ms. Bradley. One who only wants to kill. You sure that you feel safe being out in the open with him?”

She bared her teeth at him in a brittle smile. “Trace isn’t coming for me. If he’s functioning only on animal instinct, the last thing he is gonna do is follow me all the way to the city and—”

“I know a lot about animal instinct,” Roberts drawled. “Far more than most.”

She just bet he did.

“You said that he saw you when he woke up in that furnace room, that he tracked you up the stairs and to Wyatt’s office.”

She didn’t like where this was going.

“His animal had your scent, ma’am. The guy probably doesn’t know what the hell is happening to him, but he has your scent.” Roberts’s hands dropped to his sides. “So trust me when I say, that wolf isn’t gonna be forgetting you. Wolves don’t forget scents.”

No, they didn’t. “Thank you for the warning, Detective.” She turned away again and reached for the door.

He swore behind her. “You’re still refusing protection, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” Because if she was surrounded by cops and Trace should happen to come for her, they’d kill him.

Maybe I can save him.

She opened the door and walked away from the detective. She could hear noise outside the precinct. Sounded like a roar. But it wasn’t an animal, not this time.

Her lawyer sidled over to her. “You ready for this?”

Of course, Janice would know exactly what waited for her. “Always,” Eve lied.

Two officers opened the front door of the precinct, and, for the first time in two weeks, Eve got a taste of freedom.

That freedom included being met by a swarm of reporters. Their voices blended together, roaring in her ears.

He followed her when she left the police station. He watched as she talked to the reporters. As she answered their endless questions with a tired smile.

There were shadows under her eyes.

He followed her to a news station. Eve didn’t know he was there. No one seemed to pay him any attention.

All eyes were on her.

Her voice was strong and certain as she talked about Genesis. About the supernaturals and the humans who’d lost their lives in experiments gone horribly wrong.

She never glanced his way as the cameras rolled.

He knew she’d talked to government officials. The FBI had been with her for days. She’d cooperated with the agents. They’d helped get the charges against her dropped.

Justice could move swiftly in the paranormal world.

An escort took her back to her hotel. She slipped inside, wearing a ball cap over her head as she eased inside the elevator.

Just before the doors closed, he reached out his hand. The sensors reacted, and the doors slid back open.

He stepped into the elevator. They were alone. Finally, her eyes met his.

“Hello, Eve.”

“Cain.”

He hadn’t been able to stay away.

The doors closed with a ding, and the elevator began to rise.

She took a step forward, then stopped. “I didn’t—I didn’t expect to see you.”

He’d been desperate to see her. So damn desperate that if she hadn’t gotten out of that precinct today, he would have ripped the place apart to get to her.

“The cops kept you too long.” His fault. He’d let her go in alone. He lifted a hand and traced the shadows under her eyes.

Her smile seemed to squeeze his heart. “Considering the crimes I was wanted for, getting out this fast is pretty much a miracle.”

She seemed so delicate to him. He wanted to pull her into his arms but—

The elevator doors opened. Too soon. Cain spared a glance over his shoulder. “Get the next fucking ride.”

The guy wisely jumped back.

The doors slid closed, and Cain was alone with her again.

Eve shook her head. Did her lips lift into the faintest smile? He’d missed her smile. He’d missed … her.

“This isn’t smart, Cain,” Eve told him as her gaze held his. “I didn’t tell the cops your name, but they found videos of you at that lab. They know what you look like.” Her gaze searched his. “And I’m pretty sure the FBI is tailing me. They can get to you, through me.”

Because he was a threat. Always would be. Cain knew that.

He also knew just where all the FBI tails were. The guys were so obvious. They needed to work on that whole secrecy bit. The paranormals could help them out with that problem. No one did secrecy quite like paranormals, those who preferred to stay under the radar, anyway. We hadn’t all wanted the humans to know about us.

But there was no changing what had been done, thanks to a few asshole vamps.

Cain gazed back at Eve and asked, “Worried about me?”

“I got you out of one prison.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to have to drag your hide out of another.”

But she would. He knew that. He bent and brushed his lips over hers. How could she taste even sweeter than before? Her mouth was open. Her tongue slid over his. Soft. Sensuous.

“I dreamed about you.” His confession. When he’d slept, Cain hadn’t seen the fire. Not death. Just her.

He’d known that he had to go back to her.

Her hands pushed against his chest. “Did you find Trace?”

Cain shook his head. He’d gone back to Beaumont. Hunted in the woods. Came up with nothing. There had been no sign of the wolf.

The elevator was slowing as they reached Eve’s floor, but he didn’t let her go.

He wanted to keep her. Why the hell couldn’t he?

Mine.

She was the only thing that made him feel sane. Without her, he’d been … lost.

“You have to protect yourself,” she told him, pulling away.

Cain stepped toward the back wall of the elevator. When the doors opened, she was the one who exited, and he watched her leave.

She didn’t talk to him. Didn’t glance back. Probably too worried that others were watching. On this floor, they were. The FBI had four agents stationed on Eve’s floor.

But he had another way of getting to Eve. Without all the eyes seeing him. Night had fallen in the city. Night was his time.

Just as she was his.

Everything was gone. The research. The facilities. The funding.

His son.

Gone.

And that bitch was on the news. Spouting her nonsense about truth and torture. He could show her real torture.

The same way he’d shown her mother.

Jeremiah stared at the TV screen. He knew Eve Bradley’s face so well. It was the face he’d seen on the video at the Beaumont facility, the video that showed his son’s last, desperate moments.

Eve had shot Richard in the head, then she’d ordered her lover to stake him.

Did she actually think there would be no punishment for her crime? The police had let her go. Just let the woman walk away.

Jeremiah wouldn’t make the same mistake.

He already knew where she was. And where Eve was … the phoenix would be close by.

A phoenix could never stay away from his mate. The need to see her, the yearning, would be too much.

Eve had been sequestered by the police for days. That time must have driven the phoenix crazy. He’d be willing to risk anything to get close to her again.

Jeremiah smiled. He might not be able to kill the phoenix—damn immortal beast—but he could sure take care of the woman.

And without her, the phoenix’s life wouldn’t be worth living.