PS02 - Without Regret (34 page)

Not quite yet.

Was there really a point in leaving and finishing this job? Once he did what needed to be done he would be the most wanted

man on earth by the Sentinels. They’d capture him, torture his ass and behead him. That is of course if the boy’s parents didn’t

get to him first, which they would.

Marc Williams was the beloved child of an ex-New Hampshire State police detective and ex-high school history teacher. They

were well respected upstanding members of the community and the parents of three adult children. Of course they were also the

subject of a great deal of gossip, which was how he gathered his information.

They weren’t aging.

Ephraim Williams came to Rerum, New Hampshire over fifteen years ago and Madison over ten years ago and they both still

looked to be in their mid-twenties according to a group of little old ladies who were selling burnt cookies in front of the post

office for the church explained earlier. That had confirmed it to him that he was dealing with a pair of adult Pytes.

The other piece of gossip had floored him. The female, Madison, was pregnant with twins according to her grandmother,

who’d called everyone in town to share the news. It was the last thing on earth that he wanted to hear and made things a

thousand times more complicated.

He could either kill the little boy now and make a run for it and come back for the babies once they were born or he could take

the boy out now and tear the female apart with his hands and pray he did enough damage to make her abort the babies since the

babies were protected and could only be harmed if the mother was in severe distress.

None of the options appealed to him, but he knew he couldn’t sit back and risk having three more Pytes in the world. Whatever

he did had to happen soon before they scented his presence and took the option out of his hands.

The first chance he got he was taking Marc Williams out.

*********

crouching behind the open driver’s side door of the car Chris had stolen and attempting to hot wire the piece of junk.

Why the hell wasn’t this thing starting? she wondered for the hundredth time. She’d done exactly what the video told her to do.

At least she thought she had. After throwing a cautious look over her shoulder to make sure that she was still alone in the very

dark parking lot that was really creeping her out, she looked back at her small Netbook and refreshed the video.

“I did that,” she grumbled as she watched the man in the video flick two wires together. “Why the hell didn’t it work?”

“Because you didn’t press the wires together long enough, Munchkin,” Chris mused somewhere behind her, making her freeze

in terror.

“Oh,” she said, swallowing hard, trying not to make any sudden moves and give herself away.

“Don’t you have anything that you want to say to me?”

he asked casually, but she could detect some definite anger in his tone and really who could blame him?

She might have gone overboard when she allowed him to piss her off enough to take a little bit of revenge out on him while

he’d been handcuffed to the bed. Being left handcuffed to a bed like that by her was probably bad enough and she probably

should have left it at that, but he’d pissed her off.

As much as she would love to say that she’d been the bigger person, acted maturely and simply walked out of the room, she

couldn’t. After everything that she’d been through she hadn’t been able to leave without exacting a little petty revenge. At the

time she knew he’d wring her neck if he ever caught up with her, but it hadn’t mattered. Well, it had, but she’d been admittedly

a little pissed to think clearly.

For stealing her chocolate, hanging her upside down, tormenting her, turning her life upside down, treating her like crap and

giving her the best sex of her life only to turn around and turn back into Super Jerk she stuffed his sock in his mouth, and not a

clean one.

Although she hadn’t understood his mumbling at the time she was pretty sure he threatened her ass with anything but tender

loving care. After that she’d hauled ass out of there even though she knew she should do something more to the big jerk for

everything else that he’d done to her she couldn’t.

Anyone else probably would have taken the time to get back at him, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Not that it wouldn’t have served him right if she’d shoved a bucket of ice down his pants or something equally as mean, but

she’d unable to bring herself to do it. As much as it pissed her off to be treated the way she had she understood that he was

protecting his family, even if in her opinion he’d been a little insensitive and a big jerk while doing it.

Of course she’d be lying if she said the only reason she didn’t want to take a little sweet revenge on him was just because of

his family. It wasn’t. From the second that he came barreling into that dining room she’d felt an odd connection with him, a

connection that became almost smothering after they’d had sex.

When she’d handcuffed him to the bed she immediately felt as though she was betraying him and when she walked out the hotel

room she felt like her heart was breaking. She couldn’t believe she could feel this way about any man, especially someone

who’d aided in her kidnapping and fully planned on sending her to live the rest of her life on an island away from everything

she’d ever known. She should hate him, but she couldn’t.

She might not be able to hate his guts the way she should, but that didn’t mean she was going to let him push her around. She’d

escaped him once and she could damn well do it again.

“Well?” Chris demanded when she didn’t answer him.

“Well, what?” she asked, standing up and slowly turning around and somehow stopping herself from wincing when she spotted

that damn muscle tick beneath his eye. This was going to be so bad for her ass if she couldn’t get away from him.

“Don’t you think you owe me an apology?” he asked quietly, looking more gorgeous than any man with mussed hair, a day’s

worth of beard, and a wrinkled grey tee shirt should look as he absently toyed with a pair of handcuffs, which at that moment

frightened her probably more than the clearing full of werewolves.

“Yes, yes of course I do,” she said as she stepped out from behind the door.

Chris sighed heavily. “You’re going to try and make a run for it, aren’t you?”

“No, of course not. Running at this point would just be silly,” she said as she tried to look innocent. Judging by that tick doing

double time and the glare he was sending her it wasn’t working.

Time for plan B.

“Oh my god, behind you!” she cried out, not bothering to make sure that he looked away before she took off running. She didn’t

make it five feet before he had his arms tightly around her.

“Not so fast, Munchkin,” he whispered harshly in her ear. “You and I have some unfinished business to settle.”

“No, we don’t!” she snapped as she tried to struggle out of his arms.

“We sure as hell do, Munchkin,” he said, pulling her tightly against his body.

She sucked in a surprised breath as she felt his erection press against her lower back. “Oh god…..,” she choked out as her

body reacted to the touch, instantly going hot and wet for him. This was insane. She didn’t even like the big jerk, but she

wanted him so much that she hurt for him.

“I believe there’s a conversation that we really need to finish, don’t you?”

Chapter 28

“You son of a bitch! You said we were going to talk!”

“We are,” Chris said in a bored tone as he tossed her into the back of the black SUV he decided to steal.

“How is this talking?” she demanded as she tried to squirm into a sitting position, but she was having a hell of a time doing it

with her hands cuffed behind her back and her feet tied together with the small rope he’d made out of the motel’s top sheet.

“Well, this isn’t talking. This is more along the lines of kidnapping I guess you could say,” he said as he reached over the back

seat and tossed their bags in the back.

“Could say? What the hell else would you call tying my up and throwing me in the back of a car?”

“Foreplay?” he suggested, immediately regretting his choice of words. Not because of the cute little murderous glare that

promised all kinds of violence to his balls, but because just the thought of foreplay or just touching her in general had his poor

dick twitching.

He still couldn’t believe she’d tricked him by teasing him. He’d been so fucking hard for her and ready to fuck her until neither

one of them could move and all she’d cared about was getting him to do what she wanted so that she could ditch his ass. It was

a nice little reminder of who he was dealing with and only confirmed his earlier suspicions that she’d fucked those men before

him because she needed something. It disgusted and appalled him that he’d so readily fell for her bullshit.

Well, he’d learned his lesson where she was concerned.

Not only was she weak, but she couldn’t be trusted and trust was a big fucking deal to him. There was only a handful of people

that he trusted completely and she was not one of them and never would be. He needed to end this bullshit assignment and get

back to protecting his family. The shit was hitting the fan and he didn’t want to leave them vulnerable.

“You’re an asshole,” she bit out.

He simply shrugged and shut the door. If she wanted to think he was the bad guy then that was more than fine with him. It would

help the two of them keep their distance and make it easier for her to part from him in a couple of hours. Then he’d go back to

his life and his family and everything would be great.

Fucking perfect, he thought bitterly. Just what he wanted. After all these fucking years and he had a fucking depressing future to

look forward to. He was going to be alone forever, but this time it was by his choice.

There were two futures he could choose from. A life with his family, the people he loved and who had taken him in when he

was at the lowest point in his life or with a woman he didn’t trust, didn’t particularly like at the moment and brought all of this

bullshit down on them.

It wasn’t exactly a hard decision to make.

At least he shouldn’t be. Every time he thought about leaving her at the Boston compound he had to fight back the panic that

threatened to take over. He didn’t want to care or need her, but he did and he was afraid if he didn’t get the hell away from her

soon he never would be able to. She needed to live a safe life and the only way that was going to happen was under strict

protection, protection he couldn’t give her.

“Where are we going?” she demanded as he slid in the driver’s side seat.

“Don’t worry about it,” he murmured as he ripped the plastic cover beneath the steering wheel aside and proceeded to hotwire

the car.

“Did you seriously just tell me not to worry about it?”

she demanded, sounding pissed off again.

“Yup.”

“Look, I understand there’s a lot out there that I don’t know about, but I’m willing to learn and while I learn, I promise that I’ll

be really careful. You also don’t have to worry about me telling anyone about your family so if you can let me go and I

promise-“

“I wouldn’t bother making promises that you can’t keep, Munchkin,” he said, cutting her off and whishing that she’d just give

into exhaustion and to go to sleep so that he could pretend that he wasn’t going to fuck both their lives up in a matter of hours.

“But I can, Chris. Even if someone gets their hands on me I want you to know that I won’t talk. I promise!”

“There’s no way you’d be able to keep that promise, Munchkin,” he said gently as he turned onto the highway.

“You don’t know that!” You don’t a damn thing about me except for the bullshit you’ve convinced yourself of!

I didn’t do anything wrong and I don’t deserve to be put away like some prisoner, Chris. Don’t do this!” she said, sounding

close to tears.

His hands tightened around the steering wheel as he forced himself to keep his eyes on the road and not look back, because he

knew that if he did she just might break him and he couldn’t handle that.

*********

Kale didn’t take his eyes away from the house far below him as he pulled the phone a few inches away from his sensitive ear.

“Why the hell are you hiding when I hired you for a job?”

“I’m doing it now,” Kale answered, glad the man hadn’t been able to follow him out of town since the last thing he needed was

for Logan to get curious about this family.

Logan was a Master and like most Masters he craved more power and control and they both knew that having a Pyte among his

ranks would make him almost unstoppable. The moment the boy came into his true immortality he would be forced to turn as

many humans as Logan could get his hands on so that he could create a deadly vampire army. Kale would never allow that to

happen.

Not again.

He’d been foolish the first time he allowed a Pyte child to live. He would not make that mistake again. As much as he detested

his duty, he would do it. But it would have to wait, he decided as he watched Logan out of the corner of his eye.