Dante slowed down the Jeep as they turned toward the lone service station that sat at the top of the hill. He wasn’t even sure what state they were in, but the Jeep’s engine had started to sputter, and he was worried that sound meant the vehicle wouldn’t make it much farther.

“How the hell do I know,” he asked, not answering her question, “how to drive? How to tell that it sounds like the radiator might make it a few more hours? I didn’t know my own damn name before you told me, but—”

“It’s a type of source amnesia.” Her words were soft. “That’s what I figured, anyway. You can remember how to do things, like drive a car or—or kiss.” She cleared her throat. “But you don’t remember when or where you learned them. It’s all the specific, explicit memories that you lose when you burn.”

“They come back.” Hadn’t she said that?

“Usually. You never told me what it was like when you burned. You never told anyone for certain, so I don’t know what happens to you. Where you go.”

Hell.

“There have been times when you came back, and all of your memories were with you. It was rare, but it happened.”

“And when it didn’t?”

“They were usually back in a week.”

Usually? He got the feeling the woman was being deliberately vague, and he sure wasn’t in the mood for any games.

Dante waited until he’d braked the vehicle then turned his full attention to Cassie. No one else was around, so he figured he could be honest with her. “I don’t know if I should help you or kill you.”

Her eyes widened. “I . . . didn’t realize that killing me was an option on the table.”

It wasn’t. He’d said the words to get some kind of response from her. Any response. Her words before had been too careful and quiet. Like the woman was hiding what she really felt.

She was still hiding. The slight flaring of her eyes wasn’t good enough for him. “Who are the men hunting you?”

“Hunting us?” she corrected carefully. “That’s what you meant, right? Because they’re hunting both of us. Not just me.”

He locked his back teeth.

“Those men work for the government. A very secret group that humans don’t know about. The paranormals who know about them? Well, let’s say they probably all wish they’d never heard of them, too.” Her gaze darted behind him. There wasn’t anything to see back there. Just a field of wheat.

“What do they want with you—us?” Dante asked.

Her gaze came back to him. “They want us to make them an army. An unstoppable army with your fire and immortality.”

That said why they wanted him. “Why you?”

Her smile was broken. “Because I’m the mad scientist that they believe can create this army for them.” She climbed from the Jeep.

He followed her. “Why the hell would they think that?”

“Because my father already made them one army of enhanced”—she stressed the word as she tried to shove back her loose tendrils of hair—“vampires. Of course, that turned into a freaking nightmare, but the guys in suits just don’t learn, do they?”

Her father? Dante caught her arm and turned her toward him.

Her gaze lingered on his. “Every time you rose, I always wondered . . . will this be the time he remembers nothing? When the memories just don’t return?” The mask was falling away.

He didn’t speak.

“Maybe—maybe there are some things you’d rather not remember. There sure are things I’d prefer to forget.” She smiled.

He knew it was a fake smile because her eyes didn’t light up. So much for her mask sliding away.

“I’ll go pay for the gas. Good thing you had some cash on you, huh?”

He’d stolen the money. Not such a “good” thing. But Dante was realizing he wasn’t well acquainted with good.

He handed her the money. As soon as his fingers brushed hers, he felt the connection again. A surge of lust and need that seemed to pulse all the way through his veins.

She tried to pull away from him.

He didn’t let her go.

“Do you think I don’t remember that we were lovers?” He asked the question deliberately. Again, wanting to see her response.

But she shook her head. Her fake smile fell away. “We were never lovers, Dante.”

Yet he knew her taste.

When she pulled away again, he let her go. He watched her walk away from him and toward the station. Enjoyed the sway of her ass, and then he called out, “Cassandra!”