Tall, Dark & Heartless (Pyte/Sentinel 3)

They didn't trust him and for good reason. Twenty-five years of good behavior wasn't enough to erase five hundred years worth of destruction no matter how many lives he'd saved. He didn't bother getting pissed about it, because he didn't hide from his past or tried to excuse it. He knew exactly who he was and what he'd done. Hell, if he were them he wouldn't trust him either.

The Council would probably trust him more if they could control him or had some leverage over him, but they couldn't and didn't. They all knew that nothing short of a bullet in the head or heart would incapacitate him long enough for them to throw his ass back into a cell. Then they'd have that little problem of keeping his ass locked up until they could figure out what to do with him. Considering how easily he escaped twenty-five years ago, he didn't have much faith in them getting the job done right this time around.

Remorse wasn't enough to make him stay here and bust his ass day after day and they all knew it. He could just as easily do this on his own or do the whole self-denial, self-punishment bullshit in the mountains, living off squirrel blood to make up for his past sins. Truth was, this job was nothing but a rest stop for him until he figured out what he wanted to do with the rest of eternity. There wasn't much he hadn't done or seen in his nearly thousand year existence and now he was truly stumped on what his next step should be.

It's funny how twenty-five years hadn't changed that. When he'd escaped from his cell his only thoughts had been to get away to clear his head. He could still hear the blaring alarms that echoed throughout the large mansion as he made his way to the front door since he refused to crawl out of a window like some coward.

Somehow he ended up in one of the residential wings. Women grabbed their children and fled behind locked doors as he stormed down the hall. He remembered cursing at himself for his stupidity at getting caught in the first place when this little girl, a toddler really, with pretty violet eyes and midnight black hair stepped into the hall right in front of him, halting his escape.

She looked up at him for a moment, just studying him. He waited for her to scream for help as she ran away crying from the monster stalking the halls. What he hadn't been prepared for was the little girl nodding firmly as if she'd decided something important and grabbing his hand.

He'd been so shocked by her reaction to him that he'd let her drag him down the hall without protest. Over the centuries grown men had pissed themselves when they saw his red eyes and fangs, but that small little tot had dragged him down the hall like he was her favorite pull toy.

When she pulled him into her family's living quarters he expected a pair of seriously pissed off Sentinels to attack him, but there had been no one. The only sound in the luxury apartment came from the cartoon playing on the large living room television. She pulled him into the small kitchen and pointed expectantly to a cabinet. Reluctantly he opened it, thinking her parents really f**ked up on the whole "stay away from strangers" talk.

To this day he could still remember the sweet sound of her voice as she said, "Hungie."

Hating himself for not leaving her in the hallway and hauling his ass out of there when he had the chance, he grabbed the damn rainbow box and let himself get bossed around by the little midget. Five minutes later she was happily eating her bowl of rainbow puffs while sitting on his knee in front of the television.

Twenty minutes later two dozen Sentinels stormed the apartment and he willingly went with them, happy to get away from the singing and dancing dog on the television. The little girl who clung to his neck as they drew their weapons may have had something to do with his surrender. For the first time in centuries he hadn't wanted to see another living thing hurt and that confused the living hell out of him, leaving him with absolutely no idea what to do with himself.

After that he decided to hang around to figure some things out. The little girl quickly became his shadow. He hadn't said anything to run her off mostly because she didn't get on his nerves like everyone else did. Soon he found himself drinking imaginary tea with teddy bears, kissing skinned knees, and teaching her how to beat the shit out of the school bully.

Those had been the best years of his life. Then......then she just had to go and change everything by growing up. One day she'd been the sweet girl complaining about her math teacher and the next minute she'd been a desirable woman. He silently cursed his own stupidity for thinking about her, something he did at least a dozen times a day.

Not that he cared about her. He didn't. He never allowed anything or anyone to matter to him. She was just an old responsibility and since he was still hanging around he kept an eye out for her just to have something to do while he tried to figure things out.

It meant nothing.

Just like that little "talk" he'd had with the dipshit a month ago and the half dozen or so other talks he had with him over the previous four months. He hated the little shit and gladly welcomed any reason to beat the hell out of him. Kicking the crap out of Greg entertained him almost as much as the bullshit stories the little bastard made up to cover his injuries. Greg didn't want anyone to know that the Council's "bitch" had bested him.

He walked towards the ladder, smirking as the human posted there to guard the entrance backed up anxiously. Every human and Sentinel feared him and rightly so. He was a monster and it was in his nature to destroy. Given the smallest inclination and would do just that.

Chapter 2

"Danni, what's your location?" Greg demanded.

She pressed her finger to the small button on her headset and answered as she surveyed the dark tunnel that opened to the right. "I'm in section C-23." Where you assigned me, ass**le, but she didn't say that out loud mostly because she didn't want to prolong this conversation.

Crouching low, she adjusted the resolution of her night vision goggles. After making sure the tunnel was clear and no one was sneaking up behind her she bypassed the tunnel opening and continued forward. She was about a thousand yards from where they believed the nest was located.

That nagging feeling she'd been doing her damndest to ignore since she heard about this mission a week ago snuck up on her again. Something about this didn't feel right. It wasn't just the fact that Greg was put in charge, even though that had been a shock. The location was the main problem.

Why would a group of vampires choose to live in an old tunnel system that had been abandoned over a century ago instead of in any of the thousands of buildings above them? Last time she checked Manhattan hadn't been lacking in space. They could find dark spaces to keep out the sun in thousands of other locations.