Vaughn’s head jerked around as her words ended. She was . . . gurgling—
Choking.
On her own blood.
Cassie had been breathing. She stood there, covered in blood, and her hand was still around the scalpel that she’d shoved into Shaw’s throat.
“I think you’ve done enough talking,” Cassie whispered. “Now, you can just die.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Every part of Cassie’s body hurt, but she was alive, on her feet, and that crazy bitch who’d tried to kill her was going down.
She yanked the scalpel to the left. “The power’s in the voice, right? Try talking now.” An impossible task since she’d just taken Dr. Shaw’s voice box.
Then, because it wasn’t about someone suffering, but because she just wanted to end it, she pulled the scalpel back and prepared to send Zura to whatever world waited for her next. Hope it’s a fiery one.
But . . . there was already fire. Burning so bright and hot behind Zura. A man—surrounded by flames.
He reached for Zura even as Cassie scrambled back.
Zura tried to scream, but she couldn’t.
She was burning.
The smell was horrible and Cassie turned away—only to see Charles blocking Jamie’s view of that terrible scene. “Charles, get Jamie out of here!” He already had enough nightmares.
Charles grabbed him and they ran. The guards were all running, too, fleeing from the beast that was attacking.
Or maybe . . . with Shaw gone the guards were finally free.
“Dad?” Vaughn’s rough voice.
He was hugging his dad.
It wasn’t the time for hugging. “Vaughn, get him out of here!”
That wasn’t Dante in the middle of the fire. She still had a chance of reaching him. Controlling him.
He hadn’t risen.
When her eyes had opened, he’d been near her. Dead.
The fire was coming from Jon. He was the one who’d risen first. The one who’d just burned Dr. Shaw.
Vaughn held tight to his dad and they ran.
Cassie took a few careful steps away from Jon. Zura was—just gone. Only ashes drifted in the air.
Jon stared at her through the flames. His eyes were burning as bright as the fire. The flames began to roll away from him, toward her.
“Jon, stop.”
The flames flickered, then died away. Jon stood there, and—she sucked in a sharp breath—burns covered him. “You—” She could barely make herself speak. “Something is wrong. The fire is—”
“Killing me,” he finished, voice rasping. “Because I still have . . . human in me. I need more of... the tears. More of the serum.”
He’d lost her. “What serum?”
“The female . . . Sabine . . . we got her tears.” He smiled, and the sight was horrific on his damaged face. “Killed her, broke her, made her . . . cry again and again before Ryder . . . changed her.”
Cassie finally understood. “You used her tears.” Used them to try and become a phoenix. Just as the previous experiments at Genesis had made him become a wolf shifter.
“Wolf shifter DNA made me stronger . . . just not strong enough.”
He’d wanted to be like the phoenix.
“No death . . . just fire.” He glanced behind him. At Dante’s prone body. “You’re alive, so . . . that means he cried for you.”
Yes, he had.
She couldn’t even think about what that meant. One monster at a time.
“I need more . . . tears . . . to be stronger.”
Cassie shook her head. “It’s not about the tears. Your body just can’t keep regenerating—the fire is too strong for you to handle!” He had to see that.
“I will be stronger!” he roared and lunged toward her.
“Stop!”
He froze.
“Let me help you,” she pushed as much of that soothing power as she could into her voice. “This isn’t what you want. When we first met, you wanted to change the world.” What had happened to that man?
“No, I wanted to change me . . . and own the world.” Fire crackled above his damaged fingers. “I won’t go back to being human.”
There wasn’t a choice for him.
“You won’t survive more risings.” She could see that. Anyone could see that.
His human side wouldn’t be able to do it. It looked as if his skin were melting away, until all that remained was the fire he’d foolishly tried to harness inside himself.
“I just need the tears!”
She shook her head. “They won’t help you. They won’t—”
He bent and picked up the scalpel that had fallen on the floor. “Have to stop . . . your voice.”
Her heart was racing. She backed up.
“If you can’t talk, you can’t control me.”
“S-sto—”
He grabbed for her. Cassie screamed when his fire licked across her arm. His touch was scorching, burning her right to the bone. And his weapon was coming up to her throat.
Fire was all she could see. Fire and death, coming for her.
“Cas . . . sandra . . .”
That deep, dark voice rose over the flames.
“My Cassandra . . .”
Dante had risen, and Jon had been so busy with her that he hadn’t even noticed the phoenix—a pureblood phoenix—stalking him.
Jon stiffened at Dante’s voice and he froze with that scalpel inches from her throat.
Cassie smiled at him.
She’d kept him distracted, been willing to suffer, so Dante could rise.
As she’d told her lover, it wasn’t always about killing. Sometimes, it was about sacrificing in order to protect the one you loved.
Dante spun Jon to face him.
“How do you remember her?” Jon shouted. “You should have nothing! Know nothing.”
“I know her.”
“How?”
“Because he loves me,” Cassie whispered, certain. It wasn’t just about lust and mating. It was about a phoenix who had shed healing tears for the woman he loved.
“No!” Jon yelled. “He can’t love! He can’t! He burns, he kills, he—”
“I do kill,” Dante agreed. The flames crackled around him “You will not hurt her ever again.”
“I will!” Jon swore right back. “You think you get to keep Cassie? I was the one who asked her for marriage! I was the one who stayed in that facility for her, I was the one—”
“I was the one who couldn’t live without her. And I was the one who went back to hell, again and again, for her.” Dante put his hands on Jon’s chest. “It’s time for your visit now.”
Fire wasn’t supposed to hurt another phoenix. But, Jon wasn’t really another phoenix.
Not completely. The serum he’d had must have been far too unstable when combined with his own already altered DNA.
“I’ll show you fire!” Jon snapped back as he pulled away from Dante. “I’ll show everyone!” He raised his hands. Fire leaped from his fingertips.
Seemed to burn from within him.
Dante caught Cassie’s hand. “Go outside. Wait for me.”
She shook her head. “I’m not leaving you!”
“The fire only makes me stronger.” He pressed his lips to hers even as she felt the heat build. “Get the others out. Go!”
She stumbled away from him. Jon was sending fire everywhere, and he seemed to be consumed by the very flames that he made.
Cassie could hear voices crying out. Terrified screams. She cast one last look at Dante. “You’d better find me,” she whispered then turned and ran for the others.
The flames seemed to chase her as she ran.
“You won’t have Cassie! You won’t!” Jon was snarling. Cassandra was gone.
Dante couldn’t remember everything, but he knew . . . the man was a threat that had to be stopped. A phoenix, but one who burned too hot and too bright.
A phoenix could only die when he rose.
; Yet the man was burning himself from the inside out.
Jon grabbed him. “I won’t let you go to her!” He shook his head and said, “Her voice, she tempts me, always tempts . . . calls to me. Shaw said . . . Cassie had to be mine. That she could never get away.”
“Cassie isn’t yours.”
The flames rolled across the ceiling.
Jon’s head kept frantically shaking. “I won’t let her belong to you!”
“And I won’t let you live.”
Growling, Jon lunged at him.
Dante lifted the gun that he’d found lying so conveniently near his body when he’d risen. He’d deliberately kept his flames low because he hadn’t wanted to melt the weapon. Not when he had plans for it.
For Jon.
He fired at the man, a shot that took him down.
The flames kept burning.
Dante didn’t leave, even as the ceiling began to groan. The walls to collapse.
He didn’t leave.
There was a job to do.
The only way to truly kill a phoenix . . .
The fire was raging out of control. Alarms were shrieking. Smoke thickening the air.
Another part of the ceiling gave way and slammed into the floor.
Dante still didn’t leave. He couldn’t.
Not until Jon came back.
The only way to truly kill a phoenix . . . is when he rises.
Flames consumed the building. Cassie stood back, watching the fire as it raged higher. Glass exploded as the windows blew out, and the roof sunk in.
Dante hadn’t come out yet.
The fire won’t hurt him.
She just . . . needed to see him.
“Cassie!”
Her head jerked to the left. Cain and Eve were running toward her. It figured that a phoenix had been able to sniff out the flames.
“Where’s Dante?” Cain demanded.
She glanced toward the flames.
Cain swore and ran for the fire.
She wanted to run with him.
Eve caught Cassie’s hand. “What happened?”
So much. A revenge-crazed siren who’d wanted death for them all. A phoenix gone mad. A healed vampire. “Dante is making sure that we aren’t hunted.”
Another section of the roof fell away. Cassie saw the sparks fly high into the air.
Please, Dante, come back to me.
A growl sounded behind her.
The guards had run—fled as quickly as they could. Charles, Jamie, Vaughn, and Keith had gotten away. She’d sent them back to Keith’s house. But someone else was there.
Someone, something.
Another growl.
Trace.
“He hasn’t attacked anyone,” Eve said quickly. “He caught up with us outside of Belle, and I’ve been keeping him near me. But I think . . . his beast is close.”
Cassie could see it. He still hadn’t returned to a normal size—normal for him, anyway, and Trace’s claws were out even as his eye blazed with the hunger of the beast.
She slipped away from Eve and headed toward him.
Another growl came from him.
“Maybe it’s not about a cure,” Cassie whispered. Not this time. Maybe it was all about soothing the beast. She pulled in another deep breath. “Trace, control the beast.” The more she used her power, the more she focused, the easier it seemed to be for her.
His eyes flickered, shifting from that glow to a man’s stare. Once. Twice.
Then the beast was back.
“Trace, control him.” She pushed harder with the power that had been locked inside her for too long.
“Uh, yeah,” Eve muttered, sounding nervous. “I think it might be harder than—”
The glow faded from his eyes. His claws . . . retracted. His thick muscles didn’t vanish, but he sucked in a deep breath and said, “Cassie.”
She felt the ripple of shock slide over Eve.
“Yes, Trace.” Yes! “And it’s okay. Everything is going to be—”
A loud boom shook the night. Cassie’s gaze flew back to the building.
There was nothing there. Just fire.
“Cain!” Eve screamed and she ran for the flames.
Cassie raced right behind her.
She saw them. Cain. Dante. Striding right through the twisting fire. Coming out of the flames.
Eve rushed forward and grabbed tight to Cain. “You said you would never scare me like that again!”
He didn’t answer. His mouth just crashed down on hers.
Cassie stumbled toward Dante. “Dante!”
Wait. He knew her, right? He’d said her name inside and—
Hell, just to be sure, she was going to use her siren card from now on. “Remember me.”
He grabbed her, pulled her close. Held her in a grip of molten steel that didn’t burn at all. “I already do. Always will.” His mouth took hers. Hot. Hard. Consuming.
Her phoenix.
She held onto him as tightly as she could. Her body was shaking. She was covered in blood and grime and ash, and she didn’t care.
Her phoenix had just walked out of the fire.
And he loved her.
Dante’s mouth pulled from hers. “He won’t ever come after you again. Jon’s gone.”
She knew why Dante had stayed inside so long to face the fire. The rising. He’d waited to make sure Jon wouldn’t come after them again.
“You’re free.”
She had a cure for the primals. Though she could use her voice to keep Trace controlled and more man than beast, he wasn’t out of the woods yet. She’d keep working until he was completely back to normal again.
But she didn’t want to do that work alone.
What happened to a phoenix once the fire cooled?
“I don’t want to be free of you.” Her confession.
“And I will never be free of you. You’re in my heart, my Cassandra, in the soul that I’d thought burned so long ago.”
He was about to make her cry.
Her tears would do nothing but make her look like more of a wreck. Cassie was sure she appeared pretty nightmarish.
She sniffed, trying to hold the tears back. Failing. “I’ve loved you for so long,” she confessed.
“And I’ve loved you—only you.”
“Why didn’t you say something? Why—”
He smiled at her. Her naked phoenix covered in ash smiled, and it was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. “I don’t remember you mentioning love until a few hours ago.”
“I-I was scared.” Scared that he wouldn’t feel the same. That he’d . . . pity her.
“I’m a monster. I’ll always be.” His voice roughened. “I didn’t think you could ever truly—”
She pushed up onto her toes and kissed him again. “You’re no monster. You’re the man I love.” The man she’d gladly spend an eternity with.
Sirens wailed in the distance. Firefighters, probably. Even the humans out there wouldn’t be able to overlook this blaze.
It was time to leave. Explanations about a vengeful siren and a phoenix gone mad wouldn’t exactly go over well.
They’d slip away. Vanish. Rumors would cover the blaze. Rumors covered everything in that city.
She caught Dante’s hand and pulled him toward the SUVs that were waiting. Vaughn had flashed some fang to make sure they had two rides waiting for them. The humans hadn’t been in the mood to fight him.
Dante was strong and solid beside her. Trace wasn’t killing anyone.
And the flames were dying away.
It was time for a fresh start. With no one hunting them. No one looking to destroy a phoenix, a vampire, a werewolf, or even a siren.
They could start fresh.
And they could just live.
A life with love . . . and plenty of fire.
EPILOGUE
“Dad!” The bellow echoed through the house.
Cassie glanced up, her mind still on the sample beneath her microscope. Jamie came barreling i
nto her lab.
Not a scared, shaken fourteen-year-old any longer. Her “son” was bigger, tougher, and at sixteen, he thought he was ready to take on the world.
“Where’s Dad?” Jamie asked. It had been a full year before he started to call Dante Dad. The first time he’d done it, Cassie wasn’t sure who’d been more shocked.
Probably Dante.
But he and Jamie had grown close, so close. The wall that Dante had used to keep everyone out was gone. Burned away. Heck, he even went out with Cain every now and then to, uh, literally light up the town.
“He said I could get my driver’s license today.” Jamie’s smile was huge. “He and Uncle Vaughn are supposed to take me.”
She used to be afraid of power-mad phoenixes. Now she trembled at the idea of Jamie behind the wheel. “Well . . .”
“Let’s go!” Dante said, coming into the room. A wide grin lifted his lips. “Vaughn’s got the ride ready.”
Jamie whooped and rushed back up the stairs.
So carefree and happy . . . but that, too, hadn’t been easy. They’d all had to struggle to get where they were.
But we’re happy. And no one will take that from us.
Dante didn’t follow Jamie up the stairs. Her phoenix filled the doorway, and his gaze focused on her.
There was love in his eyes. Always now, love.
Maybe it had always been there, just buried beneath the fire.
“You okay?” he asked her.
She gave him a little nod.
He crossed the threshold and went to her. Pressed a kiss to her lips, and then his hand went to the curve of her stomach—and to the little life that was growing there. “And how’s my princess?”
His whole face softened as he felt the kick against his hand. A very powerful kick. A princess ninja?
He looked back up at Cassie. “I’ll protect her. I swear I’ll keep her safe.”
Her hand covered his. “I know you will.”
“I . . . love her already. Because she’s part of you.” His lips brushed hers.
Damn the phoenix. He kept making her want to tear up.
“Do you think . . . she’ll be more like me?” Dante whispered against her lips.
A girl who could toss fire when she was angry.
“Or more like you?” Another kiss.
A girl who could control all those near her with just a whisper.