And maybe, just maybe Richard would get lucky. Maybe the phoenix would manage to drag Eve from the rubble.
Life and death . . . both always had a purpose.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Cain’s head broke from the icy water. He gasped, sucking in a deep gulp of air. His arms were around Eve, and her breath heaved out as they made their way from the lake.
Sodden and exhausted, they fell onto the earth. The stars stared down at them, too bright after the darkness of the cave.
Eve’s hands slid over his chest. “Are you all right?” She pushed up to study him. Her wet hair clung to her neck and shoulders.
Cain nodded. He was the one who should be asking about her. He hadn’t been sure that he’d succeed in getting her out of there alive.
Her lips trembled into a small smile. “How about we don’t do that again, huh?”
In spite of the hell they’d just faced, Cain found himself laughing. He didn’t know how she did it, but Eve could get to him. As no one else ever had. He reached for her, sinking his fingers into her wet hair. “How about we don’t,” he agreed. Then he kissed her. A light, soft kiss that wasn’t about the rough lust between them. The desperate hunger. It was just about . . . her.
Eve pulled back from the kiss as if startled. Her gaze searched his, but he had no idea what she was looking for in his eyes.
“Isn’t this f**king lovely,” a dark voice drawled from the right. “In the middle of hell, you two are taking time to screw.”
Cain leaped to his feet. He knew that annoying voice. It belonged to a vampire that was long overdue for death. “Ryder.”
The vamp gave a little salute. “As impressive as it was watching you two leap out from the inside of that mountain, why the hell were you running away from Wyatt? You were supposed to be taking him down.”
Eve rose and came to Cain’s side. “Sorry. We were a little busy fighting to stay alive.”
Ryder just laughed. “Like that matters to him.”
There were plenty of trees around them. Easy enough to make a stake. Cain figured he could have a stake in that vamp’s heart in about, oh, thirty seconds or less.
“Did you see her?” Ryder demanded, stepping forward. Cain could all but smell the guy’s desperation. “Did you see my—”
“All we saw were more fanged ass**les like you,” Cain told him and offered his own smile. “Only they burned fast enough.” Actually, they’d burned faster than any vamp Cain had ever seen.
Ryder shrugged. “What? Am I supposed to care that you killed some vamps? You think I wanted to be this way? A bastard turned me . . . and I staked him as soon as I could.”
Why didn’t Cain buy that story?
The vamp shook his head. “Do you have to be naked out here? Damn man. Seriously, you don’t go to war naked.”
Cain’s teeth ground together. “After I kill you, I’ll be sure to take your clothing.”
“Come and try,” Ryder taunted.
Fine. Cain rushed forward in an instant and shattered the closest tree. He turned back with his makeshift stake, ready to drive it into Ryder’s heart.
Ryder had moved. He stood behind Eve. Not touching her. Just smirking as he gazed at Cain over Eve’s delicate shoulder. “Do you think you could go through her,” he asked Cain, “in order to kill me?”
Cain advanced. He could push Eve aside before the vampire would have a chance to attack. He could—
“They weren’t like you.” Eve turned away from Cain as she faced the vampire. “The vampires in that mountain didn’t look like you. They didn’t smell like you, and they didn’t attack like you.”
She’d caught Ryder’s attention. “What are you talking about?”
Eve’s mouth tightened, then she said, “The vampires that Wyatt kept locked in that hole, they weren’t . . . normal.”
Cain frowned at her. There was a normal for vampires? Not likely. Supernaturals were abnormal by their very natures.
“Their claws were black, and their fangs . . .” Her hand reached up to Ryder’s mouth.
If that prick nipped her fingers . . .
Eve let her hand fall away before she ever touched Ryder. “It wasn’t just their canines that were sharp. Every tooth was long and curved. They had a mouth full of fangs.”
Ryder stared down at her with wide eyes. After a moment, he shook his head. “That’s not . . . possible.”
“Sure it is,” she said as she glanced back over her shoulder at Cain. “With Wyatt, anything is possible.”
Then she stepped to the side.
Cain sprang forward, but he didn’t drive the stake into Ryder’s heart. He just shoved the tip into the vamp’s chest. Let the bastard know that if Cain had truly wanted . . .
You’d be dead on the ground.
That wasn’t what he wanted . . . yet.
“I knew one of them.” Eve’s voice pulled Cain’s gaze to her.
Ryder yanked the stake from his chest. “Asshole.”
Cain ignored him.
“I remembered him,” Eve said. “His voice, what he said—I remembered him.”
Cain could hardly recall those vampires at all. When he’d fallen into the pit, his spine had broken. Blood had choked him. He’d heard the vampires. Smelled them. Felt them bite into his flesh.
But then he’d burned. When he’d risen, he’d barely seen the vampires at all. They’d just been prey.
Eve looked so pale in the starlight. “He was there when my parents died.”
Cain advanced slowly and touched her shoulder. “Are you sure?” She’d told him that her parents died when she’d just been a child.
A slow nod. “I couldn’t ever forget his face. It’s starred in too many of my nightmares, but . . . his eyes had changed. Gotten bigger. Darker.” She swallowed and Cain saw the small, painful movement of her throat. “And I think he remembered me.”
Well, hell.
He glanced back over at the mountain.
“They’re coming,” Ryder muttered but Cain had already heard the thud of approaching footsteps. Wyatt had sent out his human minions to make sure Cain didn’t make it out of the mountain.
Too bad, ass**le. I’m already free. The guy would have to learn to move faster.
“Time to get some clothes,” Cain said as he turned toward the approaching threat rounding the mountain.
Eve glanced at him, eyes wide.
“I could go for a bite,” Ryder added, voice mild.