Once Bitten, Twice Burned

CHAPTER THREE

Seven days. Seven long, fucking days, and then they finally brought her back to him.

“Stand against the back wall,” Wyatt’s voice ordered, seeming to echo in the small room. “If you make a move to attack any of the guards, we’ll kill her.”

Again.

The word hung in the air. Ryder wasn’t in the mood to watch her die so he marched toward that back wall. He lifted his hands, showing that he wasn’t attacking anyone, yet. And he waited.

The footsteps came. He caught the faint scent of flowers. Still? Light, sweet. Even after everything, she still smelled of flowers? Then the metal grated. The door opened.

Sabine stepped inside.

She was dressed in loose, gray sweats and a T-shirt. Her long hair tumbled around her shoulders. Her eyes were wide, nervous, and her dark stare instantly locked on him.

The guard behind her pressed his gun into her back.

Ryder’s gaze jerked to the man’s face. He knew that guard—Mitchell. Barnes Mitchell. A prick who liked to dole out pain.

I’ll give you pain. It was a promise Ryder planned to keep.

Sabine took a few steps forward. The door swung shut behind her, the hollow clatter of the metal making her jump.

Ryder lowered his hands.

She shook her head. “Don’t even think of coming at me with those fangs again, vampire.”

Ah, so her memory was back. His gaze swept over her. He was glad there weren’t any flames around her this time, but he had to confess that he’d sure enjoyed the sight of her naked body.

His cock was hard just thinking about her lush curves.

Control.

Too many eyes were watching them, and he’d already revealed too much weakness to Wyatt.

“If you can keep your fire in check, phoenix, then I’ll try to keep my fangs to myself.”

She frowned at him. “What did you call me?”

His heart slammed into his chest. “You don’t know, do you?”

A small shake of her head.

Fuck. Wyatt had let her die, and the woman hadn’t even known that she’d be rising again. She must have been so afraid.

His gaze fell to the floor. Her blood still stained the heavy, stone tiles. “I’m . . . sorry.” The words sounded harsh to his own ears. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d apologized to anyone.

“Sorry for what? Biting me? Drinking my blood?”

Like a damn moth, he headed for her flame. So beautiful. Her shoulders stiffened as he approached and one foot edged back. Poor phoenix, there was nowhere to run. Wyatt had made sure of that.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.” Too many had died over the long centuries of his existence. He hadn’t stopped death but with Sabine, things were different. She can come back. She’d given him a second chance.

Her breath whispered out. “You . . . you made me drink your blood.” He noticed that her small hands fisted.

If she wanted to take a swing at him, he’d let her. She sure deserved some payback. “It was the only way I could think of to help you. Vampire blood is very powerful. It can heal, just about anything.” And the blood had been working, until the guards had dragged him away from her.

Mitchell had been one of those guards.

After the guards had chained him, Ryder hadn’t been able to break out of the chains fast enough. She’d died.

Burned.

Her fist lifted. He didn’t even brace for the blow. Sure, a phoenix was powerful, but he’d take—

Her palm flattened on his chest. Her fingers were still warm, far warmer than an average human’s, and the heat seemed to sink into him.

Made him want her even more.

“Your heart’s beating.” Her gaze held his. “I can see you breathing. I-I thought vampires were supposed to be dead.”

Hollywood hype. “I think undead is the popular term in use.”

“And are you, um, undead, I mean?” Her hand still pressed against him. So close to his heart. “Were you a human who died and came back as a vampire?”

“It didn’t work quite that way,” Ryder murmured. Things hadn’t worked that way, not for him. That was all he’d say then. All he could say, with Wyatt and his doctor brigade watching. His hand lifted and curled around her fingers. “Do you know where we are?”

Her laugh was bitter, but the sound of it still had his body tightening. “Hell?” Sabine asked.

“Close enough.” His gaze cut to the mirror. “You know we’re being watched.”

Her head inclined. “Wyatt.” She said the name with fury and fear. “Why is he doing this to me? I didn’t volunteer to be here like you—”

Now it was Ryder’s turn to laugh. “Love, do you really think I volunteered to be kept in this hole? To be starved? Tortured?” Oh, Wyatt did enjoy his little experiments.

Her hand trembled in his grip.

“I was taken,” he told her flatly. “Set up. Betrayed. Drugged.” That damn SP tranq.

Her long lashes flickered. “I was taken, too. Kidnapped. They grabbed me when I was going home and threw me in the back of a van. The next thing I knew, I was here, and they were—they told me if I came in the cell with you, then I’d get to go home.” Her voice dropped. “I just want to go home.”

The longing in her voice twisted his heart. The heart she’d thought he didn’t have. Wrong, love. Vampires breathe, their hearts beat. We can love. We can hate.

We can kill without hesitation.

She’d seen him do that already.

“Why won’t they let me go?” She whispered, probably hoping that the microphones wouldn’t pick up her words.

He pulled her into his arms. She gasped and tried to fight, but he just tightened his hold. Ryder put his mouth against her ear and barely breathed the words as he spoke, “Because they know what you are. They suspected before, but now they have proof.”

She shook her head.

“You’re a phoenix. You can die, burn, and rise from the ashes.” There wasn’t any time to build up to this reveal. Knowledge was power in this world, and she’d need as much of it as she could get in order to face the battles coming her way.

She stiffened in his arms.

His lips brushed over her ear as he said, “You’re powerful, and that makes you very dangerous. Wyatt isn’t going to let you go.” No matter what promises the man made. “The only way we’re getting free is if we free ourselves.” His tongue licked lightly over the shell of her ear. He couldn’t help it. The woman was too tempting.

He also needed to give Wyatt a show, to distract the guy from wondering about the words Ryder was whispering to Sabine.

Her hands were on his arms, and at the touch of his tongue, her nails bit into his skin. “S-stop.”

“You can do it,” he told her, knowing the words were true. “You just have to burn hot enough.” She could be the ticket out, for both of them.

He moved his head, letting his nose nuzzle along her cheek. Then his lips were just an inch away from her mouth. Not touching her, not yet. “Burn hot, love, burn.”

“I don’t—I don’t understand what’s happening. A phoenix? That’s—that’s a mythical bird.”

Most myths were based on truth. There was no denying what he’d seen with his own eyes. “When you die, you’ll burn and you’ll come back. Again and again.” He wanted to taste her. That was why Wyatt had agreed to let her come back. Wyatt wanted to watch his two test subjects interact.

No, Wyatt wanted more than to just see them interact. The guy was all about his experiments. About creating a being who would be unstoppable.

You want us to fuck. You want to see if it’s possible for a vampire and a phoenix to reproduce. ’Cause if we could, wouldn’t that make the perfect little super-soldier for your army?

“I didn’t even know my own name.” Her stark confession. She was lost. Scared. “When the fire cleared, I couldn’t even remember who I was. I was lost. There was . . . you.”

He had to kiss her. Ryder’s lips feathered over Sabine’s. She gasped lightly at the contact, but didn’t pull away. Her nails were still pressing into his arms, and when his tongue slid into her mouth, the sting of her nails was a sweet pain.

Then she kissed him back. Her tongue was hesitant at first, but she quickly grew a little bolder. Stroking him. Tasting him.

His cock swelled even more and pushed against her. This was what Wyatt wanted. For Ryder to seduce her. To take her.

All part of the deal.

The guy had even sent in a small bed, when Ryder had been sleeping on his floor during all the other long days and nights of his captivity. The bed was supposed to make the fucking easier.

And though Ryder wanted her—hell, yes—he wasn’t about to fuck on command.

Not for Wyatt. Not for anyone.

His mouth pulled away from hers. “What did Wyatt tell you?”

“That—that there were more experiments to come.”

Yes, there were. The experiments wouldn’t stop, unless they stopped them. “You have to call up the fire.”

“Ryder!” Wyatt’s snarl blasted through the speaker.

Screw him. “Call up the fire, and none of the guards will be able to hurt you.”

She shook her head. “They’ll drug me. They keep injecting me.”

“Burn hot enough, and the drug won’t be able to get to you.” If she had a wall of flames in front of her, if she burned with all of her power, then she’d be safe.

Her gaze was so confused and scared. She didn’t understand. Dammit. The guards would be coming soon. So he grabbed her. She yelped and punched at him, but, in an instant, Ryder had trapped her against the far wall and, just like before, he used his body to block Wyatt’s view of her.

“One of your parents had to be a phoenix, too.” Because what she was—it was in the blood. “They must have told you—”

Her eyes were stark, whispering with pain. “My real parents abandoned me when I was two years old.”

That sure explained how she hadn’t known that she was a supernatural. She’d been totally clueless, completely unprepared for Wyatt’s torture. Unprepared for me.

“I don’t want to be a monster.” Her words were hushed.

He stiffened, knowing that his next words would be brutal, but she had to face facts. “Too bad, because you are.” They didn’t have time for a pity party. He had to get her to embrace the beast within her. They needed that beast for their survival. She couldn’t pretend to be human—being human wouldn’t save their asses. Being an unstoppable machine of fire and fury? Oh yes, that would buy them a ticket to freedom. “You need to learn how to call up that beast that lives inside of you. Because Wyatt has big plans for you. Plans that involve you dying and screaming and him using you to create a whole new army.”

She shook her head. “You want to hurt me, too.” Her lips were red from his kiss. “You want—”

“He’s going to give you to another vampire.”

The color bled from her face.

“Your blood . . . there’s something about it.” When I taste it, I just want more. Because it tasted like pure, hot power flowing on his tongue. The best wine, the wildest drug, all rolled into one.

He held her shoulders against the wall. Ryder had to make her understand what was happening—and why she needed to pull up the phoenix inside. “He’s going to make sure you die again.”

She blanched. “No, I don’t want to! Help me.”

He wanted to. Ryder was tearing apart inside. “I will. You trust me, and I’ll help you.” He hadn’t helped anyone else in a century, but he’d just given his word to her. A second chance. “We have to get out of the facility.”

The only way out was through Wyatt.

The guards were just steps away from the cell. He could hear their shuffling footsteps.

“You’re breaking our deal,” Wyatt told him through the speaker, sounding not-too-shocked.

Ryder tossed a vicious grin over his shoulder, a grin aimed at the two-way mirror. “What are you gonna do? Kill me?”

The door opened. Ryder’s gaze jerked to the left. The armed guards stood in the entranceway. They weren’t wearing their fireproof suits, but they were all heavily armed.

“Maybe we’ll let you watch as we kill her,” Wyatt said. Of course, he wasn’t with the guards. The guy was far too much of a coward to come and face him when Ryder was strong.

The guards lifted their weapons. Aimed them at Ryder’s body. He was shielding Sabine, blocking her so that the guards couldn’t even see her body.

“New deal,” Wyatt thundered out.

He wanted that man’s head.

“Drink her blood, Ryder, or I’ll find a vamp that will.” The weapons stayed pointed at him.

“This hardly sets the mood,” Ryder drawled lightly even as his fingers tightened on Sabine. No other vampire could drink from her. “An audience isn’t really my thing.”

The weapons weren’t lowering.

“No! You can’t do this!” Sabine pushed against Ryder. “We have rights! You can’t just lock us up like this!”

Ah, she was still singing that song, was she? Still clinging to her humanity, when they needed her beast out. “Wyatt doesn’t think monsters have rights.”

You’re a monster, love. Face it. He got that she didn’t want to give up the illusion of safety that humanity entailed, but Sabine needed to look around. They were prisoners, she’d died, and the only way out was through her flames.

She didn’t want to believe that she was just as much of a beast as he was, but there was no point denying the truth. The woman could freaking burn. Die and burn and live again. Not a talent that the average human possessed.

“Take her blood, Ryder,” Wyatt ordered him. “Take her blood, now.”

There was a feverish intensity in the words. An intensity that made Ryder worry . . . just what had Wyatt done? Why was the scientist so determined for Ryder to drink her then?

He didn’t take his eyes off the guards as he asked Sabine, “Did he give you something before you came in?”

“They’ve been injecting me with drugs all week.”

When he drank her blood, he’d get dosed with whatever brew was in her veins. His fingers fell away from her shoulders.

“I don’t want you drinking from me,” she told him. Her shoulder brushed against his as her body pressed closer to him. “I’ve been having nightmares about you every night.”

Great. So he was the big, bad boogeyman to her. What else was new? But, really, there was no other way for her to picture him. I drained her. The guilt still ate at him. The woman was right to hate and fear him. Hell, she should probably get in line on that score. Plenty of humans—and vampires—felt the exact same way.

He just wished that he didn’t have this need for her. The need had to be coming from her blood. Some kind of side effect that was messing with his head. Temporary, surely?

“I can hold on to my control.” The words were flat, and he hoped they were the truth.

Her gaze slanted up at him. “Didn’t you say that last time?”

Last time he hadn’t known that a phoenix was being offered to him. He focused on the guards as he made his demand. “I want a wooden stake.” Like they wouldn’t have plenty of those handy. In this place, the smart guards should have them all tucked in their boots.

If they were smart. He actually wasn’t certain that any of the guards qualified as smart. If they had any brains, they wouldn’t be keeping him captive. They’d know to run, fast and hard, away from him.

Because he wouldn’t be in a cage forever, and Ryder made a point of always getting payback.

“Why?” Wyatt demanded. “Why do you need a stake?”

Ryder cast his gaze to the two-way mirror. “Because if I can’t stop drinking her blood, then I want her to stake me.”

Sabine gasped.

Ryder smiled. “Like you said, it’s a new deal.”

“You’re insane,” Sabine told him, words tumbling out quickly. “I might be new to this whole supernatural bit, but even I know that vampires aren’t supposed to ask for stakes.”

He shrugged. “You’d rather I just drink from you without—”

“I want that stake!” Sabine shouted.

“Fine,” Wyatt bit out. Static crackled for an instant on the intercom, then Ryder heard the guy say, “Mitchell, give the man his stake.”

A few tense moments later, Mitchell, body sweating and twitchy, edged into the room. He pulled a stake from his back pocket.

The guards should have used these when they tried to take her from me before. Instead of shooting him, they should have staked him. But Ryder knew why they hadn’t. Wyatt had wanted him alive then.

Now? Now it looked like the guy was still playing with him.

Let’s play, bastard.

The stake was the first weapon that he needed.

Mitchell tossed the stake to him. Ryder grabbed it with his right hand. “Now get the hell out,” he ordered the humans with bared fangs. “Before I decide to drop some bodies to the floor.”

They got the hell out. Weapons or not, they were still scared spitless.

Who has the power, Wyatt? He knew the doctor would see the challenge in his eyes. Wyatt kept him locked up tight because he knew that if Ryder ever got free, the humans in Genesis would all be dead.

That’s why you want me to take her blood, isn’t it? Because it’s all about control.

Ryder was ready to rip that control away.

He caught Sabine’s wrist with his left hand and pulled her toward the bed.

Her heels dug into the hard floor. “Oh no, you’re not—”

He was. They were.

He pushed her onto the bed. She immediately bounced right back to a sitting position on the mattress. He almost smiled at her. The woman was fast.

He was faster.

He pushed the stake into her hand. Her fingers closed around it, and she stared up at him with dark eyes that looked as if they could steal his soul.

Not that he had a soul to steal.

Not anymore. He’d lost that long ago.

He knelt in front of her, pushing between her legs. She swallowed but didn’t speak. His fingers wrapped around hers, tightening her grip on the stake.

Then he lifted the weapon to his heart. If this act didn’t earn her trust, he figured nothing would.

The experiment between the vampire and the phoenix was progressing far better than Richard Wyatt could have hoped.

He watched the two of them through the observation glass, anticipation filling him.

Sabine had the stake against the vampire’s heart.

The door opened behind Richard. “You think she’s gonna kill him?” the guard demanded. There was no missing the eagerness in Mitchell’s tone.

“Doubtful.”

“But he drained her!” Mitchell snapped. “The woman’s got to want some revenge! She should want to hurt him!”

Like you do? Richard knew that Mitchell hated the vampire. Mostly because the man knew just how powerful Ryder was.

We hate what we fear.

A lesson he’d learned long ago. His father had taught him that lesson when Richard had been a child.

“She won’t kill him.” Richard knew the truth was actually that Sabine couldn’t kill the vampire. Ryder was the fastest vamp that Richard had ever seen, and plenty of the undead had been brought through the doors of Genesis.

Ryder wasn’t like those others. At first, Richard had thought that Ryder was just another test subject. Another vampire that could be used as a genetic donor for his experiments but Ryder’s reflexes were too fast. His body healed too quickly. He didn’t need the weekly blood supply that the others required in order to keep living.

And the man’s strength was incredible to behold. He’d ripped the heart right out of one guard’s chest. An unfortunate incident, but one that had taught them all—

Never get too close to the vampire.

During his observations, Wyatt had quickly realized that Ryder had not appeared to have any weaknesses. Certainly not any attachments. He killed guards who made the foolish mistake of coming to him. He drained them with a brutal efficiency. He never showed remorse or guilt.

Wyatt had begun to think the fellow might be a sociopath, in addition to having the curse of being a bloodsucker.

Then Sabine had entered Ryder’s cell, and he’d seen the dangerous intensity ignite in Ryder’s gaze.

Ryder had fed from her, but, when she’d been near death, the vampire had seemed to . . .

Break.

Wyatt tapped the glass in front of him. The two figures appeared frozen. The tip of the stake pushed hard into Ryder’s chest. The vampire had one hand on Sabine’s thigh while his other hand locked around Sabine’s fist—the fist that gripped the stake.

“Drink up,” Wyatt murmured. Ryder had to drink. The more blood that he took from her, the greater his weakness—and possibly his strength—would become.

It was a catch-22, but it was for the good of science.

As for Sabine, she’d begin her own transformation soon enough.

Ryder probably thought the big plan was for Sabine and the vamp to fuck. To breed.

Wyatt wasn’t interested in creating a new life. He wanted transformation, not birth.

When Sabine took in Ryder’s blood, how soon would she transform? Was it even possible to make a phoenix into a vampire?

I’ll find out. His fingers pressed the button for the intercom. “Time to drink, Ryder.”

The vamp’s shoulders stiffened, but the hand on Sabine’s thigh rose, and a few seconds later, Ryder brushed back Sabine’s hair and bared her throat.