Tall, Dark & Heartless: A Pyte/Sentinel Series Novel

by R. L. Mathewson

  This situation with the Pyte was one of those times when Lucan was forced to step in before the Master got in over his head and with the minion in charge it was definitely headed that way. For any other Master, Lucan would have commended him on acquiring a Pyte. It was a smart move that would not only guarantee the Master's ability to keep his territory protected, but it would also allow them to rid his territory of any unwanted shifters and demons. If he did it right, the Master would also be able to shove the Sentinels out of the area as well, but he knew his Master would fuck that up.

  The man was too violent and out of control, which was why Lucan kept his mouth shut and didn't complain when the Master would leave their small compound without a word, leaving everything on Lucan's shoulders. Truthfully there wasn't much to do except guard the Master's favorite minions.

  Their territory was small compared to most. When Lucan first came into this life, their territory had rivaled some of the most powerful Masters at the time, but years of neglect and focusing too much attention on other things had cost them. If it hadn't been for Lucan's watchful eye they would have nothing and his Master would have probably ceased to exist long ago.

  With a Pyte, that could all change. They could take back their territory and expand into the areas the shifters and demons used as their playground. It would also make anyone think twice about going against his Master and that would make all of this bullshit worth it. Four centuries of babysitting a Master who was prone to kill or torture anyone and everyone over the smallest slight had taken its toll on him. He would love to ensure that his Master was safe and to do that, he had to ensure that this plan worked. He needed this plan to work.

  "No fucking," he said on an exasperated sigh when he heard the men begin to moan. He needed the aphrodisiac to remain undetected and if the men found release, their blood would be tainted by the increase in hormones and this plan would fail and he couldn't allow that.

  *********

  "It's time to eat, Danni," he said, wishing like hell that he didn't have to do this for her, but he didn't trust her to be able to get control fast enough to hide what she was. So, that meant bagged blood was out, at least for now.

  As soon as her strength was up, they were going to make their move. Once the chain was off he would be useless for a good five to ten minutes, shorter if he did it with a stomach full of blood and had some extra blood on the side. Then again if she took too much from him and they cut his supply short it would take a hell of a lot longer to re-grow his foot and they'd be fucked because there was no way the vampires outside their door would miss the scent of blood. He would have removed his chain sooner, but there had barely been enough blood as it was for Danni's transformation.

  "I'm not hungry," she bit out through clenched teeth as she rubbed her hands roughly down her face as she paced right in front of the door.

  "You need to feed," he said, getting to his feet and walking towards the clearly agitated woman. It wasn't too difficult to figure out what had the woman on edge. She was a fresh turn who needed blood, more frequently and for the last....well, he didn't know how long it had been, but he was willing to guess it had been at least twenty hours since she fed from him. She refused to take any blood from him when she clearly needed it.

  He caught the scent of human males and knew by the way Danni licked her lips that she smelled them too. It shouldn't bother him that she was responding to other men, but it did. He didn't like the idea of her holding onto another man as she drank from him while the bastard touched her. No, it wouldn't do for her to feed from another male.

  She'd only feed from him and only while they were stuck in this hell, but once they got out of here he was going to have to take her somewhere well away from everything and everyone and make damn sure that the stubborn woman could protect herself. He'd also have to help set her up with blood delivery and then he'd have to go into hiding for a century or two or at least until the Sentinels forgot about him.

  He'd ignored part of his sentence and changed someone into a Pyte. Granted, he hadn't been thinking about the Sentinel Council when he changed her and even knowing what they had planned for him didn't make him regret saving her. Losing Danni would have been a blow that he knew damn well that he never would have recovered from. He couldn't imagine living for eternity with her loss on his shoulders.

  As long as he got her out of here before their captives figured out what he'd done, everything would be alright. He'd fucked up and given her his curse, but maybe she would luck out and never face the bullshit he had. In fact, he planned on making sure that she remained safe for the rest of her life. He'd set her up in a small town without any shifters or demons within a two hundred mile radius so that he wouldn't have to worry about someone detecting what she was.

  He'd have to check up on her from time to time to make sure that she was okay. That was fine. He knew how to stay good and gone so that no one, including Danni, would know that he was around. He'd also have to move her to a new location when the locals started noticing that she wasn't aging, but he'd handle that when the time came. The only thing that mattered now was getting her somewhere safe and to do that they needed to keep her little change a secret.

  "Danni, you need to feed," he said, stepping into her path and blocking her, but of course she just walked past him.

  "I'm not hungry," she snapped.

  "Uh huh," he said, watching as she discretely scented the air and licked her lips in a way that had his cock twitching and forcing him to fight back the urge to kill any male that caught her interest.

  He gritted his teeth in irritation. She shouldn't be affecting him like this. She wasn't his and he sure as hell didn't want to keep her, but he couldn't help the way his body and mind were responding to her, like she was his. The only explanation that he could come up with was the change. He'd never changed anyone before. He was just having a primitive reaction to the fact that his blood flowed through her veins. Once they got out of here his reactions to her would lessen and he wouldn't care what the hell she did or with who she it with, just like before he changed her.

  So that wasn't entirely true. He'd cared who was around her, a little. He didn't like the losers she spent time with, but he never interfered, and no he didn't count the little "talks" that he had with Greg as interference. He just really enjoyed beating the shit out of the little prick and of course he would have to make it a special point to hunt the little bastard down once he was freed and have another little talk with him. Only this time he wouldn't stop talking to the bastard until he was screaming his name in agony with his last breath.

  "Back the hell off, Caine. I said I wasn't hungry so leave me alone," Danni said as she forced her eyes away from the door and continued her pacing.

  "No, what you are is about five minutes away from bloodlust," he drawled as he reached out and grabbed her by the arm only to have her shove his hand aside and move to the other side of the room where she folded her arms over her chest and leaned her forehead against the wall, keeping her back to him.

  "Danni," he said tightly. They didn't have time for this shit. They might have been able to keep their captors in the dark so far, but he doubted that would last very long. She needed to feed and get her strength up to his level if they were going to have any chance of getting out of here. He wanted her out of here before they figured out what she was. If he could get her out of here and leave them believing that she was human then she'd have a chance, but God help her if they found out that she'd been changed.

  Not only would she have to worry about this Master coming after her, but every power hungry Master in the world, because he knew without a doubt that word of her transformation would slip out. Either vampires who wanted a new Master or thought she would be able to change them, make them more powerful, would spread the word or the minions under this Master's protection would give away the information in hopes of being rewarded with immortality. The only way to avoid all the unwanted bullshit that would follow was to get her strength up a
nd get her the hell out of here and fast.

  He had to get away from her. If he couldn't get away from her then he'd have to go back to treating her like nothing more than an old obligation. Ignoring her for the majority of the time had worked for him and made it possible for him to be away from her. He needed to get back to that point, to the point where she didn't matter. He moved to go after her and force her to take blood from him, something he wasn't exactly eager to repeat, when he smelled a new set of vampires nearing the door.

  With an annoyed sigh, he walked back over to his section of the wall and sat down. He threw Danni a look of warning, but she missed it since her face was now buried in the far corner of the room. Fine, whatever, as long as she didn't give away what they did, then she could have her fucking tantrum. He didn't care.

  Thankfully she didn't make a move as their food was brought in and left in the middle of the room. He didn't spare her a glance as he walked over to his cooler and began the process of overfeeding. They didn't have time for this shit. If she didn't want to feed then that was more than fine with him. He'd overfeed now and take care of the problem of the chain. Instead of putting this off for a couple of days to give her a chance to grow accustomed to her new situation, he was going to get her out of here now.

  As long as they were still putting all their hopes on Danni they wouldn't try to hurt her to stop their escape, hopefully. Then again if she took a hit that knocked her out they would think that she was dead and wouldn't come looking for her. It wasn't something that he wanted her to experience, but if it helped with their escape then she'd have to suck it up and deal. In the long run, the pain and terror of being put into a void where only pain and fear could be found was a small price to pay if it bought her some more time.

  It wasn't until he downed the last drop of his sixth bag of blood that he realized that something was off. A slow warmth soon spread throughout his body as his skin tingled in awareness. He tried to shake off the odd sensations, but it was useless. His heart raced in his chest and his breathing quickened. His eyes shot down to the empty bag in his hands. He brought the bag up to his face and inhaled deeply. When he didn't smell anything he frowned.

  The bagged blood he ingested had been laced with something, what exactly he wasn't sure at the moment, but it was more than obvious that they were up to something. Shit! They needed to get out of here, now.

  He took a deep breath as he reached for his foot, praying like hell that whatever they'd laced his blood with wouldn't slow down his healing rate.. If he had to he'd create a distraction for as long as he could so that Danni could escape. Hopefully, she'd have enough sense to go into hiding. Then again, the woman was stubborn, he thought with disgust as his grip tightened around his foot. He took another deep breath to prepare himself for what was to come when Danni's scent hit him.

  Ah, shit, he thought as his balls tightened up and the head of his cock tingled as he caught a hint of feminine scent, a scent he'd been working damn hard to ignore. Not taking Danni when she was practically begging for it had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done, but he hadn't wanted to cross that line, hadn't wanted to let go of the memory of the little girl who used to mean everything to him.

  But it had been damn close.

  He'd never wanted a woman more than he'd wanted Danni. It wasn't difficult to figure out why. She was beautiful, sexy and while he normally preferred women who were soft and pampered themselves in expensive perfumes and covered their bodies in silk, he couldn't deny the way Danni's no nonsense attitude and toned body left him burning.

  He wanted to fuck her so badly that he actually ached with need. He was barely aware of anything else going on around him as her scent intensified, causing his cock to fill with blood. If he didn't get away from her, he was going to do something stupid like fuck her.

  "Are you going to sit here daydreaming or are you going to move your ass?" Danni demanded, breaking through his lust filled haze.

  He forced himself to focus on the woman kneeling in front of him. It took him a minute before he realized that she was holding up the broken end of his chain. His eyes shot down to the metal cuff still secured around his leg and the piece of twisted metal link that had once secured the cuff to the chain.

  What the hell.......

  "I wasn't sure it was going to work, but when I saw you trying to twist the chain off," he had? "I thought I'd give it a shot. I guess two Pytes are better than one," she mused as she stood up only to pause, sniff the air, and frown down at him.

  "They drugged the blood," he said through gritted teeth and praying like hell that she'd just let it go.

  With a shrug she did just that.

  Chapter 18

  "Stay behind me, Danni," Caine said, surprising her. Not that she was exactly shocked by his attempt to protect her, she wasn't. What shocked her was his willingness to go along with her plan and escape before she learned to master her new skills and get her strength up. He'd seemed pretty adamant about waiting and truthfully she'd been willing to go along with his plan.

  That is until she humiliated herself with that feeding. After that she'd focused all of her time on trying to figure out a way to get out of here and away from him. The compound was out since it probably wouldn't take more than a minute before one of the demons or shifters scented the change in her and alerted the Council.

  She might want to beat the shit out of the jerk for aiding in her humiliation, but that didn't mean that she wanted to see him punished and there was absolutely no doubt in her mind that he would be punished for turning her. She didn't know all the details of his probation, but she knew enough to know that the Council would make damn sure that Caine never had the opportunity to create another breed of vampires. She'd heard rumors that they planned on encasing him in cement and dropping him in the deepest, darkest part of the ocean, but up until this point she never truly feared that it would happen.

  As long as she stayed away from anyone in league with the Sentinel Council, then Caine would be fine. They would never find out what he did and she could go on with her life, her incredibly long life, she thought with a sigh. It was still weird to go from fearing each day would be her last to knowing that she would never, could never, die. It was going to take some getting used to, but then again she had plenty of time to do that. The only thing that she didn't have at the moment was somewhere to go.

  She had no friends outside of the compound, no relatives and the small amount of money that she had wasn't worth taking the risk of someone tracing it, so she was going to have to leave it right where it was. She had absolutely nothing and no one, but that was fine with her. It would take some time, but she'd make up a new life for herself and continue with her purpose.

  Actually, thanks to Caine, she'd be more efficient and could make more of a difference in this war against demons, vampires and shifters. It would probably take her some time to master her new abilities and make any real difference, but now that she no longer had to worry if the next day would be her last it wouldn't matter. She could learn new fighting skills, travel the world, and find better weapons and-

  Oh shit, she thought as she licked her lips and her eyes zeroed in on the powerful male before her. She felt her nipples harden against the soft material of the men's shirt that she wore and felt herself go wet between her legs as the scent of his arousal hit her, hard.

  Her knees actually shook as she struggled to keep moving forward. The scent was mouthwatering and so much stronger than it had been before. She didn't need a mirror to know that her eyes had gone red and that her fangs had dropped. She ignored Caine's softly spoken curse as he threw a glare over his shoulder at her as if this was somehow her fault.

  "I'm just reacting to you!" she pointed out in a harsh whisper even though they both realized that, well, he damn well better realize that this was his fault.

  "Well, stop," he bit out between clenched teeth as his eyes flickered between that beautiful steel gray that she used to love to red. As the red solidi
fied she knew that he was losing control. If she was still human that knowledge would have probably scared the hell out of her, but she wasn't and they really needed to stay focused if they were going to get of here.

  "Maybe I should take the lead," she suggested, moving to do just that when Caine's growl made her pause.

  "Keep your ass behind me, Danni, and when the time comes you better not hesitate in moving your ass," he practically snarled.

  "I won't," she said tightly.

  "See that you don't," he warned before turning his attention back on the closed door as her eyes admittedly dropped down to his grey boxer briefs encased ass and may have stayed there for a few seconds before she got her head back in the game.

  As she watched Caine reach out to open the door she struggled not to think about his ass and wonder what it would feel like to run her hands over that perfectly curved ass as he thrust inside of her and-