He’d found her.

She squeezed him again.

“Don’t break my ribs!” Rhett gasped out.

Whoops. “Sorry,” she mumbled. She’d have to be more careful with that vamp strength.

“We should move this inside,” Ryder said, his voice mild. “There’s always the chance that he was followed.”

She eased away from him, but Sabine kept a strong hold on Rhett’s arm. She didn’t touch his bloody wrists or the blisters on his flesh. Sabine was as careful as she could be.

“There’s no chance I was followed.” Rhett came easily with her. “I staked the bastard who came for me.”

Her gaze met Ryder’s. “A vampire attacked you?”

“No, that ass**le from The Rift—the SOB who burned down my bar. He can touch things and they burn.”

Dante.

Ryder let them enter the cabin first. His gaze swept behind them.

“You killed him?” Sabine asked, just to be sure. “You saw him die?”

“I drove a chunk of wood into his heart.” Rhett’s shoulders sagged as soon as he was in the cabin. As if he thought . . . I’m safe here. But he wasn’t. “The fire was burning all around us. He was dead when he fell, I know he was, and the fire was just going to burn right over him.”

Not exactly.

Sabine’s gaze met Ryder’s. “Was he followed?”

“I wasn’t!” Rhett immediately huffed. “He was dead, I tell you, he was—”

“He’ll come back.” Sabine tried to keep her voice steady. “That man, his name is Dante, and he isn’t dead.”

Rhett shook his head. “Bull. Even vamps can’t come back if you stake their hearts. I took out that guy and—”

“He wasn’t a vampire. You killed him, yes.” She cleared her throat. “But after he burns, he’ll come back. He’s a phoenix, and death doesn’t stop him.”

It just pisses him off.

Her brother shook his head. “That’s insane! A phoenix? Like the myth? The big bird that burns and—”

“Not exactly like the myth,” Ryder interrupted as his gaze studied Rhett. “But close enough.”

“He’s dead.” Rhett was definite. A faint flush stained his cheeks. “We have other things to worry about instead of focusing on a corpse. Like Dad—he’s gone. The house is empty. What if Vaughn grabbed him, too?”

Tell him. “I know Dante isn’t dead because”—she inhaled slowly and made her gaze hold his—“because I was like him.”

Rhett had finally stopped talking. His head tilted as he studied her.

“Dad isn’t in town,” Sabine continued. “He’s gone because I told him to leave. I didn’t want anyone coming after him.”

“And he just what—picked up and left? Left you? Left me? That’s not the way this family does things!”

“He sent Mom out of town to keep her safe. He’s gone to be with her.” She straightened her shoulders. Tell. Him. “He’s the one . . . he’s the reason I vanished, Rhett. Dad knew what I was. All along, he knew.”

“Yeah, he knew you were his kid so—”

He wasn’t listening. After everything that had happened, did he just not want to hear this? Denial could be a powerful thing.

“Dad knew that I was a phoenix.” She kept her voice calm because she had to, but Sabine wanted to scream. “He thought . . . he said he thought that by sending me to the Genesis facility, he’d be helping me.”

Rhett’s eyes had widened. “No, you—you were missing. We were all worried. Mom . . . she went in the hospital—”

Ryder crossed his arms over his chest. Watched. Waited.

“He didn’t tell you what he’d done. Didn’t tell Mom. Didn’t tell me.” She pressed her lips together and remembered the terror of waking up and being tossed at a vampire. Her gaze slid to Ryder’s.

The memory was between them.

A muscle flexed in his jaw.

“Dad said he wanted to help me, but, Rhett, Genesis didn’t help.”

“I saw the news,” he muttered. He ran a shaking hand over his face. “They were torturing—” He broke off and sucked in a ragged breath. “Did they hurt you, Sabe?” Now he was the one to grab her. To hold too tight. “Did they?”

“Yes.”

He blanched.

She wouldn’t tell him what had been done. There were some things that a brother didn’t need to hear.




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