Power. Fury. Fire.
His eyes opened. The flames were around him, streaking up walls, sliding down some dark corridor.
People ran away, screaming. He liked the screams. He let the fire flare higher.
His mind was torn, fragmented, the way it so often was after the fire. He stared at those around him and thought only . . .
Burn.
Shouldn’t everyone feel the same burn that he did? Shouldn’t everyone suffer?
It only seemed fair.
He lifted his hand and let the fire leap away at his touch.
Destroy.
“They took her!” someone screamed.
He didn’t care. Cain began to head down the hallway. The fire spread in his wake.
“Dammit, stop!” A man stood before him, just beyond the reach of the fire. Fool. He must have thought he was safe. Didn’t he realize the fire could go anywhere? He’d show the man. He’d—
“Eve’s gone! We have to follow them!”
Eve. The name slid past the flames. Past the beast. Cain screamed his fury and the fire raged higher.
The one who’d said her name—a blond male with a face too pale—leaped back. Even as the fire ripped forward.
More screams.
Eve.
Someone was shooting at Cain. The bullets never made it past the flames, and the fire licked out at his attacker.
No more bullets.
Only ash.
Eve.
His fire blew a hole in the wall nearest him and he walked out into the night. Black vans and SUVs waited. More men with guns. Their bullets came at him even as one van sped away.
Eve.
The fire erupted. The men stopped shooting. They ran. As fast and as far as they could.
His gaze turned back to the van. To the one that was racing away so quickly.
“Pull it back!” It was the blond male again. Perhaps Cain should know him. But he knew only fury. “Pull it back before you hurt an innocent!”
There were no innocents in the world. There hadn’t been, not for a very long time. Only monsters and killers and men who wanted more than they should ever possess.
“Pull it back . . . or Eve will die!”
Eve. She was the one link to sanity that he still had. The only link.
He sucked in a breath. Another. Tasted the ash and the fire. But the fire began to flicker around him. The flames turned back in on themselves.
The van’s taillights were gone. He couldn’t see them anymore.
“Eve.” Her name was a rasp from his throat as he shoved the beast back inside his cage.
The woman they’d taken—that was his Eve.
His eyes squeezed shut and he fought to regain his sanity. She was Eve. He was Cain.
Not a monster.
Yes, I am.
He was both—beast and man. Killer and—
Lover? Eve’s lover.
“Come on!” the guy beside him said. A vampire. Cain knew him. Ryder. He’d . . . wanted to use Eve as bait.
He had used her as bait.
“We’ll follow them,” Ryder said, the words coming fast. “We’ll get her back and stop Wyatt and we’ll—”
Cain grabbed the guy and hurled him back toward the burning building. “You set her up.”
He turned away. The vampire could fight the flames. Cain had a battle of his own—he had to find Eve. Had to get her back.
Because if he didn’t, he wasn’t sure how long his sanity would last.
No, no, dammit, this wasn’t happening. Eve yanked at her handcuffs, twisting and jerking. The ass**les had cuffed her hands and shackled her feet, then tossed her in the back of a van.
“Let me go!” she yelled.
The guard next to her pushed her harder against the van’s floor. “Settle down. Wyatt wants you to—”
She slammed her feet into his stomach. The guy swore and grabbed at her, but she rammed her head right into his face as hard as she could. Bones crunched and she knew she’d broken his nose. Savage satisfaction filled her. She wasn’t making this easy on them. No way.
She hit him again with her head, harder, barely feeling the pain that swept over her at the blows. She had to get out of the van. If they took her to Wyatt’s other lab . . .
I won’t get out. He’d experiment on her. Cut her up. Kill her.
The guard’s body slumped beside her. One down.
“What the hell’s going on back there?” a voice demanded from the front of the vehicle.
Panting, Eve searched through the unconscious guard’s pockets. Keys. Keys. They had to be there. They’d been dumb enough to leave only one guard with her in the back, and that guy had been the one to handcuff her in the first place.
He had to be the one with the keys.
Her fingers closed around the metal keys. Yes. Twisting her wrists, she managed to shove the key into the lock binding her left hand.
Click.
Eve froze. That sound hadn’t been the lock snicking open.
“Wyatt wanted you brought in alive.” It was the same voice that had called out minutes before. The guy who should have still been in the front of the van. He wasn’t up in front any longer.
Eve looked up and found a gun barrel pressed into her forehead. “But if you fight too much and I have to contain you, well, then I guess Wyatt will just have to enjoy playing with your dead body.”
Her legs were still shackled. She couldn’t get out like this.
And of course, the guard she’d taken out would choose that moment to groan and shift beside her. “Bitch,” he muttered.
She wanted to punch him again.
Instead, he raised his fist to punch her. She braced, knowing this was going to hurt and—
“Stand down, Martinez.” The order came from the guy with the gun.
Wait. He’d just offered to casually kill her, but he was telling his buddy to ease up? What the hell?
Martinez hesitated, then he snatched the keys from Eve’s fingers. “I hope Wyatt cuts you into a hundred damn pieces.”
He probably would.
“Go up front,” the guy with the gun ordered Martinez.
Martinez crawled past her. He made sure to kick her in the gut on his way. She grunted at the impact.
The other guard tensed. “Martinez.”
She wanted to kick Martinez’s ass. Oh, wait. She’d just done it. She’d like to do it again. But with a gun on her, it wasn’t the best moment for another attack.
Eve waited for him to haul his bleeding carcass into the front. Then she focused on the man with the gun.
It was too dark for her to see much about him. He was big. Strong. Holding a gun.
Did she need to know a lot more?
Cain would have risen already, right? He’d chase after her. She hoped he would but . . .