Without Regret (Pyte/Sentinel 2)

Chapter 16

“Trust no one! Trust no one!” she cried out as the blood continued to rush to her head as she swayed. “T-r-u-s-tno-o-n-e! No spaces!”

“Are you sure this time?” Chris drawled as he let her swing a little further away.

“Yes!” she screamed, pressing her hands tightly against her eyes so she wouldn’t have to watch the tiled foyer floor beneath her as she swayed or rush up on her if they dropped her.

“Did you get that?” she heard Ephraim say from somewhere above her. “It’s all set,” he announced a moment later, but she noticed that no one made a move to pull her back up.

“Let me go!” she yelled.

“Sure, but it’s a hell of a fall,” Chris said, loosening his grip on the rope just enough to let her drop several more feet and earn another embarrassingly high screech from her.

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Are you sure? Because that’s what it sounded like to me,” Chris mused, sounding quite pleased with himself.

Of course that might have something to do with her bragging that there was absolutely nothing they could do to make her talk. Her plan had been foolproof. She’d had them exactly where she wanted them and they’d all known it. Perhaps getting a little too cocky about it had been her downfall, but after everything they’d put her through she’d earned it. Besides, it wasn’t as if she wasn’t going to tell them the password. She fully planned on sending them a text message when she got home and the hell away from them, but they seemed to have other plans.

And plenty of rope.

When Madison and the red headed beauty had come to her defense and begged them not to hang her upside down she’d felt touched and hopeful. At that moment they’d had her undying gratitude. Although neither woman had been able to sway Chris from tormenting her, both women seemed to be able to handle Ephraim quite well. Jill’s suggestion that they talk to her had been wholly approved by her, but the men had ignored her. That is until Jill started to call Ephraim “Daddy”

and she did this little wobble with her bottom lip that Isabella was going to have to learn one day. After that the man’s determination had faltered slightly, but not enough to refrain from floating, and yeah it was one of the coolest things Isabella had ever seen, to a small metal circle in the ceiling and thread one end of the rope through, which she refused to wonder about.

That’s when Madison brought in the big guns, suggesting once again that they handle this by talking.

When she pressed Ephraim’s hand against her stomach and gave him one of those achingly sweet kisses she’d only seen in movie she’d thought the woman had him.

At that point she’d been more than willing to sit down and discuss this like rational, mature adults after she screwed with them just a little longer and got a ride to the airport that is.

Unfortunately for her that’s when Madison’s morning sickness decided to kick in, sending Madison running for a bathroom, she assumed, and Jill running downstairs for a bag of blood and some toast to calm Madison’s stomach. The idea had done anything but calm Isabella’s stomach.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Madison was whatever the hell Ephraim was. They both drank blood and had some really cool abilities. Plus she’d seen Madison’s eyes glimmer a bright red when Ephraim whispered something in her ear.

Chris claimed to be a Sentinel and that she was one as well, which she wasn’t truly buying. He was a big bad warrior type and she was not. She figured that Eric and his goons were Sentinels as well. She had no clue what role the priests, old woman, Joshua and Jill played.

“I think this is the perfect time for us to ask a few questions, don’t you?” Chris asked, sounding annoyingly calm while she was doing her best not to scream, again.

“Let me down and we can talk,” she suggested.

“So you can give us the runaround again? Oh, I don’t think that’s such a good idea, do you, dad?

“I think she’ll make you pay for this little stunt in more ways than one when she gets down, but for right now I think this is probably our best bet to get answers,” he said, and Isabella somehow managed to twist herself in time to see the large man shrug like it was no big deal.

“Won’t Madison be upset that you did this?” she pointed out, slapping her long traitorous hair out of her face so she could glare up at the man.

He simply shrugged. “I assume I’ll be sleeping on the couch for a night or two after this,” he said, tipping his head to the side as if he was listening to something and sighed heavily. “Make that a week,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Then maybe you should…….,” her voice trailed off when she realized something. “Didn’t you lose that hand tonight?” she asked, narrowing her eyes on his hand accusingly.

Ephraim held up the hand, frowning. “It grew back, but I lost my wedding ring,” he said, sounding truly upset and it made her feel guilty knowing that he lost it because of her. Granted he wouldn’t have lost it if they hadn’t brought her there, but knowing that didn’t make her feel any better about it.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’ll replace the ring of course.”

He tilted his head to the side and after a few seconds shook his head. “Madison says thank you, but she wants to go into town tomorrow to pick out a new set.”

“And you know this how?” Isabella asked, stretching her neck to look around her very limited view.

“Because we can hear each other,” Ephraim explained.

“Like voices in your head?” she asked, worrying her bottom lip as she thought it over.

Ephraim chuckled. “No, we have very strong hearing.”

She frowned at that, but let it go for the moment. There were more important issues here besides what really cool things Ephraim could or could not do and as long as he didn’t come to her looking for blood she was okay with him. Not that she wanted to find herself walking down a dark alley with him late one night, but the man had saved her life so in her book, at least for the moment, he was okay.

“Now, let’s get back to the task at hand, shall we?” Chris said, giving the rope a good tug and grabbing her attention once again. “What were you doing at the park this morning?”

The smartass remark that was at the tip of her tongue almost came out, but she held it back, somehow, knowing it would just prolong this and she really, really wanted to get down now. Her head felt like it was going to explode with all the pressure and she just wanted this night to end.