She didn’t flinch.

“They cut me open. They shot me. They drugged me. They even drowned me a few times.”

He had far more memories than she’d realized.

“I won’t ever f**king go back in a lab again.”

Her gaze held his. “Trace isn’t the only one that is suffering down there. There are vampires. And there’s an infection that’s spreading faster than anything I’ve ever seen. The humans who get bit . . . can’t think or reason any longer. All they do is hunger and kill—”

“Then they need to be put down.”

“They have families. Lives. If I can cure them, they can go back to the way they were before.”

Dante’s eyes narrowed at that. “You think you can cure a vampire? Turn him human again? That’s not possible.”

“A man who dies and burns and rises from the ashes shouldn’t be possible, either.” She swiped her tongue over too dry lips and noticed that his gaze followed that small movement. Her heart slammed into her ribs. “Your tears can cure anything or anyone. If I can just get a sample from you . . .”

He pushed her away. “Is that what you want? For me to cry for you?” His face had twisted into lines that looked cruel. “They tried for years to get me to break. I never did.” He spun away from her. Headed for the stairs.

“You did.” The words slipped out. She shouldn’t have said them. Big, big mistake.

But they were the truth.

He froze with his hand on the wooden bannister. “What?”

She knotted her fingers into fists. “You did break. The phoenix shed a tear.”

He glanced back at her.

“If you hadn’t cried, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Find another f**king phoenix!”

It wasn’t like they were easy to find. “As far as I know, there are only three phoenixes in the United States.”

He whirled toward her.

Right. Ahem . . . phoenixes had a tendency to kill each other. She probably shouldn’t have mentioned that the others were actually in the U.S.

A phoenix was truly vulnerable only in that one moment of rising. When a phoenix’s body regenerated and he rose from the flames, it was during that instant of time when he could truly die. A forever death—one from which he would never rise again.

Most enemies couldn’t brave the heat of the fire long enough to kill a phoenix.

Another of your kind could do it. Phoenixes could—and had—killed each other before.

“You’re the oldest phoenix that has ever been discovered,” Cassie said, voice quiet. “According to my father’s journals, you are the first.”

Dante simply stared at her.

His stare made her nervous and shaky and so she kept talking. “I took a tear from one of the other phoenixes and tried to synthesize a cure. It didn’t work.” She stepped toward him. “You are the key to the cure. If you’re the first, I can study your DNA. I can analyze your tears. They could be a more pure form than—”

“I’m not your damn experiment.”

She flinched at his fury. “I didn’t say that you were.”

“But you want to put me in your lab, right? Want to run your tests . . . cut me open . . . just like they did.”

“I’m not like them.” She forced the words through numb lips.

“Aren’t you?”

Damn him. She’d worked hard to save lives. To help those who’d been injured by her father and Genesis. “Why are you even here with me?” Cassie demanded. “If you don’t trust me”—she closed the space between them and angrily grabbed on to him as she jumped up those bottom steps—“why are you here?”

“Because I can’t walk away.”

Her laugh was bitter. “You didn’t seem to have that trouble in Chicago.”

His nostrils flared. The banked flames in his eyes lit. “When I breathe in your scent, I ache.”

Her lips parted in surprise.

“When I kissed you, your taste had me maddened.”

“Dante . . .”

“I look at you, and I think . . . mine.”

Could he hear the drumbeat of her heart? It felt like it was about to race right out of her chest.

“You say we aren’t lovers, but in my dreams, I’ve seen you naked.”

She dropped his hands. He wasn’t supposed to—

His hand rose. Touched her just over the curve of her right breast. “There’s a freckle here. I’ve licked it. I’ve kissed it.” His gaze swept down her body. “In my dreams, I’ve kissed you everywhere.”