Tall, Dark & Furious (Pyte/Sentinel 6)

Slowly exhaling, she grabbed the bottle of shampoo and poured an ungodly amount into her hand before placing it back on the shelf. She could do this, she told herself as she pressed her hands together and spread the shampoo between them as she did her best to psych herself up without passing out.

She could do this, Samantha lied to herself, only to decide that she needed to look at this from a different angle. If she didn’t do this, then there was a very good chance that she would end up joining those men and something told her that she really didn’t want to join them.

That being said, she had to do this.

Releasing a shaky breath, she nodded to herself, went back on her tippy toes, reached for his face and-

Decided to return to the task that he’d given her so that he didn’t tear her apart with those large fangs that he was now sporting. With a somewhat hysterical smile, Samantha added the shampoo to the top of his head as she tried quite desperately to ignore the fact that his once emerald eyes were now that terrifying red that made it difficult to remain conscious.

“I think it’s time to rinse,” Samantha said brightly, as she dropped her soapy hands away and quickly rinsed them off as he continued standing there, staring at her in a way that had her seriously considering giving in to the panic and calling it a day.

He didn’t say anything as he stepped back beneath the water, but he did continue to glare at her, which if he’d asked her, she would have told him that it was a bad idea, but since he hadn’t…

She decided to take his surprised roar as an invitation to run for her life.

Shoving him aside as he tried to scrub all that soap out of his eyes, Samantha stumbled out of the tub, tripped, skidded and stumbled towards the bathroom door, threw it open and ran as fast as her incredibly uncoordinated feet would take her to the stairs. Once she reached the stairs, she nearly fell to her death when he released another roar.

Praying that her bag was by the door, she raced down the stairs, almost losing her balance several times along the way and headed towards her bag that was thankfully close to the front door and-

Kept on going when the next roar shook the house. She threw the front door open and promptly tripped over Charlie, who’d she’d admit that she hadn’t given much thought about since this whole thing started. Ignoring his growl of displeasure at having his nap disturbed as she stumbled the rest of the way across the porch, she somehow landed on the ground at a stumbling run. Out of options, Samantha headed for the woods, hoping to lose him at the stream, which according to her brother would take her back to town if she followed it.

More than willing to find out if that was true, she ran towards the woods. Ignoring the throbbing pain at the back of her head that threatened to drop her on her ass, the nausea currently begging her to stop, the rocks and twigs biting into her bare feet as she ran as fast as her uncoordinated feet would take her, which unfortunately for her, wasn’t very fast. Regretting the record she’d set for most consecutive days skipping the gym, she slowed down to a stumble as she was forced to grab onto trees as she went, gasping for breath and only realizing too late that she wasn’t alone.

Charlie, the traitorous bastard, had followed her.

Chapter 6

“I swear to god that I will strangle you, you little bastard!” his wife growled viciously only to end up gasping when the large dog, and he was pretty sure that it was a dog although he’d never seen one like it before, herded her back through the door with a vicious growl.

For a moment, Trace simply stood there, dripping water all over the floor as he watched her trip her way back into the house to get away from the dog snapping at her any time she stopped moving.

“Wait until I tell Nathan!” she hissed out threateningly, as she moved to go around the dog only to yelp and stumble back when the dog nipped at her. “Oh, you will pay for this, you little bastard!”

At that, the dog decided that he’d had enough and sent Trace’s disobedient wife running back up the stairs where he waited for her. When she spotted him, she stumbled to a halt only to curse under her breath and run the rest of the way back up the stairs as the dog that he’d decided was his, sent her running. Once she was at the top of the stairs, she skidded to a halt, did a double-take, groaned “Of course he’d be hot,” confusing him, shook her head with a resigned sigh, cleared her throat, nodded to herself as she reached up and pressed her hand against the back of her head, and headed back towards the bathroom, making sure to give him plenty of space as she went.

Shifting his glare from his woman to the dog sitting by his feet, Trace gave the dog a look that had him lying down and keeping watch. Once he was sure that his wife wasn’t doubling back and trying to escape, he closed his eyes and slowly scented the air as he listened for whatever had set the dog off. After a moment, he reluctantly opened his eyes and glanced down at the dog that was keeping watch. He didn’t hear anything, but he knew they were coming.

The only question was when.

With that in mind, he walked back into the bathroom, slammed the door shut behind him and watched as his woman shifted nervously by the chair as she waited for him to sit back down. Narrowing his eyes on her, Trace sat back down only to glare at his wife when she threw a large cloth over his lap and-

“Careful, wife,” he bit out in warning, letting her know that he wouldn’t tolerate any more of her tricks when she reached for the thing that she’d trimmed his hair with earlier.

With a reluctant nod, and looking paler than she had before, she carefully moved closer and reached up with trembling hands and began cutting his hair and shaved his beard, again. Once she was done, she stepped away, wrapped her arms around herself and mumbled, “I’m done.”

Nodding, he stood up, all while keeping his attention on his wife that needed to learn her place before he turned his attention to the polished glass and glared at the stranger staring back at him. It was hard to remember what he’d looked like as a boy, but he didn’t think that he’d looked anything like the angry man staring back at him. Almost afraid to find out, he closed his eyes and grabbed hold of the edge of the counter as he asked the one question that had tormented him for years.

“What year is it?”

“Two thousand nineteen,” came the reluctant answer that had him absently nodding as he did the math and when he realized just how much time had passed since he woke up in that tomb, the air in his lungs left him in a rush.

Three hundred and fifty-four years.

He’d spent three hundred and fifty-four years in that tomb, Trace thought, struggling to draw a breath as he tightened his hold on the broken counter, causing more pieces to break off and fall to the ground as everything turned red and a growl worked its way up his throat as he tried to…tried to…

Shake his head in disbelief when his wife dropped to the floor behind him and just like that, the red seeped out of his vision and he was sighing heavily as he turned his attention to the woman that clearly needed a man to take care of her. They were going to have to break her of this habit, Trace decided as he opened the door before leaning down to scoop her up in his arms, not really sure what he was going to do with this woman.

Besid