That someone wouldn’t be Jon. He still needed to stay off the grid.

“Cassie’s tracking signal led us here.”

He glanced over and saw Shaw frowning down at the phone in her hand—and at the tracking screen that had appeared on that phone.

“She should be here.” Shaw seemed confused.

Jon headed toward the primal vampire. “You put the tracker in her arm?”

“Yes, I—”

“Is the signal still transmitting?”

Shaw pointed to the vampire. “It says that she’s right there.”

Dammit. “She isn’t, but the ass**le who fed on her is here.” That was why the vamp was frozen. “Got a taste of her poison, didn’t you, dumbass?” Jon muttered to the dead man.

“Wait, you’re saying he—”

“When the vamp fed on her, he ate the tracker, and Cassie is long gone.” Fucking hell.

Fury flooded through his body. He’d thought that he was close, that he would have her back by now—

But she was gone.

Gone.

He whirled and grabbed Shaw, yanking her up against him. “You said you could find her!”

Fear rolled off Shaw in waves that he could smell. Then she was gasping, twisting in his hold as she tried to break free.

Smoke rose from her arm—from the touch of his fingers.

He was blistering her flesh. In a few more moments, he’d give the bitch third degree burns.

“I’m sorry!” she yelled. “Stop! Please, stop!”

He didn’t want to stop, but he stepped back. For the moment. “I need Cassie.”

Tears leaked down Shaw’s cheeks. “I know. You have to find her.”

He did. The throbbing was back, nearly ripping through his temples. “She’s gone. There’s no tracker.” Fire burst from his fingertips. It would be so easy to put that fire against Shaw’s skin. “I have no f**king clue what kind of car she is in or where she went.”

“Please! Keep the fire away!”

The fire wasn’t touching her. He had control. For now. “She’s with the phoenix. Dante isn’t going to let her go. He’ll keep her close and—”

Shaw stumbled back.

He smiled. “A phoenix’s weakness.”

She had fallen to the ground. “What?”

“Do you know why there aren’t many phoenixes around?” His voice was mild.

Shaw shook her head.

“Because they can kill each other. They have, actually, over and over again.” He glanced at the wreckage. All of that wonderful fire. “They don’t know I’m alive.” A huge advantage for him. “When I start to burn, they’ll think it’s another phoenix.”

“Burn? Burn what?”

He glanced over at her. “Everything.”

Every damn thing that Cassie had ever held dear. Good thing he knew her well. “I’ll light up Cassie’s world until Dante has to come for me, and when he comes, she’ll be there.”

If he couldn’t find Cassie, then he’d smoke her out—literally.

She’d come to him, and he’d get exactly what he wanted.

I need her.

Something inside Jon was pushing him to find her. Clawing to get out and get to her. Was it the phoenix? Dante’s beast had recognized Cassie as a mate. Jon knew that from the Genesis reports he’d read. During one of Dante’s desperate risings, that confession had broken from him. He’d claimed Cassie only once, but that slip-up had been noted by Genesis.

Maybe Jon’s own, newly developed phoenix was experiencing that same instinctive recognition.

“Why did Dante come for her at the ranch?” he asked.

Shaw shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Dante had risked himself to go and rescue Cassie. Now . . . Jon was finding himself obsessed by her.

Cassie’s blood was poison to vampires, a little tweak that her father had performed on her.

But what if there was something . . . else . . . that had also been done to sweet little Cassie?

Something that was drawing him to her. Something that was making him think . . .

Mine.

“We light up her world,” Jon said again. “And we bring her to me.” He’d find out what was happening and he’d get the tears that he needed.

Failure wasn’t an option.

Shaw rose slowly to her feet once more and nodded.

“Cassie!”

Dante grabbed her and yanked her away from the—what the hell? The howl had sounded as if it had come from a fully shifted werewolf, but Dante wasn’t staring at a beast.