“I’ll get the wolf out for you.” The car sped faster. “Don’t worry about him.”
Anger? She frowned, not expecting that. “Trace . . . he’s a good guy, Cain.” Once you looked past the snarling surface. “He helped me, I helped him.” So many times.
“You . . . care for him.”
“Yes.”
His jaw locked.
“But we’re not lovers.” She should have put that out there sooner. A vein flexed in Cain’s jaw. A lot sooner. “We never have been. Never will be.”
The fast look he fired her way was full of surprise.
“He’s my friend. That’s all.” You’re my lover. She’d gotten too close with Cain, too quickly. After only a few days, he didn’t know what she was really like. How could he? Maybe he thought she just made a habit of jumping into bed and having really hot sex.
She could straighten him out easily. “Cain, I’ve had four lovers in my life.” Eve frowned. “You’re the fourth. This thing with us”—the wild, hot sex, the need that couldn’t ever seem to be filled—“hasn’t happened to me before.” It was important that he understood that.
He pulled off the main road. Headed toward the no-tell motel nestled near the edge of the woods.
Dropping me off?
Her jaw clenched. “I can make my own way to Beaumont, you know. Leaving me here—it won’t stop me.”
He stopped the car. Turned off the lights.
“I’ll be right on your tail. I’m not going to just—”
In an instant, he had her in his arms. His mouth was a breath from hers. “I’m glad there were only four . . . though I’m damn tempted to hunt down the first three.”
Wait. What?
“I want you, Eve, the way I haven’t wanted anyone or anything ever before.”
Her lips wanted to tremble into a smile, but the harsh look in his eyes had her holding still. The gearshift pressed into her leg.
He held her tightly against his chest. “You can make me weak,” he growled in the dark interior of the vehicle.
The car seemed too small then. Maybe he was too big. Her hands were on his chest between them, but Eve wasn’t pushing him away.
She was trying to understand him. “You’re leaving me again.”
At least it wasn’t a truck stop this time. . . .
“No, I’m stopping the ass**le who’s been trailing us.”
Trailing us . . . Her head whipped around just as a pair of headlights cut into the parking lot around them. Darkness had fallen as they traveled, and she hadn’t been aware of anyone on the lonely road behind them.
She realized that Cain hadn’t parked their vehicle right in front of the motel. He was on the side in the shadows with his lights off.
As soon as the other car pulled to a stop, Cain jerked away from her and rushed toward the other vehicle.
She could just see Cain’s powerful form with the aid of the moon and the dim glow of a fluorescent light from the motel. The other car’s windows were dark, tinted so that they looked black in the night.
Cain yanked open the driver’s side door, nearly ripping it right off the vehicle. Sometimes, she forgot just how strong he could be.
He reached inside and yanked out a man. Tall. Big. Wide shoulders.
In the moonlight, she saw the flash of his fangs. Ryder. The vampire sank his teeth into Cain’s throat.
Eve shoved open the car door and raced for them. “Cain!”
But Cain had already broken free of the vamp’s hold and shoved the vampire back. Ryder’s body dented the side of his car.
“Bad mistake, vampire,” Cain growled. “I was going to let you live . . .”
“Can’t live . . . without her . . .”
The pain in Ryder’s voice made Eve’s heart ache. The vamp seemed to really care about his phoenix.
Ryder rose to his full height, baring his fangs. The two men circled each other. Going in closer, closer . . .
One will die.
“Where are you heading in such a hurry?” Ryder demanded. “You talked to the human, then you swept out of town.” Blood dripped down his chin. “What did he tell you?”
Cain just smiled. “Why didn’t you ask him yourself?”
Ryder’s face tightened, but his arms stayed loose at his sides. “The other humans got there before I could make him tell me.” Ryder’s gaze cut to Eve. “But I know you found Wyatt. I know, and I can help you.”
With his enhanced strength and speed, he just might be a strong ally.
If they could trust him.
We can’t.
“I can taste the fire in your blood,” Ryder said as he swept the back of his hand over his chin. “Just like hers . . . ”
The vampire was on a dangerous edge of obsession, and Eve knew he’d turn on them in an instant, if it meant he could get to his phoenix.
“I gave you the chance to walk away,” Cain growled, voice low and cutting. The parking area was deserted. The whole place looked deserted, except for the faint glow that shone from inside the motel’s office. “You should have just kept going.”
“Tell me where she is!” The vampire leaped toward Cain.
“No.” Cain punched the vampire in the chest, a pounding blow that crunched bones.
The two men were a twist of bodies. Punching. Kicking. Brutal fighting that was silent and vicious.
Since Cain’s fire wouldn’t work on the vampire, it looked like Cain was going to kill the guy the old-fashioned way.
By tearing him apart.
“Stop!” Eve yelled.
Neither man even looked her way.
I can taste the fire in your blood.
Cain kept swinging. Eve glanced around. The railing near the motel’s office was old and sagging . . . and made of wood.
Yes. She raced toward it. Saw the sleeping form of an old man inside the office. Ignoring him for the moment, Eve shoved her hips against the railing, then she yanked hard on the loose wood. Once, twice . . .
A chunk of wood broke off in her hands.
There was another way to kill the vampire.
She ran back to the two fighting men just as Cain tossed Ryder onto the ground. The vampire landed on his ass. He began to lunge up.
“Don’t!” Eve jumped near him. The stake hovered over his chest.
Ryder froze.
Good. Looked like she had finally gotten his attention.
Cain came up behind her. She could feel his strength all around her. He wasn’t going to like this part, but there wasn’t a choice.