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

by R. L. Mathewson

  "Stop being such a baby and get down here," he said, gesturing impatiently once again for her to simply let go of the limb and float the thirty or maybe it was more like eighty feet down. It was really a simple concept and he couldn't for the life of him figure out why she was having such a tough time of it.

  "Get me down!" she snapped, which of course was followed by a little squeal as she opened her eyes and looked down before snapping them shut once again.

  "Are you going to go get her?" Jax asked, standing next to him and still pointing that damn flashlight on Danni, which of course could be one of the reasons why she was squeezing her eyes shut. The man didn't need the flashlight. Thanks to his Alpha blood he could see just as clearly as Caine could, but the rest of his pack couldn't and they would bitch and whine if Jax shut it off.

  He considered going back up there and getting her, but really, how would she learn anything if he did? When they left the comfort of their tent an hour ago they worked on controlling her fangs and eyes, but when it became obvious that she wanted to see if she could kick his ass he decided that they should move onto other things.

  If all she wanted to do was spar he would probably be alright with that.....in time, but no, not Danni. She wanted to go full-contact and see if she could hold her own against him, or judging by that devious little smile she sported just before he floated her ass up to that tree limb, she wanted to see if she could kick his ass now that she'd been turned. She wouldn't be able to of course. Well, not now anyway, since she didn't have full control of her abilities yet and they would never find out one way or the other, because he would never be able to raise his fist against her. He loved her too much to do anything that would hurt her.

  "This is kind of cruel," Jax said, making no moves to get the woman down, Caine noted. Then again the man knew him well enough to know that he'd simply grab her and put her sexy little ass right back up there. Actually, he'd probably put her a good ten feet higher to teach her a lesson about letting other men touch her. The other reason the Alpha wasn't moving his ass to save her might have something to do with the little betting pool they had going. Not him, the pack. Jax bet that when she fell she'd break both legs, half her ribs and her arm.

  That was pretty stupid, because he'd catch her before she hit the ground. He of course mentioned that when the stubborn pack decided that he couldn't partake of the bet. Cheap bastards. For clarity sake he of course pointed out that if he didn't catch her, which he was ninety percent sure that he could, that she would probably break all her limbs, a few ribs, her hip and her neck on the way down on the long thick branches that would slow her fall, but they wouldn't listen to him.

  "Don't you have a better way of showing her how to float?" he asked, gesturing to the woman hugging the tree branch while muttering, "Don't look down," every other second.

  Where the hell was the trust? He told her he loved her, so why the hell was she worried about getting hurt? To prove her love and devotion to him she should let go and get her hot little ass down here and finish tonight's lesson so that he could get her beneath him again.

  Jax pursed up his lips in thought as he studied Danni. After a long minute he exhaled long and loud while shaking his head. "I really don't."

  "I do!" Danni yelled, letting him know that her Pyte hearing was working just fine. Until they figured out how to kill this damn mutated cancer in her body he was going to have to keep an eye on her abilities to make sure that everything was functioning correctly. If they started acting up again he'd have to feed her immediately.

  "We've already been over this, Danni."

  "Let's go over it again!" she snapped, still squeezing her eyes shut. He really could not believe the lack of trust. She was really going to have to work her ass off later in bed to make this up to him.

  "Just get your cute ass down here, Danni, so that we can move onto the next lesson," he said, wondering just how long she was planning on drawing this out. He didn't have all night. He still needed to feed, make her scream his name a few times, feed her, feed again and get some sleep before they had to move out in the morning. If she didn't move her ass he'd have to give up all hopes of getting a nap and so he could let her make this up to him.

  "You said you loved me!" she snapped, letting out a little yelp as a gentle breeze caused the small branches surrounding her to brush up against her.

  "I do," he said firmly before adding, "so let go!"

  "No!"

  "Don't make me come up there, Danni!" he warned. If he went up there he was moving her fifteen feet higher and then he was shoving her off that damn branch. It's how birds did it, wasn't it? Not that he really cared because his plan was sound. She'd fall or jump, at this point it really didn't matter, and then her natural instincts would kick in and save her or he'd catch her. No matter what happened she wouldn't be landing face first in pine needles and she really should know that by now.

  "Come on up, Caine," she said, risking a peek down only to squeeze her eyes shut a second later. "I'd love to have a word with you about this."

  Typical Danni, he thought as he shook his head in disgust, he was trying to teach her something and all she could focus on was kicking his ass.

  "Just get down here, Danni, so that we can move this along," he said with a bored sigh.

  "Fine!" she snapped as she started to blindly, yet carefully, slide backwards towards the tree trunk. "I'll climb down!"

  "Do that and I'll just put you right back up there," he promised.

  She let out a frustrated scream as she stopped. "I hate you!"

  "Uh huh," he said, absently scratching his bare chest as he considered grabbing a bag of blood or two since this promised to be a long night.

  "She's going to kill you when she gets down here," one of the females that had begged him earlier to fuck her said as she threw him a glare.

  "That's the beauty of being me," he said with a snort. "She can try all she wants, but it's never going to happen."

  The woman rolled her eyes as she focused her attention back on Danni. After a little while a few of the shifters got bored and went to fire up their laptops and check the score of the game, but most of them upped the bets.

  "Okay," Danni said with a shaky voice and he nearly sighed with relief, that is until she added, "I promise a night of hot, mind blowing sex to whoever gets me down from here and keeps the deranged Pyte from doing this again," Danni said, taking everyone by surprise.

  Not even ten seconds later, Jax was shoving about a dozen males out of his way as he rushed towards the tree. A few seconds later when his mate's betrayal registered in his mind he was throwing the betraying bastard out of his way and making his way towards her. He had her in his arms and safely on the ground in seconds and not too long after that he was dropping her on her ass in their tent while he raced to free his erection before it burst through his pants so that they could get started with the mind blowing sex.

  "Jerk!" she snapped as she dropped the rest of the way onto the sleeping bag and curled up into the fetal position.

  For a moment he kneeled there awkwardly with his erection straining towards her. "What about the sex?"

  Her answer was a glare as she flipped him off.

  "Is that a no?" he asked, unsure if she was just taking a few minutes to rest before she followed through with her promise or if she was reneging on her promise.

  When she shot him a double one finger salute he had his answer.

  He stared in disbelief at the little tease for a moment before he dropped his eyes down to his poor erection that needed her and back to her before he shrugged. "Okay, you're going back in the tree, you little liar."

  Chapter 45

  "Someone.....," she took a deep breath as she rolled over onto her back, uncaring that the little rocks and sticks were digging into her skin, "kill him.....please."

  Caine frowned down at her. "I don't remember you being this much of a wimp. Is this a new development?"

  Still gasping, she turned her head sligh
tly to the left and sent Jax, who looked torn between being amused and concerned, a pleading look, but he simply shrugged as he focused his attention back to packing up his truck.

  Great, she was on her own with the sadistic bastard who wouldn't leave her alone. She still couldn't believe that he stuck her up in a tree, not once, but twice. Promising the man sex only to take it back before she was able to get her bearings had been a foolish move. He'd placed her back in that tree and promised her that she was staying there until she either fell or jumped.

  She fell.

  Stupid squirrel, she thought again as she tried to roll over onto her side and failed miserably. Why the hell was she so exhausted and sore? Oh, that's right. The big jerk frowning down at her was the reason. When she failed to float as they called it, even though she much preferred to think of it as semi-flying, because she was too busy screaming her ass off he'd gotten a little pissed. He took it as a personal insult that she couldn't do it.

  From there he'd been determined to make sure that she could not only do her other abilities, but master them, immediately. When he tried to see how strong she was by having her lift a van she'd succeeded, but unfortunately she got so excited that she could do it that she did a little happy dance, tripped and accidentally threw it at him. No matter what he said when he came to minutes later, or everyone else said for that matter it was an accident.

  When he jumped to his feet and went after her, she had to admit that she did master that little ability pretty quickly. For all of sixty seconds it had been pretty cool to see things flashing past her while she ran from the enraged Pyte. Unfortunately for her, she hadn't seen the oak tree in front of her while she'd been enjoying her new ability. Thankfully she didn't pass out, well, she didn't remember doing it, but everyone around her said she had when she managed to open her eyes again.

  From there it only got worse. Caine became the drill sergeant from hell. He made her practice speed, lifting, jumping, more running and kept threatening to put her ass back up in that tree when all she wanted to do was get a shot at kicking his ass, now more than ever. She'd give anything for a chance to kick his ass, anything and if she couldn't have that she'd very much like some more blood and a really comfy bed and no interruptions for the next forty-eight hours.

  "You're pale," Caine said, his frown morphing into concern.

  "Because you're an asshole," she managed to say as she closed her eyes and focused on trying to stop panting, but it was difficult. Should she be having this many problems as a Pyte? She didn't think so, but then again she also didn't think forcing her to run two hours straight to test her endurance had been very helpful either.

  "Ow!" Her eyes snapped open to glare at the jerk as he leaned forward and lightly licked the drop of blood forming on the tip of her finger off. She opened her mouth to ask him what his damn problem was when he cringed, turned his head and spat out her blood.

  Well, that was kind of insulting.

  "Stronger?" Jax asked, pausing in mid-throw of a wrapped up tent. When Caine nodded grimly, Jax sighed heavily, dropped the tent to the ground and walked over to her and plopped down on the ground next to her.

  "Here," he said, holding out his wrist to her. "Just be gentle, I'm fragile."

  Still panting, Danni turned her head towards Caine and cocked an eyebrow in question.

  He sighed as he grabbed Jax's wrist. "We wanted to see if the cancer became stronger when you pushed yourself too far or if using your abilities would help your body fight back against it," he explained as his fangs slid down.

  "Ow! I said gentle, you asshole!" Jax snapped as he pulled his wrist away. When Caine growled the man rolled his eyes and offered his bleeding wrist to her.

  She slapped it away. "You decided to test this theory behind my back? Why the hell didn't you tell me all this before you let this jerk shift and chase me all over the damn forest!" she snapped, feeling weaker by the minute.

  "It wouldn't have made a difference," Caine said as he grabbed Jax's wrist and placed it right back in front of her.

  "Well, she might not have thrown those rocks at me," Jax mused as he gave his wrist a little wiggle, trying to entice a reaction out of her.

  She shot the man a glare. "Maybe if you hadn't been trying to bite my ass every other minute I wouldn't have had to throw those rocks at you!" she snapped, thankful that the damn shifter only caught up to her twice and the small nips he left on her bottom had healed already. That didn't mean that she wanted to do that again. She really didn't. In fact, being chased by a werewolf hell bent on nibbling on her ass ranked somewhere along the lines of being placed in a tree and left to fall by an insane Pyte.

  Jax sighed heavily as he shook his wrist yet again. "It was the only way that you'd learn, Danni, now drink up it's getting cold."

  "The only thing that I learned is that you're a fu-" her words were smothered by Jax's wrist suddenly being shoved into her mouth, another thing she really didn't appreciate. When she went to back away he simply followed the movement. The glare Caine sent her let her know that if she didn't drink that he'd probably let the shifter chase her ass down again, or put her back in that tree.

  Jerks.

  As she drank the admittedly delicious blood she glared at Caine, who simply ignored her as he kept a watchful eye on Jax, who appeared to be staring in the vicinity of her breasts. "Watch it," Caine bit out evenly.

  "Just keeping an eye on her breathing," Jax mumbled, keeping his eyes right where they were.

  If his blood didn't taste so damn good she'd probably shove him away and go find somewhere to curl up and sleep for a few hours, but his blood tasted good, really good. A minute later it tasted a lot better for some reason. It was richer, fuller and had a slightly different flavor, one she vaguely recalled, but couldn't quite remember as she sucked on his wrist more greedily. She was barely aware of his answering groan or Caine's vivid curse as the scent of the shifter's arousal reached her nose and she realized what changed the flavor of his blood. He was aroused.

  When this happened with Caine back in their cell it had made her wet and needy, but with the shifter it just made the meal more delicious and she was actually considering flashing the man to see if it would get any better when the delicious blood and the wrist if flowed from was suddenly taken away.

  "But, I wasn't finished yet!" she said, knowing that she was whining as she reached out to make a grab for the flushed shifter as Caine scooped her up in his arms and headed for the black truck Jax said they could have.

  "Too bad," Caine snapped, quickening his pace. "We have to go."

  She gave up her attempts to climb over Caine to get more of that yummy blood and sighed. "Can I at least say goodbye?" she asked, feeling kind of funny leaving like this after all the shifter had done for them.

  "She has a point, Caine. I think a goodbye kiss is order," Jax said from somewhere behind them.

  Caine grumbled something as he managed to open the truck door and place her inside. He shut the door and stormed around the front of the truck, all while glaring daggers at the shifter. When he practically tore his door off, she rolled her eyes and buckled up. There was just no talking to the man when he got like this.

  "See you in a couple of decades, asshole," Jax said brightly as he walked past the truck.

  Caine actually chuckled as he started the truck up, surprising her. It was really nice to see this side of him, the calmer, carefree side. As he navigated the dirt road she couldn't help but wonder how long this would last.

  ********

  "I'm bored," Danni announced, making him laugh as she undid her seatbelt and snuggled up against him, resting her head against his outstretched arm in the process as he held onto the steering wheel.

  "We've only been driving for two hours," he pointed out.

  "Two hours with nothing to do. You know how much I hate downtime," she grumbled as she let out a heartfelt sigh.

  "If you're bored then look around," he said, taking a hand off the wheel to gesture to the t
rees that surrounded them on either side. "You might even luck out and see a squirrel," he said in a mocking tone that had her poking him in the side.

  "Jerk," she grumbled as she shifted to get more comfortable. He took the hint and dropped his right hand from the wheel and moved his arm so that it was wrapped around her shoulders and she could move closer to him, which was more than fine with him.

  "Where are we going?" she asked as she pressed a kiss against his jaw before she settled back down.

  "To Philadelphia, where else?" he asked, keeping his eyes on the long stretch of highway before them.

  He felt her go still against him. "Where in Philadelphia?" she asked, trying to feign disinterest as she reached up and traced the tattoo lining his jaw with her finger.