“You were right,” Eve spoke through numb lips. “I should have stayed away.” Cain had warned her, but she hadn’t listened. She’d been so sure that she could approach Gloria quietly, that she could get her story out there.
Cain turned over her hands. Eve’s palms were shredded. She’d thrown up her hands to cover her face when she went flying into the street, and when she’d hit, her palms had slammed into the asphalt.
“The paper said . . . the story said I torched that warehouse, the club with the people inside . . .” She licked her lips. Tasted the fire. “People will say I did the same here. That I killed her.”
You did. A dark voice whispered in her mind. It was the voice of her own guilt. Gloria shouldn’t have died for her.
Trace cursed from the front seat and sent the SUV careening around a curve.
“Slow down,” Cain snapped, but his fingers softly stroked Eve’s hands. “You want to blend in now, not stick out.”
But Eve shook her head, knowing blending in wasn’t an option. Eyes had been watching them. Cameras had probably been stationed on that shop, recording their every move. “They’ll have seen the SUV. Gotten the plates . . .”
“On it,” Trace muttered and pulled them into the winding entrance of a parking garage. “We’re ditching this ride and getting the hell out of here.”
“He’s setting me up,” she whispered, her heart like lead in her chest. “Wyatt is making me look like a criminal so no one will believe anything I say.”
Cain just stared at her. A muscle jerked in his jaw. His hand lifted and brushed over her cheek. More blood smeared his fingers. She hadn’t even realized that her cheek was bleeding.
“Attack first,” Trace said from the front. The SUV braked to a jarring stop. “Give your enemy no time to run or rest. Fucking smart strategy.”
No one had ever said Doctor Richard Wyatt wasn’t smart.
Cain shoved open the back door, but after he jumped out, he turned back to gently help her out of the SUV.
“There.” Trace was already heading toward another vehicle—a pickup truck. One with an extended cab and lots of room in the rear. “You two get back there and stay down.”
He had the truck hot-wired in ten seconds flat. She’d taught him that particular skill, one long ago day. Eve slid down in the back, and Cain came down on top of her. Their bodies were pressed together. So close.
She turned her head away. She didn’t want him this close. This close, he’d be able to see it when she cried.
I’m sorry, Gloria.
“I’ll stop him,” Cain promised her.
The lump in her throat was choking her. Eve tried to swallow. Once. Twice.
Then she felt Cain’s lips on her cheek. He was . . . kissing away her tears.
“I’ll kill him.” So soft. Such a deadly vow.
She knew that Cain would keep his word.
If they didn’t stop Wyatt, he’d keep coming. More innocent people would die. Wyatt didn’t care. The blood on the streets didn’t make a damn difference to him.
He’d keep coming.
Until they burned his ass and sent him to hell.
Wyatt surveyed the smoking remains before him. A good warning. Now Eve would understand just who she was facing.
Had she truly thought he’d fear being exposed in the media?
That would never happen. It couldn’t. His experiments were too important.
Firemen were rushing onto the scene. No survivors would be inside. How could they possibly be? Those in that shop weren’t like Cain . . . or Eve.
Such a surprise. He never would have known about her special skills if she hadn’t come right to him.
Her mistake.
He’d had the chance to conduct two experiments in the field. Two very rewarding experiments.
Cain hadn’t killed Eve once he’d risen. He’d been able to maintain his control with her. Interesting. If the chains hadn’t bound him at Genesis, Cain would have destroyed everyone around him after some of his risings. He’d been too out of control. Too wild.
But he hadn’t needed chains to stop him from hurting the lovely Eve.
And even a very powerful blast—one that had taken place just inches away from Eve’s own face—hadn’t been able to kill her.
Wyatt had been watching her when that building exploded. He’d seen exactly what she’d done.
Eve had thrown up her hands, and, for an instant, the flames had washed right over her skin. The force of those flames—and the blast—had tossed her through the air. She’d been bruised and bloody when she rose again, but the injuries had come from her slamming into the pavement.
The fire had never hurt her. The flames had burned right over her flesh, but the fire hadn’t so much as blistered her skin.
Eve held great power over the fire.
He had been watching her every move through his binoculars. He’d seen the blood dripping from her wounds. Seen the way Cain cradled her. While the fire might not be able to hurt Eve, she was still very, very vulnerable. Eve could be hurt. Just not with fire.
The drugs he’d used at Genesis—and again last night—had a definite effect on her. And her skin cut open all too easily.
But she was immune to the flames.
Interesting.
A puzzle . . . and he did love a good puzzle. Once he got Eve in his lab, strapped to his table, he’d learn every one of her secrets.
She’d beg to tell them to him.
“Was that place rigged?” Trace asked quietly as he faced Cain, “or did you start the fire?”
They’d gotten out of Atlanta. Driven a few hours, crossed the South Carolina border, and kept going. They’d finally stopped at a small motel on the outskirts of Charlotte. Water from the shower pounded steadily, muffled slightly by the closed bathroom door.
Cain had been left alone with the shifter while Eve washed the blood away.
Trace raised a brow as he studied Cain. “She’s not here—and she doesn’t have shifter hearing, so just talk straight with me. Drop the bullshit, man.”
Cain didn’t like the wolf.
“I know what you are, and I know exactly what you can do,” Trace told him.
I doubt that. In Cain’s experience, few people actually knew what he was—and even fewer understood just how powerful he was. He stared steadily back at Trace. He’d washed Eve’s blood off his hands, but he could almost still feel that blood coating his fingertips. “And you think I would hurt her?”
“I think you’ve got a monster inside, one that you can’t control.” Flat, hard words.