Unstoppable

by R. L. Mathewson

  Which meant that it was almost time for him to go and time for her to find something else to do to keep herself busy, Ashley realized as she set to work making breakfast even as she couldn’t help but wonder why she was wasting her time. Jacob said that he had to leave this morning and Kale…would probably just glare at whatever she made him, she thought, feeling her lips twitch as she focused on making breakfast.

  Thirty minutes later, Ashley had the table covered in food that would probably go to waste, a new book on her Kindle, and was watching as Kale walked into the kitchen with his hand pressed against his side. He didn’t say anything to her as he walked to the refrigerator and honestly, she didn’t expect him to. She watched him grab a Coke and sat down across from her, helping himself to food and-

  “Eat up. We have work to do.”

  Williams Mansion

  “I love you, Munchkin,” Chris said as he pressed a kiss against the back of her neck as Izzy lay there, struggling to hold it together.

  She couldn’t do anything more than lie there and moan as her mate held her, giving her a small reprieve from the excruciating pain that was slowly killing her. Izzy needed this, needed him, and needed to pretend that the pain wasn’t slowly destroying her.

  She just wanted the pain to stop, but it wouldn’t. No matter what she did, it only got worse. Hot baths, massages, stretching, physical therapy, and rest weren’t helping anymore. Her only hope was surgery, but even that wasn’t an option anymore. Last night the Council had voted against her surgery, condemning her to a lifetime of pain and-

  She hated them.

  She hated the fact that she couldn’t even move her legs without wanting to scream, hated the fact that she couldn’t carry her babies or hold them for longer than a few seconds without wanting to scream in pain, and…

  She hated Joshua for doing this to her.

  “God, I love you,” Chris moaned in her ear as he slowly continued to move, careful of her hip as he made love to her.

  “I love you, too,” Izzy managed to get out, only to bite her lip when his next shallow thrust shifted her the wrong way, causing pain to tear through her hip and up her spine.

  Before she could stop it, a pained moan tore free as her hand fisted in the sheet and she prayed that Chris didn’t hear it. When he kissed the back of her neck as his hand slid back over her hip and found its way to her breast, Izzy released a shaky breath and closed her eyes and tried to focus on just how good it felt to be in his arms.

  All too soon, Chris was groaning her name as he pressed one last kiss against her shoulder before he slid his arm around her and held her close. For several minutes, Izzy focused on lying there, slowly exhaling, too afraid to move as she waited for Chris to fall asleep and once he did…

  It took everything she had not to cry as she carefully pushed his arm away and slowly made her way to the edge of the bed. God, it hurt so much, Izzy thought, biting back a sob as she grabbed hold of the mattress and-

  Struggled not to scream as agonizing pain shot through her body as she forced herself to keep moving, knowing that it would only get worse if she didn’t make it to the bathroom before it was too late. It took her several tries, but she finally managed to sit up. Slowly exhaling, she risked a glance over her shoulder to make sure that Chris was still sleeping.

  When he didn’t open his eyes, she forced herself to stand up and-

  Nearly fell on her face when the move threw her off-balance. It took her a moment before she could move. Slowly exhaling, Izzy focused her attention on the bathroom door. Fifteen steps. That was it. She could do this, she told herself as she picked her right foot up and-

  Bit back another scream.

  Fourteen more feet…

  That’s all it would take, Izzy told herself, slowly counting down the steps that she needed to take as she carefully made her way across the bedroom even as she couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before she couldn’t even do this. Probably not long, Izzy thought as she risked a glance up to see how much farther she had to go as she slowly exhaled and told herself to stop thinking about that look on Noah’s face when Michael broke the news to her.

  It was only a matter of time before she would never be able to walk again. She would never play with her kids or do the job that she’d been placed on this earth to do. She would spend the rest of her life sitting in a wheelchair, praying for the pain to end and-

  She couldn’t do this.

  She couldn’t ask Chris to spend the rest of his life worrying about her, Izzy thought, biting back a sob even as she kept moving, berating herself every inch of the way for letting herself give up. Hating herself, Izzy forced herself to move faster until she was able to grab on to the door and stumble inside the bathroom.

  Once she was there, Izzy carefully closed the bathroom door behind her, turned the fan on along with the radio that she’d placed in here several months ago so that she didn’t have to worry about anyone in the house hearing her, and made her way to the shower. As soon as the shower was turned on, she stepped beneath the spray of hot water so that the water hit her ruined hip, pressed her forehead against the shower wall, and slowly exhaled.

  There had to be a way to fix this, Izzy told herself as she reached up and wiped away the first tear. Noah could find someone to do the surgery and explain that she had a weird metabolic disorder, something to convince them to give her enough drugs to kill a human and fix her hip, otherwise…

  She didn’t want to think about what would happen if they didn’t fix this. After Michael explained why she couldn’t have surgery, Eric had reluctantly explained to her what this meant only to ask if she wanted him to be the one to tell Chris after he’d destroyed her. As she’d struggled to wrap her mind around what he’d said, she’d told him that she wanted to be the one to tell Chris. Only she didn’t know how to tell him that she would not only end up spending the rest of her life in a wheelchair but that she would end up having to do it on a Sentinel Island.

  She’d find a way out of this, Izzy promised herself as she waited for the last tear to fall before she turned off the shower and went through the long process of drying herself off and getting dressed and once she was done, she did what she always did when the pain became too much. She made her way back into her bedroom and across the hallway so that she could give each one of her babies a kiss, careful not to wake them up, knowing that her mate would give her a ten-minute lecture on interrupting his precious babies’ sleep.

  God, Chris was such a pain in the ass sometimes, Izzy thought, unable to help but smile as she carefully leaned down and kissed Jessica’s cheek before tucking her back in bed and-

  Sighed.

  Just freaking sighed when her little girl woke up with a glare that reminded Izzy so much of her mate. With a grumble, Jessica slid off her toddler bed, grabbed her blankie and headed for the door with a sleepily mumbled, “Marc,” as she walked into the hallway, turned right, and left Izzy sighing as she watched her baby girl fumble with Marc’s bedroom door.

  Once she managed to open the door, Jessica grumbled one last time as she made her way into Marc’s bedroom and had Izzy’s lips twitching when she heard the familiar long-suffering sigh followed by a pained grunt, letting Izzy know that her baby girl had taken over Marc’s bed.

  For a moment, Izzy stood there waiting to see if Marc needed her to come grab Jessica only to smile when she heard Marc grumble, “Little bully,” as his bedroom door closed. Knowing that Jessica wouldn’t be getting up again, not when she was happily tormenting her favorite person on earth, Izzy made her way to her office and after she carefully lowered herself into the chair that Ephraim had bought for her with the hopes that it would help, she logged into Tattletale and focused all of her attention on the alerts waiting for her as she did her best to forget everything else.

  There were a few alerts on random vampire attacks, but that was it. There weren’t any alerts on Packs, Masters, or anything that would clue her into the reason why everything had gone qu
iet. A chime drew her attention to find a notification from the blood supply delivery system that the Council ran and felt her stomach drop when she saw that there were more order cancellations, bringing the total up to over ten thousand in the last month.

  Vampires were canceling their accounts and they had no idea why. It would make sense if there was an uprising in vampire attacks, but there wasn’t, and they had no idea where they were getting their blood now. It was definitely something that they needed to look into, Izzy thought as she scrolled through the rest of the alerts until she found one that had her frowning in confusion.

  Someone ran blood through the system with a Sentinel ID, which normally wouldn’t be an issue except for the fact that the ID belonged to a Sentinel stationed in England and the test had been run from this house. A quick check let her know that Michael hadn’t been the one to run the test and a second check had her slowly exhaling when she saw the results.

  There was a DNA match for a Pyte in their system and it belonged to…

  Christofer.

  Chapter 26

  “Why are you being so fucking difficult about this?” Kale asked, dropping his hand away from his face to find the woman that was driving him crazy still glaring at him instead of doing what he’d asked her.

  “Because you told me to climb onto a roof,” and this is where Ashley paused so that she could raise her hands and make air quotes as she said, “and float.”

  “Which doesn’t explain why you’re still standing here glaring at me,” Kale pointed out even as he couldn’t help but notice how fucking adorable she was when she glared.

  “Because I’m not insane?” Ashley countered with a look that he did not appreciate.

  Not one fucking bit.

  “We need to find out what your abilities are,” Kale bit out as he narrowed his eyes on the stubborn woman that was making this more difficult than it needed to be as he pressed his hand against his side with a wince. That fucking silver bullet was making it harder for him to heal.

  “By having me climb onto a roof and jumping off?” she asked, blinking up at him.

  “You’d heal,” he reminded her through clenched teeth.

  Nodding slowly, Ashley said, “Pass,” as she gestured for him to move on to the next item on his list.

  So fucking stubborn, Kale thought as he found himself looking for the biggest tree that he could find, wondering if it would be easier if she just climbed up a tree instead and-

  “Not happening,” she said, apparently guessing where his thoughts had gone and dragged his attention to find her taking a healthy step away from him.

  “We need to find out what you can do,” he said evenly, folding his arms over his chest as he glared down at her.

  Mimicking the move, and god, was she fucking adorable, Kale thought, biting back a smile, Ashley said, “No,” further pissing him off.

  For a moment, Kale stood there, glaring down at his stubborn mate as he waited for her to do as he asked only to end up sighing heavily with a muttered, “Fine,” deciding that they should move on since she was being a pain in the ass about this. He would have caught her before she hit the ground, but that hadn’t been good enough for the woman waiting for him to get on with it.

  “Can you control your eyes and fangs yet?” Kale absently asked as he considered finding a pit and dropping her in it to see if she could float, as the Pytes living at the mansion called it, back up.

  There was a telling pause before Ashley mumbled, “No,” letting him know just how much fucking work they had to do, but that was fine. They’d get through the basics today and then focus on the real reason that he was here tomorrow. Not that Kale thought that she would be happy to find out his plans for her, but at the moment, he simply didn’t care.

  She needed to learn how to protect herself.

  It was as simple as that.

  Not that he planned on letting anyone near her, but he wasn’t about to take any chances with his mate. They lived in a very dangerous world and Ashley…

  Was too fucking nice, Kale thought in disgust as he watched her pick up an acorn that a small squirrel dropped and placed it on the branch below it with a warm smile and softly murmured, “Here you go,” making his eyes narrow on the move. He had no idea how she’d managed to survive this long without him, Kale thought as he slowly exhaled and tried to figure out how he was going to teach her how to control her eyes and fangs.

  For a moment, he considered making the short trip to the mansion to ask one of the Pytes in residence a few questions only to decide against it since that would only invite questions that he didn’t feel like answering at the moment. Besides, he didn’t need their help with this one. If there was one thing that he should be able to teach her, it was how to control her eyes and fangs.

  “Let your fangs slide down,” Kale said, gesturing for her to get on with it.

  Frowning, Ashley said, “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Just let them down,” he said, once again wondering why she was being so fucking difficult about this.

  “They don’t want to come down,” she pointed out, making his eyes narrow.

  “They will if you just let them,” Kale told her, once again, gesturing for her to get on with it.

  Worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, she glanced back at the driveway with a hopeful look on her face as she said, “Maybe we should wait until Jacob comes back to do this?” further pissing him off.

  “We don’t need his help,” Kale bit out.

  “We really do, though,” Ashley mumbled sadly as she gave up sending the driveway wistful fucking looks that were going to get her ass spanked to look back at him with a resigned sigh.

  “Your fangs aren’t down yet,” he pointed out, wondering why she wasn’t fucking listening to him.

  “Because you haven’t showed me how to do it yet,” Ashley pointed out, blinking innocently up at him and god, did he want to spank her adorable fucking ass.

  “Because you’re too goddamn stubborn to listen,” Kale said evenly. “Just let your fangs slide down.”

  “I really don’t think that’s how this works,” Ashley said with a sad shake of her head as he stood there, glaring down at her.

  “You’re a pain in the ass,” he informed her.

  Nodding solemnly, she said, “I have heard that a few times over the years,” making his lips twitch.

  “Fine. Then let’s move on to your eyes,” he said, knowing that it was pointless to argue with the little pain in the ass.

  “Let’s,” Ashley said with a firm nod, once again gesturing for him to get on with it.

  “Let them shift,” Kale said, biting back a sigh as he waited for her to do it.

  When she only stood there, frowning up at him, he said, “This really isn’t that fucking difficult.”

  That was followed by her continuing to stare at him through green eyes, he’d like to point out, instead of red eyes like he’d asked for. This was going to be harder than he’d originally thought, Kale realized as he sighed heavily. When he’d decided to help her, he figured that they’d spend a few minutes on the basics before shifting their focus on how to kill a man with her bare hands and calling it a day, but apparently, his mate liked to be difficult.

  He wondered if Madison had been this fucking difficult for Ephraim after her transition, only to frown when Ashley gestured awkwardly back towards the house. “So, umm, I’m just gonna go on back inside and leave you to your glaring.”

  “We’re not done yet,” Kale pointed out.

  “All you’re doing is glaring at me, which I’d like to point out, you can do inside where it’s warm,” Ashley said, making him frown as he looked around them, noting the dead grass covered in frost and the thin layer of ice covering his windshield before glancing back at his mate to find her wrapping her arms around herself, shivering, and was reminded of the fact that his mate wasn’t a shifter.

  Fuck!

  Perhaps he’d been going at this all wrong, Kale wo
ndered as Ashley mumbled, “I’m gonna go now,” as she turned around and headed back inside, leaving him to follow her. He’d been looking at this from a shifter’s perspective, but clearly, that was the wrong fucking thing to do. As he closed the front door behind him, he once again found himself tempted to go get answers from the Pytes down the road, only to once again decide against it.

  Now that he realized where he’d fucked up, he knew what he had to do.

  “Shit!”

  “What is wrong with you?” Ashley demanded as she pressed another kitchen towel against Kale’s hand, wondering why it wouldn’t stop bleeding.

  “Many things apparently,” Kale bit out, trying to pull his hand free, but she wasn’t having it, not after he’d just scared the living hell out of her.

  One minute, she was pulling out everything that she was going to need to make lunch from the fridge and the next, she was watching as Kale calmly walked over to the counter, grabbed a knife and sliced his palm open only to follow that up by telling her to drop her fangs. That was followed by her standing there, staring at him in horror for several minutes while he glared at her until it became obvious that his hand wasn’t healing as fast as it should and her trying not to panic while the big jerk tried to refuse her help.

  “I’m fine,” Kale bit out, his eyes turning silver in warning as he moved to take his hand back and-

  “Goddamnit, woman!”

  -snapped at her when she had enough of this and gave him a gentle shove that had the man that was wobbling unsteadily on his legs dropping down on a kitchen chair with a grunt. When he moved to get up, she gently pushed him back down, grabbed another towel, a bottle of water, the first-aid kit that she made Jacob run out for a few days ago, and decided that the only way to get through this with her sanity intact was to ignore him.

  So, that’s what Ashley did as she carefully pulled the kitchen towel away only to sigh when she saw the gash running across his palm. As she carefully cleaned his cut, she ignored his glare and focused on getting through this without throttling him. He’d almost died and now, he was determined to find new ways to drive her crazy.