Tall, Dark & Lonely (Pyte/Sentinel 1)

Madison felt her heart breaking. She didn’t want to see this. She didn’t want to see him with another woman no matter what the reason. It damn near killed her when he finally reacted. He dropped his head back and gritted his teeth the way he’d done with her so many times.

Caroline began screaming.

“What the f**k?” Chris crawled on his knees to get a better look. “His pants are smoking!”

“Holy water, bitch,” Ephraim ground out. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist.”

She yanked her hand out of his pants and began stumbling around the room while she stared at her hand. “Holy shit! Would you look at that?” Chris muttered.

Madison was looking. Caroline’s hand erupted in flames, seconds later the flame was gone and her hand was a gray ash. She stumbled into the wall. The bump was enough to disturb the ash that was once her hand. It crumbled to the ground. New screams left her mouth. “My hand, you son of a bitch! You took my hand away!”

All that was left of her hand was a bump at the end of her wrist. Tears streamed down her face.

“That…will…teach you….to touch….what belongs to…another…woman,” he said, gasping. The pain in his groin was unbearable. He was burned pretty badly from the feel of it.

“Ephraim, are you okay?” Chris and Madison asked in unison.

He tried to nod. The motion triggered pain in his groin. The sensation shot to his stomach. His legs gave out, leaving his body hanging by the chains. He gasped desperately before he began vomiting blood.

“Oh god, Ephraim!” Madison screamed.

“My hand!” Caroline screamed as she ran out the back door in the basement.

The two men holding guns looked nervous. The third man ran after his mistress. “What do we do?” one of the men asked.

“We stay here! She’ll be back!” The other man fidgeted nervously.

“Holy shit, I’m an idiot.” Ephraim chuckled weakly.

“What are you talking about?” Chris asked. His eyes were darting between the two very nervous men. The guns in their hands were shaking. “Hey! Point that damn thing elsewhere before you accidentally shoot her!”

Ephraim pulled in a deep breath as he pushed up with his feet. Once he was standing erect he turned as far as the chains would allow him. He studied the two men for several minutes before he realized what didn’t feel right about this situation.

He cursed under his breath as he reached up and wrapped a hand around each chain until they were tight. The men watched with wide eyes as every muscle in Ephraim’s body tightened and twitched.

“Stop or we’ll shoot them!” the man standing over Madison said.

Ephraim exhaled before pulling again. This time a loud creaking sound accompanied the action. “No, you won’t,” he said simply.

The sounds of guns cocking had Chris and Madison grabbing each other, trying to protect the other. “Ephraim, stop! He’ll shoot her!” Chris screamed.

“Not with blanks he won’t.” A loud painful grunt erupted from Ephraim as he arched himself backwards and broke the chains from the ceiling.

The men turned in unison and began firing at Ephraim. He stumbled towards them, but didn’t drop. Madison forced herself to watch. She scanned his body for bullet holes, but couldn’t tell if there were any fresh injuries since his body was already covered with large wounds.

Another gunshot and then another. The sound was deafening. With each shot she looked for some kind of sign that he was hit, a jolt, a stumble, a word, but there was nothing, no reaction.

“They’re blanks,” Chris whispered.

The two men seemed to agree. They threw the guns to the side and backed off towards the door their master escaped from. “Go, I’m sure she’ll be hungry.” Ephraim dropped to his hands and knees, but didn’t stop moving. “That’s what you were, a meal. She wouldn’t hire two idiots who’d never handled a gun before to keep them hostage. You were my meal. I’m an idiot.”

“No, she loves us. She would never do that.”

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that,” Chris said dryly. “She just left you unarmed with a seriously pissed off Pyte. That’s real love.”

“Oh f**k!” one of the men whimpered.

“Go, just go,” Ephraim said weakly. He didn’t look at the men as he continued his slow crawl forward. He didn’t stop until he dropped his head in Madison’s lap. His arms wrapped around her waist. He pressed a tender kiss to her leg.

“Ephraim, oh god, Ephraim,” Madison sobbed as she hugged his head to her body.

“We need to get out of here before psycho bitch comes back,” Chris said. He jumped to his feet and looked up at the ceiling where their chains hung from. He used his chains to pull himself up to the ceiling. “They’re on hooks!” he said excitedly.

“Can you get them off?” Madison asked, her eyes never left the back of Ephraim’s head.

“I think so…hold….on….just a little-“ The front door to the basement exploded into the room. “Shit!” Chris lost his hold and fell the short distance to the floor with an, “Oomph!”

Madison sobbed softly as she watched two men and two women in black fatigues enter the room with their weapons drawn.

One of the women spotted the second door and with a signal to the other woman she walked to it.

“A vampire with one hand and three of her followers went through that door over five minutes ago,” Chris informed them.

The women nodded. “Eric, we’re going to see if we can’t catch up to them.”

“Go,” a man with short spiky black hair said. “We’ll see what we have here.” The two men walked over to them and began looking them over.

“This one is a Sentinel, unmated,” the other man said after he quickly looked over Chris. He ran a hand through his messy blonde hair, sighing.

“Release him. What about the woman and this man?” Eric ran his eyes over Ephraim’s torn and bloodied back. The other man grabbed Madison by the arm, yanking her to her feet. Ephraim rolled off her onto the ground without a sound.

“Hey, be careful with her, she’s pregnant,” Chris snapped.

“Sorry,” the man mumbled. He looked Madison over for bite marks. “One last thing.” He pulled out a cross and pressed it to her forehead.

Nothing.

“She’s human.”

“Good, get those chains off her then,” Eric said.