“Why didn’t you?”
“Because something important was inside.”
Her gaze searched his. “Is that why you came back?” She knew he hadn’t just been captured. The crazy phoenix had actually let himself be caught by Genesis.
And she’d had to work to free him again.
“I came back for you.”
How many times had she wished to hear words like that? At first, hell, she actually thought she was imagining them.
“I’d waited long enough for you, and I was there to claim you.”
But he hadn’t. He’d escaped again when Genesis was destroyed, and, according to him, she’d died in New Orleans.
“The first time I left . . . you stayed behind to help the others, didn’t you?” Dante asked.
Cassie nodded. She’d worked, slowly but surely, to free others trapped in Genesis. She’d tried sending data to the media, had tried to get someone to see what was happening in the research facility, but the madness hadn’t stopped until a reporter named Eve Bradley had gone to work—undercover—at Genesis.
“Why do you keep bleeding for them?”
“Someone has to do it.”
His gaze fell on the scalpel. “All of those years and Genesis never figured out a way to use me. And you think you can do it now?”
“Cain O’Connor should arrive tomorrow.” The only other male phoenix she’d ever met. The phoenix who’d fallen in love with Eve Bradley when she’d been undercover at Genesis. “I want to look at DNA from both of you and see—”
“Then you’d better get to cutting.”
She didn’t want to cut him.
She didn’t want to hurt him at all. “Did you truly come back for me?” Cassie whispered.
His eyes swept over her face. “You’ve been mine for years. Did you really think I’d ever let you go?”
Her breath caught. Mine. It was all about possession and need for him. Was it even possible for Dante to love?
“I thought you’d leave Genesis and seek me out.”
Cassie shook her head. “How would I have ever found you?”
His hand lifted. Pressed over her heart. “The same way you found me in Chicago. The same link.”
Okay, now she was starting to get nervous. “Link?”
“Have you studied your own blood, Cassie?”
She’d done tests on herself, yes, and not just blood work. She knew that her DNA had been mutated when she’d been a child.
“You were different even before you father started his work.” Dante paused. “Maybe that’s why he started.”
Cassie gave a hard, negative shake of her head. She didn’t want to hear this.
“You’ve mentioned a brother. Your father. What about your mother, Cassie? Where is she?” Dante was sitting on the gurney, and she was standing between his spread legs. She hadn’t felt trapped until that moment.
“My mother died just a few months after I was born.”
“How.” No question. A demand.
“A . . . a car accident.” So she’d been told.
Dante was the one to shake his head. “I doubt that.”
Her heart was beating faster.
“I think your father wanted to create very special children, and he found a woman who could provide him with those children.”
Her skin felt icy.
“Nothing too dangerous, not if he was going to have it in the family, but something powerful nevertheless.”
Something?
“You’re not supposed to exist, sweetheart, but then, neither am I.”
His words were starting to scare her. She’d been born human. Her blood had changed only because of her father’s experiments.
Right?
“And maybe . . . maybe your father couldn’t resist your mother. That would have been part of her charm, after all.”
Her charm? He was losing her. “You’re wrong, Dante. I’m just—”
“A siren.”
Cassie laughed. She couldn’t help it. Laughter was her first response. “There is no way—”
“Sirens are real, you know. As real as any other paranormal that walks the earth.”
Her mouth suddenly felt very, very dry. “Sirens lure sailors to their deaths.” She knew the myth. Beautiful women, or at least, they appeared beautiful at first, but they were really monsters. “In Greek mythology, they’d sung to lure in their prey. When the boats crashed on the rocks near the sirens, the sirens had fed on the wounded.”
“That’s the myth . . .”
She was adamant. “That’s not me.”
“Humans only know part of the sirens’ story.” His hand lifted, brushed back her hair. “In truth, there were so many ways for them to lure in the men they wanted. Except sirens weren’t interested in mortal men.”
Her heart was going to burst out of her chest.
“They wanted paranormals—because sirens craved power. Magic.”
How many times was she going to have to say it? “I am not—”
“Vampires are lured to you by the sweet scent of your blood. It’s different from anything else they’ve ever experienced. They can scent the poison, too, but your blood is too strong for them to resist.”
Cassie put her hands on his chest. “My father made my blood that way. A lure and a poison.”
“He made it poison. Nature made it a lure.”
Her breath rushed out.
“Werewolves will be drawn by your voice. It soothes their beast. That’s why the one called Trace is calmer when you’re near. I realized that when I watched you with him. He hasn’t attacked you yet because your voice puts his beast at ease.”
“Sirens sing, I don’t—”
“The lure is different for every paranormal. I know what you are. I’ve met your kind before.”
She had a kind?
“The magic isn’t as strong in you, probably because of the brews that your father gave you, but it’s there. I’ve known it from the time you were eight years old.”
Her world was spinning. He was solid beneath her hand. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you wouldn’t have believed me.”
“My mother—”
“She probably tried to get away from your father. But the thing is . . . once a man has a siren, he becomes obsessed with her.”
A chill skated down Cassie’s spine. Dante’s dark eyes were so intense, so focused on her.