Mitchell had been one of those guards.
After the guards had chained him, Ryder hadn’t been able to break out of the chains fast enough. She’d died.
Burned.
Her fist lifted. He didn’t even brace for the blow. Sure, a phoenix was powerful, but he’d take—
Her palm flattened on his chest. Her fingers were still warm, far warmer than an average human’s, and the heat seemed to sink into him.
Made him want her even more.
“Your heart’s beating.” Her gaze held his. “I can see you breathing. I-I thought vampires were supposed to be dead.”
Hollywood hype. “I think undead is the popular term in use.”
“And are you, um, undead, I mean?” Her hand still pressed against him. So close to his heart. “Were you a human who died and came back as a vampire?”
“It didn’t work quite that way,” Ryder murmured. Things hadn’t worked that way, not for him. That was all he’d say then. All he could say, with Wyatt and his doctor brigade watching. His hand lifted and curled around her fingers. “Do you know where we are?”
Her laugh was bitter, but the sound of it still had his body tightening. “Hell?” Sabine asked.
“Close enough.” His gaze cut to the mirror. “You know we’re being watched.”
Her head inclined. “Wyatt.” She said the name with fury and fear. “Why is he doing this to me? I didn’t volunteer to be here like you—”
Now it was Ryder’s turn to laugh. “Love, do you really think I volunteered to be kept in this hole? To be starved? Tortured?” Oh, Wyatt did enjoy his little experiments.
Her hand trembled in his grip.
“I was taken,” he told her flatly. “Set up. Betrayed. Drugged.” That damn SP tranq.
Her long lashes flickered. “I was taken, too. Kidnapped. They grabbed me when I was going home and threw me in the back of a van. The next thing I knew, I was here, and they were—they told me if I came in the cell with you, then I’d get to go home.” Her voice dropped. “I just want to go home.”
The longing in her voice twisted his heart. The heart she’d thought he didn’t have. Wrong, love. Vampires breathe, their hearts beat. We can love. We can hate.
We can kill without hesitation.
She’d seen him do that already.
“Why won’t they let me go?” She whispered, probably hoping that the microphones wouldn’t pick up her words.
He pulled her into his arms. She gasped and tried to fight, but he just tightened his hold. Ryder put his mouth against her ear and barely breathed the words as he spoke, “Because they know what you are. They suspected before, but now they have proof.”
She shook her head.
“You’re a phoenix. You can die, burn, and rise from the ashes.” There wasn’t any time to build up to this reveal. Knowledge was power in this world, and she’d need as much of it as she could get in order to face the battles coming her way.
She stiffened in his arms.
His lips brushed over her ear as he said, “You’re powerful, and that makes you very dangerous. Wyatt isn’t going to let you go.” No matter what promises the man made. “The only way we’re getting free is if we free ourselves.” His tongue licked lightly over the shell of her ear. He couldn’t help it. The woman was too tempting.
He also needed to give Wyatt a show, to distract the guy from wondering about the words Ryder was whispering to Sabine.
Her hands were on his arms, and at the touch of his tongue, her nails bit into his skin. “S-stop.”
“You can do it,” he told her, knowing the words were true. “You just have to burn hot enough.” She could be the ticket out, for both of them.
He moved his head, letting his nose nuzzle along her cheek. Then his lips were just an inch away from her mouth. Not touching her, not yet. “Burn hot, love, burn.”
“I don’t—I don’t understand what’s happening. A phoenix? That’s—that’s a mythical bird.”
Most myths were based on truth. There was no denying what he’d seen with his own eyes. “When you die, you’ll burn and you’ll come back. Again and again.” He wanted to taste her. That was why Wyatt had agreed to let her come back. Wyatt wanted to watch his two test subjects interact.
No, Wyatt wanted more than to just see them interact. The guy was all about his experiments. About creating a being who would be unstoppable.
You want us to f**k. You want to see if it’s possible for a vampire and a phoenix to reproduce. ’Cause if we could, wouldn’t that make the perfect little super-soldier for your army?
“I didn’t even know my own name.” Her stark confession. She was lost. Scared. “When the fire cleared, I couldn’t even remember who I was. I was lost. There was . . . you.”
He had to kiss her. Ryder’s lips feathered over Sabine’s. She gasped lightly at the contact, but didn’t pull away. Her nails were still pressing into his arms, and when his tongue slid into her mouth, the sting of her nails was a sweet pain.
Then she kissed him back. Her tongue was hesitant at first, but she quickly grew a little bolder. Stroking him. Tasting him.
His c**k swelled even more and pushed against her. This was what Wyatt wanted. For Ryder to seduce her. To take her.
All part of the deal.
The guy had even sent in a small bed, when Ryder had been sleeping on his floor during all the other long days and nights of his captivity. The bed was supposed to make the f**king easier.
And though Ryder wanted her—hell, yes—he wasn’t about to f**k on command.
Not for Wyatt. Not for anyone.
His mouth pulled away from hers. “What did Wyatt tell you?”
“That—that there were more experiments to come.”
Yes, there were. The experiments wouldn’t stop, unless they stopped them. “You have to call up the fire.”
“Ryder!” Wyatt’s snarl blasted through the speaker.
Screw him. “Call up the fire, and none of the guards will be able to hurt you.”
She shook her head. “They’ll drug me. They keep injecting me.”
“Burn hot enough, and the drug won’t be able to get to you.” If she had a wall of flames in front of her, if she burned with all of her power, then she’d be safe.
Her gaze was so confused and scared. She didn’t understand. Dammit. The guards would be coming soon. So he grabbed her. She yelped and punched at him, but, in an instant, Ryder had trapped her against the far wall and, just like before, he used his body to block Wyatt’s view of her.