PS02 - Without Regret (47 page)

She watched as he disappeared from sight. For a few minutes she sat there in terror as she heard him slamming doors. When he

came back into view he was carrying a brown paper bag and he was heading towards her cell.

“Um, are you supposed to leave your cell?” she asked nervously as she watched him screw around with the touch pad that

controlled her cell. In seconds he was in her cell and walking towards her.

Just as she was about to run to the corner and get into her trusted fetal position he placed the bag on the bed next to her and sat

down, watching her expectantly.

Slowly, so as not to startle the angry looking teen, she opened the bag and looked down. She felt her eyes tear up as she looked

up and met his intense dark brown eyes.

“I love you,” she gushed as she hugged the bag to her chest.

The scowl was instantly replaced with a shy smile that turned him from broodingly handsome to heartbreakingly handsome in

seconds.

Chapter 40

He watched as the Ramjis demons took off as soon as the scent hit him and had to shake his head in wonder.

Did Logan really think that he wouldn’t notice the demons? Of course he was unable to scent them, but he’d been doing this for

a very long time and knew how to spot them.

It didn’t hurt that they kept their rotations coordinated around him, letting him know Logan’s game plan. He had to give it to

Logan though, it was a good plan. The Ramjis were fast, great trackers and strong and this plan would have worked on anyone

else. Unfortunately for Logan, Kale had made enemies in damn near every species and was always prepared for this type of

bullshit.

He moved back into the crowd or early morning walkers and watched as the Ramjis took after the scent. Not even thirty

seconds later a large group of Sentinels took off after them, confirming his suspicions. This had been a set up.

Shit.

Fine. They wanted to make this difficult. He could handle that, he decided as he shot another look at the line of aging

brownstones as he kept matched his pace with the crowd. He’d finish the job, both jobs soon. He just had to be a little patient.

********

minions were the easiest to spot, they were the ones lagging behind. They might be fast, but they were still human and wouldn’t

be able to keep up with the rest of them. They were going to be easy to pick off, or at least he’d make it easy for his backup to

grab them, he decided.

Thankfully he’d worked in Boston enough times to know some shortcuts and most of the places humans should avoid, but

didn’t. He cut across a busy intersection, ignoring the honking horns, jumped a hood and kept moving his ass, knowing that he

needed to get them as far away from the compound and take out as many of them as he could before they figured out that this

was a setup.

The few that already decided to cut their losses and head back had already been discretely taking down by his backup or his

father. But the bastards following him didn’t care that Izzy was nowhere in sight. The ones who’d scented her on him knew

he’d been in contact with her and were more than willing to settle on him if it meant they might use him to get to her.

Never fucking happening.

He’d kill every last one of them with his bare hands before he let them near her. He may not be able to be the man that she

needed him to be, but he was going to make damn sure that she was okay and so was their baby if that’s what she really wanted

and he knew it was.

His mate was going to have a little girl, a little girl he would never disappoint or hurt, but one he would also never see or hold.

As he cut down the narrow alleyway between a pawnshop and a Chinese restaurant he wondered if she’d have Izzy’s hair or

his. Would she be a short cute little thing like her mother or would she be tall like him. Cursing as he jumped over a fallen

trash can, he wondered if his little girl was going to need someone to hold her at three in the morning and hum to her to help her

fall back to sleep after her bottle the way Marc had when he was a baby or if she was going to wake up and need someone to

come scare the monsters out from under her bed when she was six.

Now wasn’t the time for this bullshit, he reminded himself. He needed to keep his focus if he was going to keep them safe. He

headed towards the dead end at the end of the alley and decided it was time to get rid of the minions. He forced himself to run

faster as he approached the ten foot high brick wall and when he was about ten feet from it he shifted course and headed for the

wall to his right. He jumped and quickly kicked off the wall and reached up, grabbing the rough edge of the brick wall and

pulled himself over.

“Son of a bitch!” he heard a man yell and knew it was a human, because the shifters and demons were still on his ass.

“Freeze!” he heard his backup yell and he knew the human problem was taken care of. Now it was time to get rid of the rest of

the riffraff so that he could haul his ass home before he did something he’d regret.

He chanced a look over his shoulder as he headed towards the long ago forgotten docks and warehouses and wondered if Kale

Quinn was currently on his ass.

God, he hoped so. He’d love to take out the biggest threat to his mate so that Eric and his team had one less thing to worry

about as they moved Izzy out of the country.

All he saw was a group of men and women determined to get their hands on him. He had no clue if Kale Quinn was back there

since no one knew what the man looked like other than a few vague descriptions, but he doubted the man was. Based on his

reputation alone, Chris knew the man would never follow along with this group. He would have already figured out a way to

cut Chris off and take him down. The fact that he hadn’t made Chris nervous.

He hoped the bastard hadn’t been able to cut Joshua off and got his hands on Izzy. No, there was no way his father would have

allowed that to happen, he reminded himself as he headed for small rust colored warehouse in front of him. He ignored the

heavily chained front doors and went for the boarded up window and launched himself at it.

The board shattered, splintering apart with a loud crack as he broke through it. His sore ribs sent up a reminder to be more

careful, but he ignored the warning and kept his ass moving until he made it to the middle of the stained cracked cement floor.

That’s when he stopped and turned.

His gun was already drawn by the time the first shifter, a female, jumped through the window and landed gracefully on her feet.

She quickly moved further in the room towards him as she released her claws.

“Where is she, Sentinel?” she demanded with contempt as she looked around the empty warehouse. When she tilted her head

slightly and inhaled deeply he knew she was trying to scent out his backup. She wouldn’t find any, at least not yet.

He watched as the rest of them made their way into the building. A few demons that he couldn’t quite figure out what they were

broke open the door and came in. There were ten of them and they all looked fucking eager as they formed a loose circle

around him. The rest of the shifters and demons apparently thought that was a good idea and joined, closing the circle and

blocking him in.

They eyed each other warily as they closed the circle even more and he wondered how long it would take for them to start

fighting over him. Probably when they realized he wouldn’t be giving up Izzy.

“Where is she?” one of the demons he couldn’t place asked and he noticed that he hadn’t bothered to eye the competition. Then

again none of his comrades had and that was telling. Without knowing what they were or what they were capable of, Chris

knew they were the ones to watch out for.

“Where’s who?” Chris asked, keeping his gun by his side.

“Don’t play coy with us, Sentinel. Tell us where the bitch is,” a shifter demanded.

“It would probably help if you told me who you were after,” Chris said, barely resisting the temptation to put a bullet through

the bastard’s head for the crude reference towards his Munchkin.

“This is a waste of time,” one of the demons said as he gestured to his allies to step forward. “We’ll take him to the Master and

let him sort this out.”

The female shifter stepped forward. “Why should you be allowed to take him? The Master I work for is just as capable of

extracting the information.”

Oh goody, they were going to fight over him, he thought dryly as he chanced a peek at his watch. He hoped like hell Eric was

using this little distraction and had Izzy at the airport by now. They’d probably face the same type of bullshit waiting for them

there, but with the cloying scents of thousands of humans, security and private entrances and the private plane they should be

able to avoid all this bullshit and get her safely out of the country.

God, he was going to miss her.

He loved her so fucking much. Why the hell hadn’t he kissed her or made love to her one last time? Because it would have

made leaving her so much harder to do. He didn’t know how he was going to make it through the night without her in his arms.

His heart ached for her as his body screamed for him to run, to go after her and join her and say to hell with everything else, but

he couldn’t.

He could never leave his family.

“We’re not asking, mutt,” the demon spat out the derogatory name for a shifter without a pack. “He’s coming with us.”

“I’m afraid that will be impossible.”

Everyone looked towards the door and sniffed the air. A few of them frowned, but most of them snickered as his father

continued to come towards them.

A female demon turned her sneer on him. “This is your backup? A human?”

Chris shoved away every useless wish and thought. It didn’t matter what he wanted or needed. Izzy was gone.

“They don’t cost much to feed,” he said with a lazy shrug.

He knew the second the group realized his father wasn’t human. They tilted their heads back again and inhaled deeply. A few

growled while others tried to make a run for it.

“It’s a Pyte!” one of the demons roared as he launched himself towards Ephraim.

While a few of the demons were focused on his father the few that weren’t making a run for it were coming after him. He

raised his gun and began to fire as a hollow emptiness that would probably never go away filled him.

********

than at the young man by his side.

“I was needed elsewhere and at least I knew she’d be safe,” Joshua said, stepping aside so that Eric could press the code into

the security pad. He hit the elevator call button with a little more force than necessary as he prayed for patience.

If Ephraim or Chris ever found out that Izzy had been placed in a cell they’d kill him. Then again if Madison found out, she’d

rip his throat out, slowly. He cringed at the reminder that the hormonally imbalanced female Pyte was currently residing in the

maximum security wing. If she started crying again he was making a fucking run for it, war going on or not, he couldn’t stand to

see her cry.

Part of him understood why he allowed her to be locked up. She was a sneaky little thing after all. He was still embarrassed

that he’d fallen for the PMS routine.

Common sense should have kicked him in the ass and reminded him that Sentinel females didn’t have PMS

or any of the human female problems, but he’d been a little stunned when she pulled that shit over him that he hadn’t been able

to think clearly.

“Uncle Eric!” The excited voice had them both cursing as they turned around. He barely had his arms out before the little boy

was launching himself into his arms.

“Hey, buddy,” he said, holding the little boy tightly in his arms. In his last century a lot of children had come into his life, but

none of them as special as this little boy. Although he loved Joshua and Jill as if they were truly his niece and nephew and

Chris like a brother, it was this little boy that he loved as if he were his own.

As much as he would have loved to have a child it just hadn’t been in the cards for him and his mate. Barely one year into their

mating she was attacked by a Seneai demon, a demon known for mutilating its victims and left for dead. Although she healed to

the point that she could once again work, she was unable to conceive.

After one last squeeze he put the little boy down.

Joshua butted fists with the little boy before putting his arm around Marc’s shoulders.

“Did you hear what happened, Uncle Eric?” he asked excitedly, shifting from foot to foot.

“I sure did, buddy,” Eric said, kneeling to put himself at eye level with the little boy. “And I’m very sorry that you had to leave

your home,” he said, sorrier than he could ever express. He’d wanted Marc and his brothers to have a safe, happy childhood

and in one night that hope had been destroyed.

“It’s okay,” Marc mumbled. “I just wish Grandma came with us.”

He did too. The damn woman was too damn stubborn for her own good and refused to leave the family home no matter how