PS03 - Tall, Dark & Heartless (11 page)

freezing. She considered pulling the fitted sheet off the small mattress and curling up with it, but it was probably damp as well.

Not that it mattered since she didn't have the energy to get up, never mind perform that little feat at the moment. All she wanted

to do was lie here and wait for the hunger and pain to go away, but the man glaring at her as he paced the room didn't look like

he was going to be very accommodating by shutting the hell up and stopping that damn rattling anytime soon.

"I'm not sure if you noticed or not, but I wasn't exactly in a position to fight off all of them. I was kind of busy being

electrocuted and drowned," she said dryly.

He waved it off. "I'm not talking about that and you damn well know it. What I want to know is why the hell you let that

asshole in your life after I told you to stay the fuck away from him?" he demanded, showing more emotion than she'd ever seen

him display. Even when she was a child he never let his emotions get the better of him. No matter what happened he always

remained in control, but right now he looked on edge. If she wasn't so damn exhausted and weak she might actually manage to

crack a smile at the sight.

Anyone else would probably be quivering in the corner, pissing themselves at the sight before her, but he didn't scare her.

When she was a kid she used to love pushing his buttons to see what it would take to get his eyes to flash red and his fangs to

drop. Most of the time he'd given her a little eye roll just before he did what she wanted just to get her to stop. The only times

she didn't have to do anything was when Greg came too close to her. Then he unleashed the monster inside of him.

A few times she actually thought he was going to kill Greg. After she fell into that pit was one of the most memorable

times. She didn't remember much about the incident other than a lot of pain, Caine hovering over her as she tried not to cry too

much, but the one thing that she did remember clearly was Caine's reaction when he spotted Greg.

His eyes turned red as his teeth slid down and he crouched in front of her, looking close to attacking. She wasn't sure if he

reacted that way because of the cruel little smile Greg sent her way or what, but she knew even then that he wanted to rip

Greg's small throat out. Even then she knew what would happen to Caine if he did and she'd been terrified of being alone again,

but she'd been more afraid for him.

She remembered reaching out and taking his much larger hand into hers before passing out. When she woke up hours later

he was by her side so she assumed that he hadn't hurt Greg, but things changed. Before he seemed to find Greg's presence

annoying, but after that he eyed Greg as if he was Satan himself. He constantly drilled it into her head that she needed to stay

away from him and to never find herself alone with him. Since she hadn't cared for Greg one way or the other she'd listened,

but once she was an adult and she no longer had Caine to count on, she allowed herself to welcome Greg into her life, hoping

for a good friendship, but apparently that had been asking for too much.

"You gave up the right to tell me what to do when you turned your back on me," she pointed out, glad that she didn't sound

as bitter as she felt about that.

He'd been her world, her friend, her mentor, her everything and then he wasn't. The way he dropped her out of his life left

her hurt, confused, lost and so damn lonely that for the first few months she wasn't even able to be in the same room with him

without feeling like she was going to cry. It was a weakness that she forced herself to get over.

"Is that what this was all about?" he demanded harshly, never ceasing his damn pacing.

"What?" she asked, fighting exhaustion even as it threatened to take her under again.

"Allowing that bastard to get close to you, trusting him," he practically sneered. "You did it to spite me because I tired of

you?"

"Yeah, it's really all about you," she said dryly to cover the pain his words caused. Guessing and knowing that he'd gotten

sick of her were two very different things and having it confirmed was a blow she hadn't been ready for.

He glared at her and she thought he was going yell again, but after a moment he looked away from her as if the sight of her

disgusted him and she was more than fine with that. She didn't want him seeing her weak like this, and she sure as hell didn't

want him to know just how much his desertion had hurt her.

Her eyes began to flutter shut when the door opened. She watched Caine drop into a crouching position in front of her. She

wasn't sure what the hell that was about and wasn't going to allow herself to think that it meant anything. It didn't. If anything it

was just leftover sentimentality for the little girl she once was. She also knew that once they threatened his blood supply that

she was on her own, once again.

A low growl vibrated throughout the room as the door opened. Her entire body tensed and she hated herself in that

moment for reacting. The last thing she wanted to do was to give Greg any kind of response. Something told her that if she did,

the sick bastard would up his game and her situation would get a hell of a lot worse.

When a tall, lean man with golden blonde hair combed back in a style that befitted a CEO stepped inside of the room she

felt herself relax, somewhat. For all she knew this man was worse than Greg, but he didn't have that personal vendetta against

her that Greg seemed to have, so for the moment she decided she wasn't going to panic.

The man stopped just inside of the room. He threw the tank filled with pink water and the floating arm a look of disgust

before he looked between Caine and her with curiosity.

"If you have a moment, I would like to speak with both of you."

Chapter 9

Boston Compound

Boston, MA

"Again," he said as the two-hundred and fifty pound Sentinel, that could have easily been a linebacker had he been born

human, glared at him as he dragged himself back to his feet. "This time guard your left, Cupcake."

"I am guarding my left!" the Sentinel snapped as he wiped the blood dripping down his chin with the back of his hand.

"No, you're not," Ephraim said quietly from the sidelines, not even bothering to look up from the intense game of peek-a-

boo he was playing with his granddaughter. His precious baby girl of course backed her father up with several excited little

coos.

"How the fuck would you know?" the Sentinel demanded. "You're not even watching!"

With an annoyed sigh, Chris dropped down and swept his foot out, knocking the big cry baby down on his ass. He jumped

back up to his feet before the Sentinel's back hit the sparring mat.

"Don't swear in front of my precious baby girl," Chris simply said when the large man glared up at him.

The man opened his mouth to probably bitch some more about Chris' rules, but smartly kept his mouth shut. Since he took

over as the compound and Sentinel's regional trainer a month and a half ago, everyone had learned quickly that his rules were

simple and not to be fucked with.

If his precious baby girl, Jessica, was in the room there was no swearing allowed, ever. When someone broke that rule he

knocked them down and if they didn't learn that rule quickly, he gave them a lesson in fighting that they would never forget.

When it came to his daughter, mate and family Chris didn't play around.

"Get up and let's do this again," Chris said, gesturing for the man to get up again

"I've been doing this for over a hundred years," the man bit out as he stood up. "I don't need these training sessions."

With a bored sigh, Chris backhanded him, sending him flying across the room. The man landed hard on the mat, twenty

feet away with a loud
whoosh
.

"Clearly you do," Chris said, not even bothering to tell the man to get up since it looked like he was seconds from passing

out.

That was one of the toughest aspects of his job, re-training men and women who had been doing this job for a lot longer

than he had. The problem was that they took their natural abilities and the fact that they'd survived the job for this long for

granted. Not all of them did. A lot of them trained just as hard as he did. He enjoyed sparing with them, learning new tricks and

methods of fighting as well, but some of the Sentinels, like the one currently whimpering on the mat, didn't train nearly hard

enough. They firmly believed the training they received back in their day was good enough.

It wasn't.

With the war currently making everyone's life a living hell, they needed to get their asses in gear as quickly as possible.

The war had been going on for almost eight months now and it didn't look like it was going to end anytime soon. They needed

to get their shit together and end this soon before they suffered any more casualties or the damn humans got a clue about the real

world surrounding them.

The war originally started when the Masters, vampire leaders, united with one goal in mind; find Isabella McGuire and

get their hands on her computer program
Tattletale
. Unfortunately for the Masters they hadn't known that Isabella was a

Sentinel and his destined mate.

Sentinels were the natural defense against vampires, demons and shifters. Every ten years, ten Sentinels, five males and

five females were born on November 25th to human and Sentinel females. For a Sentinel to be born to a human, the mother had

to be carrying twins so that the entwined souls of the Sentinel could move undetected with the soul of the human sibling. Most

of the human twins died during the birth, because they were unable to handle the changes that occurred in the womb when the

half-human and half-angel soul combined to create a Sentinel. Every destined Sentinel pair shared a human and an angel soul.

Izzy, his little Munchkin, owned the other halves of his souls and his heart. She was the love of his life and the person who

made him whole and happy. Before her he'd lived a barely there existence, only living for his family. She'd saved him in more

ways than one and gave him the greatest treasure in the world, his precious baby girl.

He'd do anything for his family and it killed him that they were stuck here in Boston, where his Munchkin couldn't step so

much as a foot out of the compound out of fear that a minion, demon, shifter or a vampire might spot her and realize that she

wasn't really dead. About a week after his sneaky little stubborn Munchkin wiggled her way into taking a job at the compound

to save her beautiful little ass from being shipped off to a Sentinel island where she would have lived a safe, yet secluded life,

they faked her death. Not every Master bought it, but enough of them did, so it took some pressure off of everyone.

The attacks on humans and the searches for Izzy came to an abrupt halt, but unfortunately that didn't stop the war. Demons,

shifters, and Masters decided it was time for an uprising. Packs all over the world were attacking each other as well as

demons and vampire nests. Pack members were trying to take down their Alphas. Masters were feuding more so than usual and

demons were coming in from behind and trying to make a power play while everyone else was distracted.

If they kept their damn squabbling amongst themselves it would be fine, but they weren't. They were attacking the

Sentinels and some of them were uniting for the first time in centuries, to get the job done. Worse, the humans were getting

caught in the middle. If they didn't end this shit soon, the humans were going to start questioning a lot of shit they never should

have seen.

He wished the war was his only problem, but it wasn't. About three months ago his younger brother Joshua had been shot

while protecting their little brother, Marc. By jumping in front of him, Joshua had also saved the life of a rogue Alpha as well

as Marc's life. Kale, the shifter they couldn't seem to get rid of now, who came and went from the compound as he pleased and

spent way too much time with
his
little Munchkin, gave Joshua blood and shoved him and Marc into a tunnel before a group of

demons, intent on getting their hands on little Marc, could stop him.

Ephraim heard Marc's screams for help and found Joshua on the verge of dying and did something he still beat himself up

for today, he gave Joshua his blood. It normally wouldn't have been a problem, but his father hadn't known that Joshua already

ingested shifter blood. If Ephraim had been a vampire, Joshua would have died the instant the blood mixed with the shifter's

blood, but he wasn't.

His father was a Pyte, a true immortal born of a vampire father who was incapable of dying. As a Pyte his blood was

potent enough to only change one person into a Pyte and he'd used that turn on Madison, his wife and Chris' best friend. Joshua

would have turned into a slightly stronger vampire, but thanks to the mixture of the blood his brother was......

Hell, they had no idea what the hell Joshua was now besides bitter and quiet. He drank blood, but he could also eat food

and digest it, something his father couldn't do. He could tolerate light, which he wouldn't have been able to do with only his

father's blood. During the full moon he became agitated, but didn't shift and he had fangs. The damn things were slightly longer