Wyatt’s shoulders straightened. Behind the thin frames of his glasses, his eyes hardened. “Normally, I do.” The words were cold. Crisp. Ah, so he was trying to pull back his control. Crazy. “But these beings are immune from disease. They don’t age. They can kill savagely, perfectly. They can communicate on a psychic level—”
This just got better. But Ryder said, “Bullshit,” because the story was too impossible. He hoped it was.
“You’ll see.” Wyatt turned away from him. “Soon enough, I’ll show you what was created.”
The guy was heading for the door. “You said ‘us’ before,” Ryder called out.
Wyatt paused.
“You wanted a cure for ‘us,’ ” Ryder reminded him, focusing on the word that had first caught his attention. “So you’re one of the freaks, too?” I already knew that.
Wyatt glanced over his shoulder at him. “When my father realized the mistake he’d made with these experiments, when he saw how quickly they could infect others with their bite, he had to create a being who would be immune to them.”
His father?
“If a human gets so much as a single bite from these vamps, the infection takes over that person’s body.”
That wasn’t the way vamps were made. Never so quickly. And it took an actual blood exchange between the vampire and human, not just one single bite.
“The infection is in their saliva,” Wyatt said, rolling his shoulders a bit. “Humans don’t have an immune system or DNA strong enough to resist the transformation.” His lips twisted in a humorless smile. “Human DNA is actually designed to speed up the process.”
“But you’re immune, right?” That was what Wyatt had just said. “If you’re immune, then why don’t you just make up some vaccine from your blood so all the little humans in the world are safe?” The words were snarled, but Ryder actually meant what he said. If Wyatt wasn’t just bullshitting in an attempt to push Ryder into cooperating with his experiments, then this—shit, this really could be hell on earth.
“Because my blood’s poison.” The words were growled from Wyatt. “To the vamps and the humans . . . flawed. He made a mistake.”
He? The guy’s father? They were just a whole family of screwed-up assholes.
“Where are these vampires?” Ryder asked. If the guy was telling the truth, he wanted to know where these primal vamps were being held. Because I’ll kill them.
“They’re contained.” Wyatt opened the door. “I won’t let them out. Not until I’m sure of their control.”
The story could be a lie. “Show me one of them. Prove what you’ve got.” What you’ve done.
“No.” Wyatt didn’t look back this time. “They don’t get out. They never get out.”
They aren’t real. “This is bullshit!” Ryder yelled. “You don’t have them—you’re just trying to get me to cooperate.” He yanked on the chains. Felt more rage building in him. They’d taken Sabine. More experiments. More hell. The chains were embedded in the stone walls. The stone began to crack as he yanked with all of his strength. “I’m not cooperating! I’m going to fucking kill you!”
The door closed behind Wyatt. He’d gone.
Ryder kept pulling at the chains. Pulling . . .
“You can try to kill me.” Wyatt’s voice drifted through the speaker. “But I told you, I’m poison.”
Then they’d both die.
“Now I have to go see about your lovely phoenix. If you won’t cooperate”—Wyatt sighed—“maybe she will.”
Then there was only silence. The frantic beat of Ryder’s heart, and the knowledge that Sabine would be hurt. She’d be killed. And all he could do was sit in this cage and wait.
The rage built within him. Grew. With every second that passed, the man he was lost more and more control.
I can be fucking primal, too.
Wyatt was about to see just how primal the first vampire could be.
CHAPTER SEVEN
They left him alone in his cell for three weeks. Ryder counted the moments as the hunger grew within him. Sabine had tried to help him by giving him blood, but it hadn’t been enough. Wyatt had taken too much from him during all of those long, desperate¸ draining hours.
Need more.
His fangs burned in his mouth. His gut clenched with a hunger that wouldn’t stop, and he began to wonder . . .
When he’d been out, just what had Wyatt done? Taken blood, yes, but had the bastard injected him with something? The hunger was stronger, so much more intense than anything he’d felt before. And it certainly wasn’t the first time that an enemy had tried to starve him.