Was it her siren’s song? Was she still pushing power through her words?

No, he realized. It was just . . . Cassie.

Her hands kept caressing his back. “You always feel so warm.”

The fire always burned within him.

Her gaze held his. “Should I ever worry about your flames?”

No, not her.

But before he could speak, a loud alarm pierced the air, echoing around them.

“Not again!” Cassie cried.

Yes, f**king again. But at least he’d had her before more chaos came calling.

Adrenaline flooded through Dante as he carefully pulled away from Cassie. Who had found them—or who was being attacked this time?

Cassie yanked on her clothes and rushed toward a series of monitors. She tapped on a keyboard and the images on those screens sharpened.

Dante stared at the image of a tall, muscled man. A man who had his arms wrapped round the shoulders of a dark-haired woman. Dante had never seen the man before, but, as he stared at that screen, tension gripped him. An instinctive, battle-ready edge that could only mean one thing.

Another of my kind.

“They’re here early,” Cassie said as she frowned at the screen. “I didn’t expect Cain and Eve to arrive until—” Her words ended in a startled gasp as Dante picked her up and carried her toward the small supply closet.

“Dante? Dante, what the hell are you doing? Put me down!”

Red began to coat his vision.

Another phoenix, a male, near his siren.

No.

He put her down—inside the closet. She stared at him with disbelief in her green eyes, looking for all the world like she thought he’d just gone insane.

Maybe he had. “Stay here.”

Her jaw dropped. “Those are my friends out there! Hell, no, I’m not going to—”

He slammed the door. Locked it. Cassie would not be getting in the middle of his battle.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He heard the sound of her small fists pummeling the door. More thuds—was she kicking it, too? It sure sounded that way.

“We just had sex!” she cried. “You can’t do this to me! You can’t lock me in here!”

He could. He had. And the sex had been phenomenal.

“Let me out of here!”

“I will,” he promised. “Once the threat is gone.”

Dead silence. Then she said, “That’s why you came. Not to help me. You wanted me to lead you to the other phoenixes!”

His hand pressed against the door. “We’re a dangerous lot. Not to be trusted.”

“Yeah, tell me something I didn’t just figure out when you locked me in the closet!”

His hand dropped. “He would have turned on you. With your siren blood, it would have been only a short time before he realized what you were. I’m protecting you.” Dante spun away from the closet.

It had been so long since he’d battled another phoenix. He didn’t know how old Cain O’Connor was, but the guy couldn’t be as old as he was.

So Cain wouldn’t be as strong.

More pounding came from the closet. “Dante, no! Don’t do this! Cain and Eve are here to help! Dammit, don’t!”

Dante would do anything to keep her safe.

Killing had always been easy for him.

When he’d watched his brother die, he had sworn to never be fooled by another of his kind. Cassie wouldn’t understand just how deceptive a phoenix could be.

He knew.

“Dante!”

He left her.

The sound of his footsteps faded away. Cassie had her left ear flattened against the wood of the door and knew when he left her. Actually left her locked in the closet.

Damn him!

The only light she had spilled beneath the door, showing her pretty much nothing. She spun around, fumbling in the darkness as her heart raced. She didn’t have much time. Dante was going after Cain, and she would not let Cain die.

He used me.

She’d thought—so foolishly—that Dante had wanted to help her, but all along, she’d just been a means to an end for him.

A siren? Total BS. Another line he’d spewed so that she’d trust him.

The absolute worst part was that she could still feel the jerk inside her. Her sex was flushed and sensitive—from him.

And he’d just locked my ass in a supply closet.

She’d gone from having an absolutely mind-numbing orgasm one minute to being shoved into a dirty supply closet. Dante’s after-sex technique sucked on so many levels.

Her fingers closed around the wooden pole of a mop. She tried ramming it into the door.