CHAPTER NINETEEN

Eve was in bed when she heard the rap on her balcony door. She sat up, heart racing, sure that she must be dreaming. Then the rap came again.

She was on the fourteenth floor. How the hell could someone be knocking at her balcony door?

Sucking in a deep gulp of air, Eve grabbed for her gun. Yeah, she had one. Courtesy of her lawyer. She was also more than ready to use the weapon if she needed to do so.

A late-night visitor, one who came by way of the balcony . . .

“Eve.” Just her name, but she knew that voice.

Eve put the gun back on the nightstand and hurried across the room. Before she could reach for the lock, the balcony door slid open.

Cain stood there, his hair wet from the light rain that had begun to fall.

Eve shook her head. How had the guy gotten out there?

“I didn’t want to scare you.”

Wait. Did he smile? He did.

“So I knocked first.”

Fourteenth freaking floor. “How did you get out here?”

Cain glanced up with raised brows.

Oh no, the guy had better not be telling her that he’d just dropped from the floor above her. But that wicked smile on his lips said . . .

Eve grabbed his arm and yanked him fully inside her room. “You’re crazy!”

His eyes flickered. “Yes.”

Not exactly the response she’d expected. Eve backed away from him.

“I should probably be staying the hell away from you,” he said, his voice low and growling, “but I can’t.” His gaze raked her. “Sometimes, I feel like I need you more than I need f**king air.”

The words were dark. No, he was dark. A big, dangerous shadow who stalked her across the room.

Eve was too conscious of the rumpled bed that waited behind her—and of her own need. Whenever Cain was around, she needed.

“I can’t leave you again.” The words held a ragged edge. “I think you might be the only thing keeping me sane.”

That scared the hell out of her. But when he advanced on her, Eve didn’t retreat. Not that time. She put her hand on his chest. “What happens to you?”

His head tilted to the side. His body was warm. So big.

Fire.

“When you burn, Cain, what happens?” She’d wanted to ask before, but now nothing held her back. She wanted to know everything about him. Good. Bad.

Just as he knew everything about her.

His gaze slid over her and she felt it like a touch of his hands. “There are some things that you’re better off not knowing.”

Not this. “Where do you go?” The twist in her gut already told her.

“Hell.”

The shake of her head was an instinctive denial. Not him. No.

“The flames from hell are the only ones strong enough to bring me back. So I die, the beast within me flies to hell, then that fire gives me the strength to come back.”

“What is—” It like?

“More pain that you can ever imagine. Screams that don’t stop. Agony that rips me apart.”

He did this every time he burned? His heart pounded in a strong, steady beat beneath her fingertips. “Is that why, when you come back, you don’t seem to know me?” She hated when he looked at her with only fury and fire in his eyes.

Just as she hated that Trace’s eyes now showed only the beast.

As Cain stared at her, there was a tenderness in his gaze. A sadness. “Sometimes, I don’t know my own damn self. I only know hate. Fury. The fire.”

He was . . . darker each time. She’d felt that darkness growing.

“I have to fight to find myself again.” He exhaled slowly. “But the last time, the last two times, I knew you when I came back. Not your name, just . . . you.”

Eve wasn’t sure what that meant.

“You kept me in control.”

Uh-oh. That had been control? If that had been a controlled Cain, Eve didn’t want to see him without his restraint.

“Because you’re mine.”

Her heart lurched at that. “Cain . . .”

He stood before her. The back of her knees hit the bed.

“I climbed out of hell for you. To come back to you. When I rose, I wanted to kill everyone around me—anyone who stood between us.” His words were so fierce. “I’m not . . . safe, Eve. I’ve known that my whole life. Each time I die, I always know I could be a rising away from insanity. From not ever remembering who I am and letting the beast loose to kill and burn.”

“You haven’t hurt me.” He hadn’t. Not even when he’d been in that cage at Genesis. Subject Thirteen. The man with the wild eyes and the leashed power.