Tall, Dark & Heartless (Pyte/Sentinel 3)

Leaning over, she promised him, "If the Master is ever stupid enough to turn you I will happily stake your ass."

She landed a solid kick to his stomach as several strong hands grabbed her and yanked her back. Her arms were yanked behind her back and cuffed. They gagged her and shoved her to the ground. She did her damndest to cause as much pain as she could dish out, but there were too many of them and her vision was dimming as the pain in her head exploded. Just as the knife flashed in front of her she happily blacked out.

Chapter 3

"What the hell is going on?" one of the human males whose name Caine never bothered to learn, demanded.

"They must have been tipped off somehow," a woman who normally jumped anytime he came within ten feet of her, said.

Caine slowly walked the perimeter of the large room. The floor was covered in thick undisturbed dust and broken tiles. He gazed around the room looking for the exits that should have been there, but weren't. The room was a dead end and someone was f**king with them. He had a good idea who that someone was.

"Return to the compound," Caine said, sighing. He really didn't have time for this shit, well he did, but that didn't mean he wanted to waste his night fixing whatever the little ass**le f**ked up. He had several bags of type AB positive waiting for him in his room and a few books he wouldn't mind reading again. They weren't exciting plans, but they were his and he'd be damned if the little shit was wrecking them.

"We need to wait for Greg," another male said.

"He probably f**ked up again and Danni's fixing it. She'll figure it out and let us know what we have to do," another woman said.

"She should have been put in charge of this assignment, not Greg 'the f**k up' Mitchell."

Caine couldn't agree more, but now was not the time to discuss what should have been done differently. Wonder boy had screwed up again and this time he dragged Danni down with him.

He should leave her here to deal with whatever problems the little bastard created. It would serve her right for getting involved with the little prick in the first place. If she had listened to him all those years ago she wouldn't be in this mess right now. But no, she let that little bastard use her and she bailed his ass out time and time again. He would have let the little bastard fall flat on his face, but not Danni. The damn mission always meant everything to her.

As soon as he heard the little bastard had f**ked up again, yeah he switched channels and eavesdropped, he should have looked into the situation. But he didn't want to get involved with either one of them and he figured that she could deal with his bullshit and fix this problem. Obviously he'd been wrong.

"What do we do now?" a woman asked, sounding scared. Caine looked heavenward, praying for patience he damn well knew he didn't have. Why had he agreed to babysit the human unit?

Because as soon as he heard Greg was leading this mission he knew something was going to go wrong. Even as a boy Greg seemed to have a knack for causing problems and screwing over the people who fixed them. Everyone knew he was an incompetent f**k up, but that didn't stop his parents from pulling strings for him.

As much as Caine would like to go home and relax with a bag of blood, he knew he had to figure out what the hell went wrong here. First, he needed to find Danni and make sure the bastard wasn't going to try and blame his latest screw up on her. Then he was going to have to have yet another "word" with Greg.

"All of you get the hell out of here and get back to the compound," he ordered, eager to go have another "talk" with the prick. When they didn't move fast enough, he snapped, "Now!"

Thankfully that got them moving. No doubt they were going to bitch and whine to their parents once they reached the compound. Not that he cared. Actually, it might work out for him in the end. Maybe they'd start assigning some other dumb bastard babysitting duty. One could only hope.

Pulling out his knife, just in case he ran into an ambush along the way, Caine flashed the two miles of tunnel in under a minute. He paused ten yards away from the tunnel entrance and inhaled deeply and quickly cursed up a storm.

Fucking hell.

They'd run into the nest. He could smell Danni and Greg's scent, more importantly their blood among the heavy, cloying, earthly scent of vampires. From his position he could see there was a dead end where Greg promised there would be an opening. Granted, neither human would have seen that with their night vision goggles until they were relatively close.

He scented the air again. "Great," he muttered as he headed in the direction where their scents were fresher. For a moment he considered calling for backup, but then realized his backup would be the human squad playing dress up and decided against it. The last thing he needed was the added responsibility of watching over them.

With a few exceptions humans really had no business fighting vampires, but just like human parents, Sentinel parents were known to overindulge their children. Considering these little human groups weren't allowed to go up against demons or shifters, one would think their parents would realize their children had no business fighting vampires either, but they figured with the right amount of training and of course a babysitter, that missions like this were perfectly safe.

They weren't.

This little f**k up should prove that. Sentinels not only trained to keep their asses out of problems like this, but they also had a natural ability on their side. They would have sensed the trap long before it sprung. A Sentinel would have caught the subtle earthy smell vampires gave off and would have made damn sure they weren't in the position to be trapped. No amount of training could give any of these humans that advantage.

A half mile later the scent suddenly changed direction. It didn't take Caine long to figure out that they'd gone through the small manhole. He closed his eyes and focused. Above him he could hear the sound of two heartbeats. One of them was racing and giving off a huge amount of adrenaline. The intoxicating aroma had Caine's fangs dropping. He ignored his response and focused on the second heartbeat. It was strong and steady.

He nearly sighed with relief when he realized the second heartbeat was Danni's. Even though he knew one day she would pass away like everyone else he wasn't ready. It probably had to do with the fact that she was the only human he'd known and cared about when she was a child. Whatever it was he wasn't ready for her to be gone. That day would come and when it did he would forget about her like all the rest. Until then he owed it to that little bossy girl, who used to demand extra kisses for bruised knees to make sure it didn't come sooner than it should.