Tall, Dark & Furious (Pyte/Sentinel 6)

“Get her out of here,” the Sentinel bit out.

Nodding once, Trace shifted his gaze to the rest of the cellar, taking in the vampires, what he thought might be demons, and shifters guarding the cells and found his attention drawn to the small female struggling to stand back up and when she did-

“Fucking look at me, Indie!” came the shouted demand that had Trace taking his eyes off the woman that was struggling to bite back a sob as a flat board was brought down across her back and found himself watching as the man in the other cell fought against his chains to get to her.

“Father?” Trace said, unable to believe his eyes as he moved to stand up only to curse when he remembered the chains stopping him. For a moment, he sat there, content to stare at the man that he never thought he’d see again, until even that wasn’t enough, and he found himself saying the words that he’d been waiting three and a half centuries to say to his father.

“I’m sorry.”

Chapter 42

She wasn’t sure if it was the stabbing pain in her leg or the pounding noise that was making her head hurt that woke her up, but once she opened her eyes, Samantha wished that she hadn’t.

Swallowing hard, she found herself watching in horror as a man carried a small, unconscious woman over to one of those large hard plastic kiddy pools that she used to play in with Nathan when they were little as several men dumped bags of ice in it and-

Oh, god…

Dropped the small woman in the pool and held her underwater.

“Don’t fucking do this!” someone yelled as Samantha struggled to get up only to realize that her muscles wouldn’t listen.

“Stop,” she barely managed above a whisper as she was forced to close her eyes as her head started to spin and mumbled, “Please, stop,” as the sounds of the small woman gasping for air followed her into oblivion.

*-*-*-*

“Get her out of that fucking cell!” she heard Nathan yell the next time she opened her eyes.

For a moment, Samantha laid there with the side of her face pressed against the cool metal floor, numbly watching as Trace grabbed hold of a set of chains secured to the thick metal cuffs wrapped around his wrists and roared as he tried to tear them out of the wall only to hear a woman say in a taunting voice, “I think Daddy had those reinforced.”

Blinking, Samantha slowly turned her head to find a small woman curled up in a ball in the cell next to them while the man chained to the wall seemed to be losing his mind, struggling to break free to get to her. Frowning, she found herself looking for the source of the pounding and felt her stomach drop when a terrifyingly familiar scene played out in front of her eyes.

Across from her, several large men were tearing apart the wall, shoving chunks of cement and rocks aside as others continued to carry bags of cement into the basement and stack them against the wall next to a large wooden mallet. For several minutes, Samantha watched as they worked before she turned her head to find Trace sitting there, watching helplessly as they dug a new tomb.

She opened her mouth to say his name only to have him cut her off when he said, “I’m not going to change you.”

“W-what?” she asked, trying to make sense out of what he was saying.

“I’m not going to change you, Samantha,” he said more firmly.

“You fucking asshole!” Nathan shouted from somewhere nearby, letting her know that he was okay.

At least for the moment.

“I’m not going to change you,” Trace said more firmly as he turned his head and met her gaze.

“We need to make it wider so that we can fit them both in there,” one of the men said as Trace’s grip tightened around the chains as he watched her, looking like he wanted to say more, but he’d said enough.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“Yes,” she answered hollowly.

They were going to put her in that hole with Trace and she was going to die. He wasn’t going to change her, which meant that she wasn’t going to spend eternity dying of suffocation, starvation, and forced to try to claw her way free as she watched her body waste away.

But he would.

*-*-*-*

He wasn’t going to change her.