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.