PS02 - Without Regret (23 page)

dummy while he waited for her control to snap.

He didn’t have to wait long.

“I think you should give her a chance,” she finally said.

“I don’t see the point. She’s weak and hopeless,” he said, backhanding the dummy, knocking a large chunk of its skull off in the

process.

“But she’s your mate, Chris, and as far as I know you only get one,” she pointed out gently in that same tone he’d heard her use

a hundred times on the woman at the shelter she worked at.

“Then I guess I don’t get one, because she’s out of here first thing in the morning.” he said, shrugging like it was no big deal

when all he wanted to do was go back upstairs and demand the name of every guy who’d ever touched her so that he could go

hunt them down and rip their fucking heads off for touching his mate.

Not that she was an innocent party in all of this. Oh hell no. Izzy was far from innocent. She’d let another man touch her, touch

what was rightfully his, when he knew she hadn’t felt one fucking ounce of sexual desire for the men. Sentinel woman were just

as fucked as the men in that department and he knew without a doubt that she hadn’t been wet for any of the men she’d allowed

to touch her.

After her little announcement upstairs he’d been hell bent on finding out the truth. It frightened him a little that he had to force

himself to take it slow and focus on Sentinel business first when all he wanted to do was find out if she was lying. He knew he

could have asked his father if she was a virgin since it was one of things his father could scent on a person from a distance, but

he wanted to hear it from her lips.

When she’d answered him like it was no big deal he’d known that she was no better than his mother, who’d fuck anyone as

long as she got something out of it. She hadn’t wanted any of those men, yet she’d still fucked them. The instant he’d realized

that he’d gained back control with an eerie clarity and he’d thankfully lost the erection that had threatened his sanity. Now he

knew better. He knew what she was and it just made him even more determined to get her the hell away from him as soon as

possible.

Jill sighed heavily as she pulled her wavy red, almost brown hair now, back into a ponytail. “Do you mind telling me why you

don’t want to give her a chance?”

she asked softly, but he had no problem hearing her over the sounds of his fists connecting with the dummy thanks to his

Sentinel hearing. Sometimes it was a godsend, but right now it was just a pain in the ass.

“I’m not interested in counseling, Jill,” he said, hoping she just accepted it and left him the hell alone.

Of course she didn’t.

“So you’re willing to force her into a life of solitude because you don’t want the inconvenience of an untrained mate?” she

asked, folding her hands on her lap as she watched him closely, a little too closely.

Normally he’d laugh her attempts to counsel him off, but tonight he just wasn’t in the mood to be analyzed.

“Let it go, Jill,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I know you don’t want to hear this right now, Chris, but you’re being unfair to her. You know the second you hand her over to

Eric that any chance that she may have had to make a life for herself will be over. There’s a war going on and no one will have

time to train her,”

she pointed out. “She’ll be shipped to one of the islands where she’ll stay until she can prove that she can take care of herself,

but even then you know they won’t release her until this war is over.”

He paused his assault on the dummy to look over at his sister. “They’ll never release her,” he admitted.

“Wh-what?” she asked, looking a little stunned by his announcement.

“I said, they’ll never release her. As long as she’s alive and there’s even one Master around that remembers her name she’ll

always be a risk,” he explained, not mentioning that with the rejection of her mate and being locked away for any amount of

time the Sentinel council would no doubt lose her loyalty, or rather, in her case they would never gain it. There had been a few

cases in the past where a mate was rejected and sequestered by the Council only to be released years later bitter and angry and

those few Sentinels had sought their revenge. The Council no longer took that risk, so once Izzy stepped onto one of the islands

she would never again leave it.

“Oh my god, Chris. You can’t do that to her,” Jill said, sliding off the table and quickly making her way over to him. “She

doesn’t deserve to be locked away, especially since you really didn’t give her a chance.”

“She’s had plenty of chances, Jill. The woman is almost twenty-eight years old and is weak and most importantly she’s a

coward. There’s not one redeeming quality about her that would make me want to keep her around,” he said, with forced

patience. As much as he wished he could tell her to mind her own fucking business, he couldn’t. She was his sister and he took

care of her and occasionally had to put up with her bullshit, kind of like now.

“Oh really?” Jill demanded, crossing her arms over her chest as she looked up at him giving him a mocking smile. “Can you

honestly tell me that you don’t want her around?” When he went to answer her she held up a hand stopping him. “And keep in

mind that I was down in the foyer when you couldn’t take your eyes off of her,”

she said with the smug little knowing grin that he didn’t see too much these days.

“She’s my responsibility, Jill, and has information that we need, of course I’m going to keep an eye on her,” he explained

casually, when he knew she was right. He’d had a hell of a time focusing on anything but Izzy, which was just another reason

why she needed to leave.

“So you’re fine with sending her away? With the real possibility that you’ll never see her again?” Jill asked, watching him

intently as she waited for his answer.

“She’s nothing but a distraction, Jill. We’ll all be better off when she’s gone.”

Shaking her head, she snorted in disgust. “Sometimes you can be such an asshole.”

He didn’t say anything as she stormed off since he knew she was right, but there really was no choice in the matter. Izzy had to

go.

Chapter 18

“Easy, just relax.”

Isabella threw Joshua a disbelieving look as she practically clung to the floor, wishing they were on the first floor or better yet

outside on solid ground. Why the hell couldn’t she stop shaking? It didn’t help that she was still lightheaded and felt like she

was going to be sick.

“It will get better in a few minutes,” he promised in a surprisingly soothing voice. Granted those were the same words he’d

used on her ten minutes ago when he helped Ephraim get her down from the rope. As soon as she was lowered to the ground

she’d clung onto him, unable to shove away the feeling that she was going to fall.

When Ephraim offered to carry her to a room she’d tightened her death grip-like hold on Joshua and flat out refused to go with

Ephraim. Not because she was afraid of the man, she wasn’t. She wasn’t stupid. The man could have torn her apart or the very

least threatened to do that a thousand different times by now, but he hadn’t. He’d been patient and very protective of her.

No the reasoning behind her refusal was very simple.

One, she’d felt as though she’d fall if she released Joshua, who’d held her tightly and tried soothing her and secondly, she was

still pretty pissed that the man had left her with his psycho son. If the door slamming in Ephraim’s face moments later was any

indication then so was Madison.

“Do you feel like you’re going to be sick?” Joshua asked as he knelt by her side and gently pushed her sweat slicked hair out of

her face.

She squeezed her eyes shut and nodded firmly, once.

Any movement beyond that would probably make her sick, she decided.

“Okay, we’ll just sit here and talk for a little while. How does that sound?” he asked, sounding much older than he appeared.

Then again Ephraim appeared to be only in his late twenties, early thirties so maybe Joshua was older. Granted he hadn’t

exactly acted older earlier when he’d been flirting with her and taunting Chris for his own amusement.

“How old are you?” she found herself asking.

“Twenty-one.”

“Oh,” she mumbled.

“Why?”

“You just sounded older for a minute there,” she explained, wondering when her world would stop spinning.

“I have my moments,” he said, chuckling softly. “Are you feeling good enough so that I can finally take a look at those

scratches?”

“I don’t think they need stitches,” she said absently as she reached up and tentatively touched them, wincing a little bit at the

slight sting.

“I’m sure you’re right, but we really need to make sure that we clean them soon,” he said calmly, but Isabella was anything but

calm now.

Her eyes shot open as a truly frightening thought occurred to her and she tried to sit up, but the lightheadedness intensified,

causing her to drop back to the ground.

“Whoa, just relax, Izzy,” Joshua said soothingly, but nothing in the world would calm her down until she found out exactly how

bad this was going to be for her.

“Am I going to sprout fangs and fur or do I have to worry about going Cujo on everyone?” she asked, squeezing her eyes tightly

shut as she willed her nausea away.

“What?” Joshua asked, sounding confused.

“The bite marks! I was bitten by a werewolf right?” she asked, but didn’t give him a chance to answer as she continued her

panic induced rant. “Will I be getting furry once a month? Do I need to invest in flea collars?

Or am I going to be foaming at the mouth and chasing cars?”

She heard Joshua clear his throat and slowly opened her eyes to find the man biting back a smile. “This isn’t funny,” she bit

out, narrowing her eyes on him.

“No, no, of course it’s not,” he said with a straight face, but she didn’t miss the humor glimmering in his eyes.

“Well?” she snapped when he didn’t answer her, at least not fast enough.

“Did you drink his blood?” he asked, lips twitching for some insane reason.

“Did I…..what?” she mumbled as his words sank home.

“Ew! No, I didn’t drink his blood!”

“Not that it matters, because you’re a Sentinel, but if you had been human and drank his blood-“

“Why the hell would I drink his blood?” she demanded, cutting him off and wondering when her life was going to get back to

normal.

Joshua ignored the interruption as he continued. “-then there would be a fiftyfifty chance that you would shift three nights in a

row, starting on the full moon, but since you’re a Sentinel and you’re alive I’m going to just go ahead and say that you didn’t

digest any blood.”

“Oh,” was her lame response.

“Exactly,” he said, reaching back and picking up a small red First Aid kit. “We do however have to worry about infection,

which is why I’m going to clean up your cuts if you think you can handle the scent of disinfectant right now,” he said, arching a

brow in question as he pulled out a small bottle of antiseptic and a small pile of bright white gauze pads.

“That would be great, thank you,” she managed to say as she tried to wrap her mind around all the information she’d learned in

the past twentyfour hours and failed miserably.

“I’ll be as gentle as I can, but I need to make sure your cuts are thoroughly cleaned,” he explained as he applied a small amount

of the antiseptic and started to carefully clean out her cuts.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked, wincing when he cleaned out a particularly nasty scratch.

“Of course.”

She nibbled her bottom lip nervously as she wondered if she really wanted to know the truth. As much as she’d love to leave

here and pretend that none of this had happened, she couldn’t. There were too many questions unanswered and she knew if she

didn’t find what else was out there she would never leave her apartment again and would soon be known to the neighborhood

children as that creepy computer geek in apartment 7B.

The only way to lead a safe, relatively normal life was to find out exactly what she had to fear and how to protect herself. She

also needed to find out what would be more effective, bathing in garlic water or holy water.

She’d wear holy relics, bath in whatever would keep the monsters away and only come out during the day if that’s what it took,

but she needed to know exactly what would work.

But before she found out what else was out there she needed to find out a few things about herself and their merry little house

of psychos.

“What’s a Sentinel?” she asked, tilting her head back to give him better access.

He paused mid-wipe as he frowned down at her in clear confusion. “Chris didn’t tell you?”

“No, not really,” she said, wincing when a drop of antiseptic landed on a cut.

“Maybe he didn’t get to it. There’s a lot to cover after all. What exactly did he go over with you so far?”

“That I shouldn’t run away from a werewolf,” she said, trying to remember if he’d gone over anything else.

“Oh, and that I’m a Sentinel, whatever the hell that means.”

For a moment he only stared down at her until she finally had about enough of being gawked at and slowly, oh so slowly, sat

up. She leaned back against the bed and took a slow calming breath as she waited for her body to stop shivering. If nothing

else, she owed Chris an ass whooping for not only hanging her upside down, but for leaving her there.