He shook his head. “Try again.”

Her jaw dropped. Her line had seemed perfectly believable. Well, most folks would have bought the line, anyway. Now wasn’t the time for a little heart-to-heart. She hated those talks. She’d already managed to make Trace angry by not telling him her secrets, and now Cain thought she’d just cut her soul open and reveal all to him on this crowded street?

Not gonna happen. “We have a club of vampires waiting about fifteen feet away.” Give or take a bit. “We don’t have time to pore over my issues with them right now.” The issues didn’t matter. She’d managed to control her fear plenty over the years, and Eve wasn’t about to break down. “I’ll keep it together, all right?”

His stare told her it wasn’t. “You don’t trust me.”

No, she didn’t.

His fingers brushed down her cheek. She barely controlled a shiver. The guy seemed to like touching her, sliding his fingers over her skin.

She liked it, too.

“Don’t worry,” Cain told her in that deep, rumbling voice that always made her knees want to jiggle—even when she was standing in front of a vampire bar. “I won’t let them get close to you.”

Promise? She clamped her lips together to hold that bit back. She didn’t want to look weak right then. Or ever.

Cain led her across the street. He didn’t get in that long line of eager humans. He headed right for the door. The bouncer glanced at him, baring fangs—but whatever he saw in Cain’s gaze had the guy stepping back.

Probably the flames. She could feel Cain’s body heating up beside her.

He shoved open the bar’s door, and the scent of blood grew even stronger. Music pounded. Humans moaned.

Vamps fed.

Lights flashed inside in a sickening whirl. Illuminating, then concealing. She saw the flash of fangs. Blood dripping down a woman’s throat.

The vamps had been the ones to start the paranormal coming-out party. They’d wanted an all-you-can-eat-buffet.

They’d gotten it.

She tried to see through the darkness. Vamps and prey. None of Wyatt’s hunters but . . .

Someone bumped her. “I like the way you smell,” a male voice whispered near her ear.

She stiffened. She smells so innocent . . . let me have a bite. The words were an echo from her nightmares. The ones that never stopped.

A hand was on her arm. Sliding over her skin. The fingers pressing against her were so cold. “You’re already bleeding,” the man murmured. “Want to give me a lick?”

“No, she f**king doesn’t,” Cain snarled and threw the vampire back a good ten feet.

The lights kept flashing around them.

But in those flashes, she saw that the vampires were moving. Rising. Closing in on them. Uh-oh.

“Cain . . .”

Vampires had closed in on her before. Only they hadn’t been hidden in the darkness. Fire had raged. Burned. Those flames had driven the vampires back right before their fangs could sink into her.

Let ’em all f**king burn. The words from her nightmares came again. The dark voice that she’d never forget. The vampire—he’d left her to the fire. Left her to die.

She’d screamed, but the vampires had run away and given her to the flames.

She’d been four years old. She’d screamed and screamed and screamed.

Blood and fire were a terrible mix.

“Someone’s scared,” a vampire whispered. When the lights flashed again, a big, tall, dark-haired vamp was two feet from her. Smiling. “Fear can taste so sweet.”

Cain pushed her behind him. “Know what doesn’t taste sweet? Fire.”

His fire blasted right at the vampire, who screamed and fell to the floor, rolling to put out the flames that were racing over his flesh.

The guy had to hurry . . . fire could kill a vampire. No stake to the heart needed.

The other vamps started to lunge forward.

But Cain just let more fire burn. He created a line of fire that separated him and Eve from the vampires. “Listen up!” he called out, voice clear and strong. “Unless you want this whole club to burn, some of you are gonna start talking.”

That wasn’t exactly the approach she’d planned to use. Eve had been hoping to talk quietly with some of the vamps, to ask some sly questions and broker some deals in the back of Blood Bath. She wanted a low profile.

She obviously wasn’t getting what she wanted.

“I want to know about a prick named Richard Wyatt!” Cain’s voice carried to every corner of the bar. “A bastard who’s been hunting your kind.”