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

by R. L. Mathewson

  The next time he threw a backhanded punch she didn't move fast enough and paid for it. The blow hit her in the side of her head and just like that the familiar pain that she couldn't seem to escape from brought her down to her knees. She gripped her head in her hands, trying to fight back the pain as she struggled to get to Caine. She had to protect him, keep him safe and stop them from taking him away.

  "You put up a good fight, but it's time to let us do our job," Chris said soothingly as he reached out and touched her arm, sending stabbing pain through every nerve in her body. A scream tore through her throat as she dropped to the ground.

  As she fell she saw the look of surprise and concern cross Chris' face before black spots took over her vision. She fought it as long as she could, but the unholy roar that shook the room sent her spiraling into darkness.

  Chapter 47

  "Get him the fuck off of me!" Chris yelled seconds before the scent of his son's blood reached him.

  "Get the fuck away from his mate!" he heard Kale snap, losing his cool for the first time since he met the man.

  He shoved the human to the floor. "If you move from this spot I'll rip your throat out."

  When the man sent the front door an appraising look, Ephraim decided to do this the easy way. He backhanded the man, instantly knocking him out, and not caring enough to make sure that the man fell over gently before he took off for the stairs.

  "I can't get away from her with him on top of me!" Chris yelled as Ephraim rounded the corner and nearly tripped over his own two feet.

  This was the first time he'd ever encountered someone like himself, a Pyte. It was still a bit of a shock, but seeing a Pyte in the throes of bloodlust as Caine tried to tear Chris was a little unnerving. Kale's attempts to pull the Pyte away from Chris were useless. The man looked possessed as he focused his rage on Chris and while Ephraim flashed over to the trio he couldn't help but wonder if that's how he looked when he went into bloodlust. He sure as hell hoped it wasn't, because it was rather unsettling.

  "Could use a hand here, Dad," Chris ground out, shoving against the Pyte so that he could reach for his gun, but the Pyte wouldn't back off and if it wasn't for Kale struggling to pull the Pyte away Chris would probably already be dead.

  Ephraim moved to join in the fight and tried to drag the Pyte away from Chris when something occurred to him. When he was in the throes of bloodlust he acted on baser instincts and he knew challenging the Pyte would only make this worse. He knew if he was in Caine's position what would set him off and what would probably bring him down.

  Madison.

  His mate was the only thing that his body and mind seemed to be able to register when bloodlust took over and he prayed like hell that it would work for this Pyte, because he was taking a hell of a chance by going near this man's mate right now. He moved past the struggling trio and frowned down at the female Pyte with confusion as she lay still on the dirty floor, taking shallow breaths. He knelt down next to her and inhaled deeply, searching for a cause for this and found none. There was a small bruise on her cheek, but that was it. He couldn't scent any blood from her, marrow leaking from broken bone or anything that should be causing this woman's distress.

  Carefully as he could, he picked the woman up in his arms and stood. He walked past the trio and wasn't too surprised when the Pyte's head snapped up. Intense glowing red eyes narrowed on him. Caine shoved Kale off of him and walked after Ephraim, keeping his eyes locked on his mate as he moved. Ephraim knew the man wouldn't attack as long as Ephraim held her, but the moment he hurt her or put her down all bets were off.

  "I'm not going to hurt her, Caine, but I need you to calm the hell down before you hurt my son," Ephraim said calmly as he slowly backed down the stairs to the downstairs foyer.

  Caine growled, but didn't attack him so he kept going and thankfully the Pyte kept on following him. He nearly sighed with relief when he saw Chris round the corner with one arm thrown over Kale's shoulders, limping pretty badly as they followed to make sure the Pyte didn't step out of line again.

  "Where's the human?" Kale asked as he helped Chris down the stairs, making sure to give the pissed off Pyte plenty of space.

  "Passed out near the front door," Ephraim said, keeping his eyes locked on the male stalking him.

  "Looks like he split," Chris said, wincing as he reached up and placed a hand over his ribs. Ephraim could smell the bone marrow from here. Chris had at least four broken ribs.

  Kale sniffed the air and glared accusingly at Chris. "She's going to blame me for this bullshit! You know that, don't you?"

  "You deserve it for not taking better care of me," Chris said with a sniff which was immediately followed by a groan.

  Kale's eyes narrowed to slits. "Bastard."

  "We'll have to hunt him down later," Ephraim said, chancing a look over his shoulder to make sure the human wasn't sneaking up on them. He'd never had this much of a problem scenting the air before, but then again this house was a dump. When he walked in the house with Chris and Kale he'd been worried about losing the element of surprise on the Pytes, but after a few seconds he was more worried about losing his lunch as a hundred foul odors competed for his attention and he knew the Pytes were probably having the same problem and wouldn't scent them until it was too late. That was probably the reason the human got the drop on the couple.

  "What's wrong with her?" Kale asked as Ephraim stepped onto the cracked hardwood floor.

  "Sick," the Pyte said on a harsh whisper and Ephraim nearly sighed with relief that the Pyte was coming out of it, but that of course meant new problems. With Chris hurt they couldn't take off after Caine and of course the Pyte might just try and kill Chris and Kale to save the woman and escape. He could understand that the man had no choice when he was in bloodlust, but if he laid another finger on his son, Ephraim was going to make the man pray for a death that would never come.

  "Pytes can get sick?" Chris asked, shooting him a questioning look.

  As far as he knew they couldn't. Since he made his transformation he'd never been sick and neither had Madison. Hurt, weak, hungry, yes, but sick? No.

  "Then let us take her to a doctor to get looked at," Ephraim suggested as he stepped through the open doorway and started the slow process of going down the set of cracked brick stairs.

  The Pyte followed and thankfully there were only a few people hanging out in the rundown neighborhood so he didn't have to worry about starting a panic when people saw the Pyte's still healing bloody chest. They were going to have to give him blood to help him heal and make sure that he didn't slip back into bloodlust. The woman was going to need blood, too.

  The Philadelphia Compound was going to have to handle the two Pytes, because there was no way that he was driving them to New York or Boston when his mate was waiting for him in their new home and days away from giving birth to his sons. He also didn't like the fact that his family was now scattered and no one had any real protection. Jill and Grandma were in New Hampshire with only Priests in the house for protection. Madison, Marc, Izzy, and Jessica were in the new house with Joshua, who was locked up but he couldn't trust him to protect the family right now and his son was hurt and needed a doctor.

  "Why don't I take them in so that you can go home?" the shifter suggested when they reached the nondescript Sentinel van.

  "What's the bounty for these two?" he asked, not buying the shifter's bullshit that he wanted to help for their sake for even a second.

  The man was a mercenary and the only thing besides junk food, and surprisingly Izzy and her babies that he seemed to care about, was money. No one knew why the shifter was obsessed with it, but it seemed to be his main focus in life. Ephraim knew that if he handed the Pytes over to Kale, that the Philadelphia compound would never see them and that made him wonder who the shifter planned on turning the Pytes over to.

  "I'm not going to give them to a Master," Kale said, obviously reading into his silence correctly.

  "Then who?" Chris asked
, probably already realizing that the shifter had a plan for these two.

  Kale shrugged as he led Chris to the side of the van and released Chris so that he could lean against it. "To the Council, who else?"

  A wave of sympathy shot through Ephraim as he looked at the half-crazed Pyte who couldn't seem to take his eyes off the woman in his arms. According to Eric this male had been warned what would happen if he turned anyone and from what he knew, the Council had every intention of following through with that promise. The twenty years he spent in a cell being tortured paled in comparison to what the Council had planned for this man. He truly could not begin to imagine the horror of being encased in cement and dropped in the middle of the ocean where he would most likely spend eternity.

  "Give me my woman," Caine said, reaching out for her, but Ephraim pulled back and quickly opened the back doors of the van. He knew that if Caine got his hands on the woman now that he would run and-

  "I don't give a rat's ass what you do to me, but she's sick," Caine said, sounding more like a man and surprising the hell out of Ephraim. The man should be very concerned with what the Council had planned for him. Then again if this was Madison he'd be doing the same damn thing.

  "She needs me," Caine said, reaching out and taking the woman and he let him. Caine gave him a nod of thanks before focusing on the woman in his arms whose breaths were becoming shallower with every passing minute.

  "You know you're under arrest," Ephraim reminded him to see what the Pyte would do. Now that he had his mate he could make a run for it and Ephraim would of course go after him, but he was curious to see how far the supposed selfish-bastard, according to everyone at the New York compound, would go for this woman.

  "Don't fucking care," the Pyte said, stepping into the back of the van, "she needs more help than I can give her," he said softly, his voice cracking with the admission. When the Pyte sat down he followed him inside and grabbed the chains they'd used earlier that day to lock Joshua in.

  Caine didn't even flinch when the cuff closed around his ankle.

  "I'm sorry," Ephraim said, because he just couldn't help but feel that this was wrong and it killed him to be a part of this, but he needed the protection the Sentinels offered his family. He felt like an asshole for doing this.

  "Me too," the Pyte said, looking down at the woman's face as a sad smile tugged at his lips.

  *******

  "We're ten minutes away from the compound," the Sentinel driving said and Caine forced himself not to think about what that meant for him. The only thing that mattered was Danni.

  He couldn't protect her, not like this and it had taken bloodlust for him to see that. Thanks to him she'd been left unprotected and vulnerable and it had cost her. The cancer was too strong and he would never be able to keep up with her needs or his own. If he fed her day and night from his own vein he would be left weak and he wouldn't be able to protect her, not from humans, vampires, the Sentinels, no one.

  The Council would act swiftly and get rid of him, but they'd do everything they could to figure out what was wrong with Danni and if they couldn't find a way to destroy the cancer then they would easily keep her supplied with immortal blood so that she could keep doing the job that she loved and would never have to suffer another moment from this illness.

  "You should eat," Ephraim said quietly as he held a bag of blood out to him.

  They both knew that this was probably the last time he'd ever eat. It was a last meal of sorts, but he wouldn't take it for him. Danni was hurt and needed his blood. He took it with a nod and placed it at his mouth and drank while he kept his other arm wrapped around Danni that helped to cradle her against his body.

  "Maybe you should see if you can feed her as well," the other Pyte suggested as he held out another bag.

  Caine took the bag and shook his head. "Human blood is too diluted. It has to be immortal blood," he said before he devoured the second bag. Ephraim's brows arched in surprise as his eyes dropped to Danni.

  "Why is she sick?" Kale asked as he yanked his shirt sleeve up and allowed his fangs to drop. Caine couldn't hide his surprise when the shifter rumored not to have a heart bit his own wrist and pressed it against Danni's lips.

  "Cancer," he said, watching as the shifter reached out with his other hand and gently massaged Danni's throat to get her to swallow.

  "Is that why you changed her?" Ephraim asked before grabbing a bag of blood and consuming it.

  "No, they killed her," he said, hating himself for that moment when he failed to protect her. Of course, if he had known she was dying of cancer he would have done it sooner.

  "How?" Ephraim asked around a mouthful of blood.

  "They electrocuted her," he said, hollowly, barely aware of a cell phone ringing behind the barrier at his back and not really caring enough to listen. Before that they had tortured her and he never wanted her to experience anything like that again. He licked his suddenly dry lips before he said, "Make sure they take care of her and don't let her go patrolling alone, because she has a hell of a temper and she's liable to do something that will get her in trouble." He tried to ignore the panic that those words caused, but it was difficult.

  He wouldn't be there to protect her. She'd be all alone and there wasn't anything that he could do to change that and God, how he wished that he'd done things differently. He'd give anything to go back in time and stop himself from making the biggest mistake of his life. He would have found a way to deal with the pull of her blood and keep her in his life and he knew that in time he would have fallen in love with her and changed her before the cancer took over and she wouldn't be facing dying for eternity.

  "Make sure she knows that I love her," he said, wishing that he could tell her himself, but by the time she woke up he'd already be encased in his tomb.

  "I'll make sure that she knows," Ephraim said after a minute and not sounding thrilled with the job. He didn't care if the man was comfortable doing it or not. He'd damn well better-

  "What do you mean she's in labor?" he heard the Sentinel demand.

  Both men went still as they listened to the conversation. Kale pulled back his hand and Caine wasted no time in biting his own wrist and replacing it as a little boy, from the sounds of it, explained to the Sentinel in front that two women were in labor. He could hear a baby crying in the background, but he didn't think it was the sound of a newborn.

  "Slow down, Marc," the Sentinel said calmly, but he knew from the scent the man was giving off that he was anything but calm.

  "It's too soon for Izzy," Kale mumbled to himself as he visibly paled. Ephraim nodded solemnly as he dropped his head into his hands and took a deep breath.

  "Does the Philadelphia compound have a helicopter?" Kale asked.

  "Yeah, but no one to fly it at the moment. Chris called earlier to have someone come pick us up, but the guy was laid out in the medical ward from a demon attack," Ephraim said, dropping his hands away, his eyes a fiery red as he noticeably tried to stay in control.

  "New York?" Kale asked, sounding slightly desperate.

  Ephraim shook his head. "No, they're spread out looking for these two."

  "We need to get there now!" Kale snapped.

  "No shit!" Ephraim snapped back, looking seconds away from attacking the shifter who looked more than willing to throw down.

  "I can fly," Caine said, hoping to buy a few more minutes with his mate and shut these two up so that he could listen to Danni's breathing and heart.

  "You can fly?" Kale asked, eying him skeptically.

  "Yeah," he said hollowly as Danni's heart skipped a beat. "Just find me a plane or helicopter and I can take you where you need to go."

  Chapter 48

  Upstate New York

  The new Williams' Family Mansion

  "Just calm down, little man," Chris said again, but he couldn't.

  He was barely eleven years old and his mother and sister-in-law were in labor and he didn't know what to do or where to go. No one else was here
. No one was supposed to be here because they weren't supposed to be here yet. Uncle Eric hadn't assigned Sentinels to the Sentinel homes that surrounded the property. It was just him, a crying baby, two screaming women and his brother who hadn't said a word or moved since their father chained him in one of the upstairs bedrooms that morning.

  "Should I call 911?" Marc asked, already knowing it was a stupid idea, but he couldn't think of anything else to do.

  Chris was silent for a moment before he said, "No, don't do that. If something happens and Izzy needs blood they'll give her human blood and it will kill her," he said, sounding sadder than he'd ever heard him before and that actually scared him even more. Chris was tough and could handle anything and he was....