by Sonia Harper
"Yes," he exhaled, reaching the bookcase and throwing his body back around to walk in the other direction. He could feel his annoyance levels rising. Was that question really necessary? They should know by now that they were supposed to keep him updated. He was practically locked in a fucking basement, how else was he supposed to know what was going on?
His lip curled as the invisible force turned gleeful. Yeah, it liked to harp on the fact that he was tucked away as far from everyone else as possible. It liked to remind him how pathetic he was that he couldn't control his own powers; how incredibly weak he was. He squeezed his eyes shut and came to a sudden halt as his skin began to heat up.
He was seconds away from losing control again.
"Out!" He shouted with his last bit of self-control, not even bothering to open his eyes and check to make sure they were leaving. He knew they could sense the danger.
The click of the door as it shut enraged the invisible force. Where had all the prey gone?
Rage consumed him, and he launched himself at the nearest object. He wasn't until he had thrown his fists down onto it and cracked it in half that he realized it was the table. He grabbed one half by the table leg and threw it across the room with an enraged shout, pleased when it shattered into pieces against the floor and slid into the wall.
Fingers itching, he turned around and grabbed the remaining half, ripping it apart with his hands. Once he had freed a table leg, he felt his arm raise it above his head and merely watched as it came crashing down on the bookcase. The leg went cleanly through two of the shelves, knocking one book down to the floor in a heap along with the remains of the table.
Reaching down, he grabbed the book by its open pages and attempted to pick it up and throw it across the room. The heat that consumed him during his rages must have spread to his extremities again because the book fell from his fingers before he could even lift it above his head.
He glanced down and saw the charred edges of the paper; black outlines of fingers grasped into the pages, rendering the pages unreadable.
Furious at himself for allowing yet another one of his books to be ruined, he kicked the book away and yelled out his frustration. He couldn't control himself, but at the same time, he was acutely aware of what was going on and what he was doing.
It was moments like these that he hated the most.
Blind rage consumed him, and he lost all sense of himself. He saw slices of time frames as he grasped at anything that was within reach and tore it to pieces, ignoring the tiny bites of pain as wood either collided with his body or jammed right into his skin in the process.
Relishing in the feeling of warm blood running down his arms and face, he spun around to realize that nothing was left of the table. He had also destroyed half of the bookshelves against the wall.
The book he had ruined moments ago was completely ripped apart and scattered into tiny pieces across the room.
Chest heaving, he clenched his fists and screamed in pain as the pressure bore down heavily on him, trying to crush his skull. He wasn't sure how long the excruciating pain lasted, but it suddenly lifted as quickly as it had started. Falling to his knees, he cradled his head in between his legs as he curled into the floor, broken.
A horrifying sob caught in his throat, straining his neck muscles, and his eyes burned with unshed tears. He would not cry, he thought furiously to himself as he began rocking his body back and forth to try and ease the shaking that always came after he lost control. He would not break down.
He would find that son of a bitch that sired him and would tear him apart for leaving him with this burden.
Chapter Eleven
Adelyn felt her chest start to rumble. Groaning, she opened her eyes and glanced down to find Salien, Pytho's cat, lying on top of her chest and purring loudly as it stared at her from underneath heavy eyelids.
"I knew there was a reason why I hate cats," she sighed to herself as she carefully lifted an arm and tried nudging the gigantic cat off of her, jerking her arm away whenever Salien's ear and tail twitched in annoyance. She certainly did not want to get scratched again, but the cat was heavy, and she wanted to go back to sleep.
When it became clear that the cat wasn't going to budge, Adelyn sighed and dropped her head and arm back onto Pytho's bed. Reaching a hand up to rub her eyes, she glanced at the computer that sat on Pytho's desk across the room. The bright screen told her that it was just past six in the evening.
"Oh god, I slept all day," Adelyn yawned. She was still tired, but she knew that she had to get up if she wanted to try and get back onto a regular sleeping schedule.
If that was even possible, she thought sarcastically to herself. She had a feeling that her work schedule was about to become a night shift.
If you could count trying to stay alive as work.
Exhaling loudly, she tried to push away the memories of what had happened last night in the basement. Her lack of sleep and frustration had caused her to lash out, and she ended up in a position she never thought she would be in.
Dragging a hand up to her neck, she rubbed the back of it lightly. She wasn't sore, and she hadn't seen any bruising on her neck when she checked it that morning. It was pretty surprising considering Cain's hands had felt like bands of steel digging into her skin.
She reached up and gingerly touched her nose. It still hurt, but it was more of a dull ache now as long as she didn't touch it. A quick look in the mirror this morning had shown her that, aside from the swelling, her nose wasn't completely disfigured. She prayed that when the swelling went down, it still looked normal.
If not, maybe she should convince Gregory to pay for some corrective surgery.
Snorting at that thought, she reached up and tried to nudge Salien off of her chest again. The cat must have been ready to move because she leapt off of her chest, pushing off roughly, and landed on the nightstand next to the bed.
"Ow!" She cried out and grabbed her chest. "Stupid cat," she grumbled as a little ball of grey fur suddenly rushed to replace the cat's position on her chest. Adelyn smiled as Sinatra settled into her side, giving her sad puppy eyes and begging to be pet.
"You little scammer," she reached down and petted him vigorously, feeling guilty for everything that her poor dog had been through so far. She was happy that Pytho had suggested that Sinatra stay with Salien. Although she had gotten off on the wrong foot with the cat, she could see how oddly protective the cat was of Sinatra.
When Pytho had insisted she take a nap in his room while he helped Gregory with fixing the windows, they had walked in his room to find Salien lying down next to Sinatra on the bed, her eyes narrowed at the door until Pytho walked through it and gave her a scratch under the chin. She then sauntered off to find her litter box in the adjoining bathroom. Upon returning, she had immediately jumped back on the bed and settled herself next to the dog once more, tucking her front paws in under her body and glaring at Adelyn as she tried to reach around her to pet Sinatra.
Adelyn sat up on the bed, still petting Sinatra in her lap. Her eyes lingered around the room as the golden-red hue of the sunset bathed the room from the window. She smiled as she took a good long look at the room for the first time. She had been exhausted earlier and hadn't bothered to look around much.
If she hadn't known this was Pytho's room, she probably still could have guessed it. A computer sat on his desk, surrounded by high-end speakers and what appeared to be gaming accessories. She could see that he had been tinkering with computer components that were tucked away on a cleared area of the desk. She tilted her head and saw an empty computer case lying on the floor under the desk.
She turned around and took in the clothes that were strewn on the floor of the open walk-in closet and pile of books that were placed near the door. They were clearly an overflow of books from the massive bookshelf on the wall next to the bed.
Yes, Pytho was definitely raised by humans. If she didn't know any better, she would have guessed that this room belonged to a teenage boy.
Approaching the sink, she steeled herself before glancing in the mirror.
"Oh god," she groaned, reaching up and lifting the hair tie out of the mess of curls on top of her head. She glanced longingly at the shower but knew she should probably find out what was going on downstairs before she took any time for herself. If reinforcing windows meant keeping those monsters out, she wanted to be downstairs helping as much as she could now that she was well-rested.
Doing the best she could, she wet her hair with water from the sink to try and manage the frizz. Once she had tamed the beast, she pulled her hair back and used the tie to gather her hair back into another ponytail. She looked down at the sink and her eye caught a toothbrush.
Wrinkling her nose, she felt her stomach churn at the idea of using someone else's toothbrush. She opened a few drawers, but couldn't find a spare toothbrush anywhere. Pytho apparently wasn't one to stock up on many bathroom items, she surmised as most of the drawers were revealed to be completely empty. Pressing her lips together, she gingerly picked up Pytho's toothbrush and applied toothpaste to it.
Well, she thought, it could be worse. At least she knew it was Pytho's.
Feeling slightly better at that thought, she brushed her teeth and straightened her clothes as best as she could, promising herself that she would stop by her room and grab fresh clothes as soon as she could.
She quickly washed her face, then turned and walked back to the bed to pet Sinatra and before walking to the door.
An indignant meow came from behind her.
Adelyn frowned and turned around to see Salien, still sitting on the nightstand, her yellow eyes staring at her unwaveringly.
"Um, bye?" She called out to the cat, confused. Salien purred loudly, then turned around and licked her backside in response.
Adelyn frowned again as she opened the bedroom door and walked out into the hallway. "Weird," she said to herself as she closed the door behind her. Something about that cat seemed off.
Stretching her arms, she checked the hallway to make sure it was empty. Pytho's room was on the west side of the Manor, but still on the second floor. She had never come down this way before, as she never really had any need to. She surmised that the others also slept in rooms on this side of the Manor as well. There were two other bedrooms on the east side of the Manor, both opposite her room, but she knew they were empty.
Making her way down the hallway to the staircase, she heard voices float up from the first floor as she approached the mezzanine.
"Yeah, they're all done," Pytho's voice echoed to the ceiling above. "Gregory had a security system installed with cameras pointing in every direction around the building."
"We should have installed something like that months ago," Adelyn heard Donovan's soft voice reply. She approached the balcony and leaned over, peering down. "I'm sure that rush job just took a huge dent out of our accounts."
Pytho's body was visible from the shoulders down as he stood inside the sitting room, facing Adelyn's direction. The ceiling of the sitting room blocked her view of his shoulders and head. Donovan was facing him, arms crossed, looking around at the new windows that were installed. His dark hair was once again pulled back with a hair tie, and he had changed into a dark blue dress shirt with black slacks.
She followed Donovan's gaze and was only mildly surprised to see that everything was cleaned up and fixed from the night before. They must have been working all day to fix everything and secure the Manor as quickly as they could. She had no doubt that Gregory had contractors on speed dial that were willing to drop all of their current clients and rush over to take the job. She was fairly certain that Gregory paid them top dollar for their expedient services, based on some of the numbers she had seen come out of the business account.
"We managed to get some bullet-proof glass windows fitted, but because it was last minute, Gregory was only able to cover the first-floor windows on the front of the building," Pytho's hands slid into his jeans pocket as he turned his upper body slightly to look at the sitting-room window. "The bay windows upstairs needed to be custom ordered."
"Not good enough," Donovan replied. "Have they already been ordered?"
"Yes, they should be available in two days," Gregory suddenly appeared below her as he made his way down the hallway and toward the sitting room. She watched as Gregory slowly made his way over to the others, his usual attire replaced with a plain shirt and jeans. He must have been helping with the window installation along with Pytho and the contractors, she thought to herself. They both looked as if their clothes were stained with caulking. It seemed odd to see Gregory in anything other than business suits.
"We need it sooner," Donovan half-turned as Gregory approached them, the profile of his face visible to Adelyn.
"I'm afraid that's the soonest that I could get my hands on it," Gregory shook his head and held out his hands in a helpless gesture. "The company needs to manufacture the custom windows. That takes time. It has nothing to do with other jobs, trust me," he continued before Donovan could jump in and object. "We've been given absolute priority over all other jobs."
Adelyn nearly jumped as Pytho suddenly leaned down so that his head was visible under the ceiling of the sitting room and grinned up at her. "Are you going to join us, or should we raise our voices for you?"
She felt her face flush and wondered how long he had known that she was standing there watching them.
"Yeah, sorry," She gave him a quick smile and made her way down the staircase. "Do you need my help with anything?" She asked as she focused her attention on Gregory, trying to change the subject of her eavesdropping.
"Everything's been taken care of," Gregory smiled at her as she approached the group. "Although I'm afraid there's a bit of paperwork piling up on your desk for when you return."
"Oh, come on, Gregory," Pytho swatted his hand in Gregory's direction. "Give her a few days off, would you? The poor thing has cheated death twelve times since yesterday." He gave her a wink.
"Only twelve?" Adelyn turned her head as Derion approached the group, looking as if he hadn't slept in days. She could see that his eyes were bloodshot.
He noticed her gaze and gave her a tired smile, brushing an errant lock of blond hair behind his ear. "Too bad. Once you get to fifteen, we give you a pay raise."
"And your own assault rifle!" Pytho chimed in.
Donovan shook his head and sighed. "Any progress?" He asked Derion.
"Some," Derion frowned as he nodded as if he wasn't quite sure of his answer. There was a slight pause over the group as everyone waited for him to elaborate.
"I'm starving," Derion said suddenly, looking over at Pytho. "Are we getting anything to eat?" He clapped his hands together and rubbed them in anticipation. "If I don't get either something to eat or a few minutes of sleep soon, I might just keel over."
"Already ahead of you," Pytho grinned, tucking his hands into his pockets once more. "I placed an order for some food. Delivery boy should be here any minute."
"Oh?" Donovan raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, just enough for a quick bite. A couple of pizzas, breadsticks, wings, some Chinese, a couple of steaks from that restaurant you liked down by that movie theatre, you know the one," he waved a hand in the air and frowned, trying to think of what else he had ordered. "Oh, and some shawarma." He shrugged.
"No Thai?" Adelyn nearly laughed at the disgruntled look on Derion's face.
Pytho inhaled slowly and peered up at the ceiling for a minute. "Wait a minute, wait a minute," he drawled, eyes scanning the ceili
ng as if wracking his memory. "Oh yeah, that order was in between the pizza and Chinese. Nearly forgot about it," he grinned for a few seconds before his eyebrows furrowed together. "Also, I might have ordered some tacos. Not quite sure. Memory's a bit fuzzy when my stomach is growling."
Adelyn grinned, then shook her head. "I feel like I've gained ten pounds just listening to the list."
"You'll get used to it," Gregory smiled warmly at her.
"You'll also get used to daily text reminders to slip more junk food and energy drinks into our grocery orders under Gregory's nose," Pytho grinned. "Speaking of which, why are we out?" He turned to Gregory with a serious look on his face.
"I instructed Adelyn to order enough for the week. If you're unable to ration what's there, then I can't help you," Gregory held his arms out and shook his head.
"I think I saw a few cans in the fridge yesterday," Adelyn offered.
"Nah, those are gone," Pytho shook his head sadly, his full lips in a pout. "Guess I should have told the delivery boy to pick some up. Oh well."
"There's always water," Derion offered lightly.
Pytho made a disgusted face. "God, I'm not that desperate. I think there's some beer left in the fridge."
"Do you want me to go grab some?" She offered, feeling guilty that she had slept the day away while everyone else worked to clean up.
"Sure," Pytho shrugged, then turned to look around the sitting room. "We can chow down here, yeah?" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow to Donovan.
"I suppose," Donovan sighed. "I'm not due to check in with Cain for another two hours," he glanced at his watch. "Where exactly does that surveillance video record to?" He asked Gregory, who was busy looking outside the window at the waning sun.
"Hm?" Gregory asked distractedly, turning around. "Oh, I believe it's been set up to the tablet in the office. They ran it to the desktop, but I assumed you would want it on something portable as well."
"Yes, I do," Donovan pulled out a phone out of his pocket and checked the time. "I'll go collect it and bring it here. Go take care of whatever you need to," he waved a hand in Gregory's direction.
