Tall, Silent and Lethal

by R. L. Mathewson

  Well, that was probably true, Kale had to admit. The large Sentinel male probably wouldn’t expect his adorable pregnant mate to be hiding out in another man’s bed, especially a shifter’s bed. He was supposed to be the enemy since he didn’t work for the Sentinel Council. Technically, he shouldn’t even be allowed in this house since it was under the Council’s protection. If it wasn’t for the small woman devouring a shit load of junk food in his bed he’d probably be holed up in some hotel room, planning his next job instead of checking in to make sure that everything was okay.

  “Does the sheet provide you with added protection?” he asked distractedly as a fresh wave of exhaustion hit him.

  He was so fucking tired. That wasn’t anything new. He was always tired, but over the past couple of months it seemed as though exhaustion was hitting him harder than ever before. He needed a break, some rest, but he’d come too far to stop now. He was so close, so damn close, to his goal.

  One more year and everything that he’d worked so hard for would be his. He could go back home, buy a cottage out in the middle of nowhere, and live out the rest of his existence without worrying about anything other than resting, eating and enjoying his well-earned solitude. He was going to forget that anything else existed in the world for a while.

  Except for her maybe, he thought as he watched the mound beneath the sheet shift again. He wasn’t sure how it happened, but this small Sentinel female somehow became his best friend, his only friend, and his family. Thanks to her, he had to adjust his goal to include her, her mate and their children. That wasn’t something that he was entirely happy about.

  He liked the way his life used to be, the way it should be. He hated complications and there was no doubt in his mind that Izzy was a huge complication. She was his one and only weakness and he fucking hated that.

  He hated the fact that he thought about her a little too much and worried about her whenever he was away from her. His focus should be on his goal and not the woman devouring a year’s supply of junk food in his bed. He shouldn’t care if she was okay never mind happy. The woman was a Sentinel and therefore his enemy, he reminded himself with a glare as he caught a whiff of peanut butter and chocolate.

  “Hey!” Izzy snapped as he snaked his hand beneath the sheet and stole the bag of miniature peanut butter cups that she’d tried to hide from him.

  “Mine.”

  “But-”

  “Mine.”

  “Well, let me just have-”

  “Mine!” he snapped, allowing his voice to deepen, becoming more animal than man and giving her the only warning that she was going to get if she-

  “Yeah, cause that really scares me,” she said dryly as she raised the sheet off her head just long enough for her to search for the bag of peanut butter cups and steal them.

  “I’m seconds from shifting and tearing this bed apart, woman!”

  “Uh huh,” she said around what sounded like a mouthful of peanut butter cups, his peanut butter cups.

  He crossed his arms over his chest as he narrowed his eyes dangerously on the lump beneath the sheet. Any other woman would have given up the peanut butter cups as she cowered, begged and pleaded for his mercy, but not this woman. No, this woman knew that he would never hurt her. Screw her over for dessert? In a heartbeat, but he would never cause her any harm and that knowledge pissed him off.

  “I want a Coke,” Izzy mumbled again, earning a tired sigh from him as he settled more comfortably back against the pillows and closed his eyes.

  “You can’t have Coke,” he reminded her.

  “I know,” she said, not sounding happy about it and he couldn’t really say that he blamed her. The woman’s Coke addiction was almost as bad as his.

  He couldn’t imagine going an hour, never mind a day without his caffeine fix. It was the only thing that gave him the energy to move most days and kept him from killing everything in sight, he thought as he reached over, not bothering to open his eyes, and grabbed the can of Coke that he’d forgotten about and took a long, deep satisfying sip.

  “That better not be what I think it is,” Izzy bit out, sounding close to committing violence.

  “It is,” he said, pausing only to rub it in her face with a loud satisfied sigh before he finished it off and tossed the empty can aside.

  “I hate you,” Izzy sighed heavily, sounding miserable as she shifted beneath the sheet until she was curled up against his side. She buried her face against him as her small hands found his bicep and squeezed, nails digging in as she did her best to bite back a whimper, but he heard it.

  He always did.

  He didn’t need to ask what was bothering her. He knew exactly how much pain she was in no matter how hard she tried to hide it. He hated this, hated feeling this helpless and he fucking hated the little bastard that had done this to her.

  One day…….

  He would catch up with Joshua and when that day came he would pay the man back for every ounce of pain that he’d caused Izzy with interest. Izzy’s family wanted to save Joshua and they probably thought that he was onboard with their game plan. He wasn’t. But, as long as they kept him informed of what they’d learned about the little bastard he would keep letting them think that. They really didn’t need to know about the excruciating death that awaited Joshua and if he had his way, they never would.

  Not that he really cared if his plans for the little prick upset the misfits of Pytes, Sentinels and humans that made up this family. He didn’t give a damn if his plans upset them. The woman curled up beside him, clutching onto him almost desperately was the only one that he really cared about.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, pretending that he wasn’t aware that agonizing pain was shooting through the hip that Joshua had callously destroyed. Izzy hated the reminder of what her one time best friend had done to her, but he suspected that she hated the fact that her injury reminded everyone else of the monster that Joshua had turned into, more.

  “Nothing,” she bit out through clenched teeth as her grip on him tightened to the point that he knew he’d be sporting some rather nasty bruises for a few hours. He could have pulled away from her, but he wouldn’t do that since this was the only thing that he could do to help ease some of her pain.

  “Then why are you clinging to me?” he asked softly, giving her the opportunity to stop trying to be brave all the time and allow someone to take care of her.

  “I missed you,” she said, her voice breaking on a sob as her nails dug into his skin.

  “Well, that went without saying,” he said, pushing the sheet off her so that he could pull her into his arms.

  As soon as she was in his arms, she turned her face against his chest, grabbed a fistful of his shirt and released a heart-wrenching scream of pain that had him biting back a curse and wishing that the little bastard was around so that he could kill the son of a bitch. Since that wasn’t an option, he settled for holding her tightly against him and placing his hand on the large swell of her belly where his godchildren kicked and squirmed, frightened for their mother.

  They laid like that for hours, Izzy crying and Kane doing what he could to comfort her and her unborn babies. Several times he begged her to let him go get Chris, but she wouldn’t allow it. She didn’t want her mate to see how bad her injury was, which was fucking ridiculous since everyone in the goddamn mansion knew how bad it was.

  It wasn’t something that Izzy could hide, not with the way that she walked, the strain of pain around her eyes or the muffled cries that she tried to hide from all of them. Izzy wasn’t fooling any of them with the brave façade that she put on everyday. This pain was killing her and Kale honestly didn’t know how she was going to survive the next one hundred and seventy years left in her life like this. Hell, he didn’t know how he was going to survive seeing her like this for another minute.

  “Don’t tell anyone,” Izzy said softly, speaking for the first time in hours.

  After a slight hesitation, he decided that arguing with h
er would be pointless. She wanted to keep pretending that no one knew and for now he would allow her that delusion. “I won’t.”

  “What in the hell is going on here?” the voice laced with murderous rage demanded, taking them both by surprise, which was saying a lot since he was an Alpha and nothing should be able to get by him.

  As one they looked up and found Chris standing at the foot of the bed. The muscles in his arms and neck bulged as he glared their way, but a little to the right. Unable to help himself, Kale shot a look over to the right just as Izzy did, and took in the large pile of junk food and empty wrappers and knew that Izzy was in deep shit.

  “It’s not what it looks like!” Izzy said, almost desperately as she tried to shift away from the evidence of her binge, but there was nowhere to go.

  “Tell me that you didn’t feed my precious babies all that sugar,” Chris demanded as he crossed his massive arms over his chest, his glare shifting to Izzy, whom Kale suspected was trying to climb out of the bed and make a run for it, but her damaged hip and the twins she carried hindered her efforts to escape.

  “I didn’t!” the little junk food addict lied.

  “Then why are you in his bed?” Chris drawled, his glare never wavering from his panicked mate.

  “For sex?” Izzy said, sounding hopeful as both men rolled their eyes.

  “I cannot believe that you went behind my back and did this,” Chris said, sounding truly pissed as he moved around the bed and carefully scooped her up in his arms, throwing an accusing glare towards the massive pile of wrappers and junk food as he did it.

  “B-but, I didn’t!” Izzy protested even as she wrapped her arms around her mate’s neck. “It was all Kale! He needed the energy for our marathon of sex!”

  “Uh huh,” Chris said, clearly not believing her as he focused his attention on him.

  “House meeting after patrol,” Chris simply said, obviously expecting to be obeyed, which was really fucking sad.

  “Can’t,” Kale said, leaning over to pick through the remains of Izzy’s junk fest.

  “Oh, I think that you can,” Chris drawled lazily.

  “And why is that?” Kale asked, already planning on leaving in an hour for the job in Ontario that would bring him one step closer to his goal.

  “Because we need your help hunting down the other Pytes.”

  Chapter 2

  Townson, Massachusetts

  Cloe couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed as she parked in front of the pharmacy and took in her surroundings. When she’d accepted this job she’d pictured this quiet southeastern Massachusetts town a little bit differently. Something along the lines of the colonial era came to mind, maybe a pilgrim or two roaming the streets¸ but alas, there was nothing special to set this town apart from the dozen or so other towns that she’d called home over the years.

  With a disappointed sigh, she climbed out of her small SUV. Fighting a yawn, she opened the door and walked inside and headed straight to the back of the pharmacy. After waiting in line for ten minutes she handed over her prescription and information. Once she’d played twenty questions with the pharmacist and he felt that she wasn’t a drug lord hellbent on turning his quiet little town into her own personal drug empire, she was gestured to the waiting area that consisted of three long park style benches lined up against the back wall.

  A young couple sat on the first bench. The woman, who was obviously pregnant, was quietly reading a gossip magazine while the man next to her openly checked Cloe out. Okay, that was just creepy and made her want to slap him upside the head. Ignoring him, she shifted her gaze to the next bench where two, grumpy, old men sat looking less than welcoming.

  Finally, on the last bench she spotted just one man, a large man, well over six feet tall if she had to guess, sitting at the far end of the bench. The hood of his grey sweatshirt was pulled over his head, effectively shielding his face. He was leaning to the side, using his fist as a pillow and leaving a large portion of the bench empty. With an inward sigh, she walked over and sat down. She was aware of the shocked expressions from everyone around them, but ignored them as well, too tired to really care.

  Their eyes shot from her to the guy sitting next to her as if they couldn’t quite believe that she’d sat there or that he’d let her. Whatever their problem was, she didn’t care. She wasn’t here to get involved in small town drama. She had a job to do and as soon as she had her prescription she would go start it.

  *-*-*-*

  This young woman was……odd.

  He watched as she stepped in line, noting the way that the rest of the customers stopped what they were doing to watch her every move and listen to every word that she spoke as though they had every right in the world to do it. She seemed completely oblivious of their welcoming glares as she sat down next to him. This town had a knack for scaring young women away.

  They’d been going out of their way to do it since they’d decided over thirty years ago that he was no longer welcome in their town. Thanks to their drama he no longer had to worry about women approaching him. It was the only part of the small town bullshit that he actually appreciated. Well, that and the fact that he never had to wait in line since no one in town had the balls to come within ten feet of him.

  After a minute, she raised a challenging brow in his direction. He ignored it as he looked her over out of the corner of his eye. Her flannel shirt was open, revealing a tight gray tee shirt that ended right above her belly button and a rather shapely athletic stomach. Her chest was good size too, he realized, reminding him of just how much of an asshole he truly was. A surge of guilt had him looking away from her chest to take in the rest of her. His gaze shifted to the thick, black watchband on her wrist and then up to her face.

  She was a natural beauty with chestnut hair and intelligent grey eyes. Her lips were full and somewhat pouty looking. This girl could easily blend in with the other women in this town and be beautiful by their standards, but that wasn’t her. He could tell that she wasn’t the type of woman who’d be happy merely blending in. She had the look of a woman who would beat the shit out of a man and then roll her eyes when he whimpered.

  “I know you’re awake,” she suddenly announced on a bored sigh.

  He had to smile, a rare feat for him, but one that he couldn’t help at the moment. “Never said that I wasn’t.”

  She glanced over at him and looked pointedly at his hooded head. “Oh?”

  “It’s not my fault if everyone assumes that I’m asleep,” he explained, deciding that it couldn’t hurt to kill some time talking with this odd woman.

  She arched a perfectly shaped brow at that. “Yes, you’re right. I often wear a hooded sweatshirt to the drugstore and pretend to be asleep just to play mind games with the populace.”

  “Do you really?” he asked, a small chuckle that sounded a bit rusty and unpracticed escaping him and making him realize that it had been too damn long since anyone had made him laugh.

  She ran a hand through her hair. Mesmerized, he watched as her hair fell back in place. “All the time,” she murmured as she looked around the store.

  The two gossiping men and the young woman, who’d been reading, looked over and scowled in their direction. If the young woman sitting next to him was bothered by the attention it didn’t show.

  “I don’t think they like you,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, knowing that their glares were solely meant for him. When they heard him, they glared harder, sending the silent message that played like a broken record at this point, the one that told him to get the hell out of their town.

  “Oh no, I shall have to end it all tonight at the stroke of midnight after professing my undying love for my favorite boy band in my pink lacey diary,” she said in such a slow and toneless manner that he couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “Is there a problem? Is he bothering you?” one of the elderly men barked in demand.

  “Everything’s fine,” she said, shrugging off the elderly man’s con
cerns.

  “Christofer, your prescriptions are almost done,” the pharmacist announced, shooting the woman beside him a nervous glance and leaving no doubt in his mind whatsoever that his order had been rushed to get him out of the store and away from the young woman who’d made the mistake of sitting next to him.

  “Thank you,” Christofer said as he leaned back against the bench, not really caring if he was making anyone nervous. He was enjoying himself, probably for the first time in years. It also didn’t hurt that the woman sitting next to him was giving off a mouthwatering aroma.

  “So, you’re a Christofer, huh?” she asked in an amused tone.

  “Yes, and you are….,” he prompted.

  She looked thoughtful for a minute. “Sorry, I don’t go around telling strange hooded men my name anymore.”

  “Was there a time when you did?”