Tall, Dark & Heartless (Pyte/Sentinel #3)(107)

He learned long ago how to control his abilities to the point that everything came naturally now. If he wanted to, he could have heard the entire phone conversation with very little effort, but he'd been too focused on his mate.

"Well, according to Ethan, she should have overfed for the first couple of weeks on fresh blood. None of that bagged shit for her and especially not human blood for a while. She needs immortal blood to help kill the poison that shut down her system," Jax said, releasing his wrist to rub Danni's jaw in an attempt to get her to swallow.

Caine kept his eyes locked on Danni's ghostly white face, silently pleading with her to swallow as he frowned. "What the hell are you talking about? My blood killed it and made her immortal. It's gone."

"Have you tasted her blood since she turned?"

No, he hadn't.

Several times he'd been tempted to, curious to see how her blood would taste now that the cancer was gone, but he forced himself to hold back. Not only because he didn't feed from the source anymore and didn't want to fall back into old habits, but because he was afraid that her blood was going to taste as good as he imagined over the years and that he wouldn't be able to let her go.

He wasn't worried about that now, because he was never letting her go.

"Ethan thinks the cancer forced her body to shut down. It must have been terminal," Jax murmured conversationally as he moved his hand down to Danni's neck and rubbed, but nothing worked. Jax's blood spilled out of her mouth and down her cheek and still her heart refused to beat.

He didn't bother to answer the man as he brought his own wrist to his mouth and bit. As soon as he tasted blood he pulled his wrist away and replaced Jax's wrist as the shifter smartly pulled his arm out of the way.

"My blood should have taken care of it," Caine said as he silently pleaded with Danni to take his blood.

"Unless you fed her continuously during her change and kept shoving bags of blood down her throat, the cancer remained in her system. When your blood changed her and made her stronger, it probably failed to kill every last cancer cell because you didn't give her enough blood to get the job done so it stuck around. Ethan thinks that when your blood made her stronger that it-"

"Made the cancer stronger as well," he finished for the shifter on a groan. He'd f**ked up, but there was nothing he could do about it now but figure out a way to get the poison out of her system.

"How much blood is it going to take?" he asked as he tried to figure out how many bags of cold blood he was going to have to down between feeding her so that he didn't accidentally go into bloodlust.

"Well, first we have to find out how much of it is still in her body. Then I guess we keep feeding her until it goes away."

"How in the hell are we supposed to know how much is in her body? And how do you propose we keep feeding her until it's gone when she can't swallow?" he snapped, feeling his control slip as more blood overflowed from Danni's mouth.

Jax pursed his lips up in thought. "Actually, I had an idea, but it's going to be a little tricky."

Chapter 39

Just outside of Albany, New York

"I told you that he wasn't here," one of the minions who up until this morning had been forced to follow Greg's every command said as he kicked a pile of brush about ten feet to Greg's right, forcing Greg to duck down even lower in the vegetation and move closer to the old rusted can of W-40 and a ripped garbage bag full of rotting baby diapers that someone had tossed on the side of the road.

"Hurry up and get your ass back in the car!" John, the little bastard who kissed Greg's ass until the moment the Master ordered Greg's death, said. "We've got eight hours to find the little bastard before the sun goes down and the vamps get their chance at the reward."

"Well, just remember not to kill him when we find him. Lucan wants the pleasure of killing the little shit," the one he hadn't bothered learning his name said, as they jogged back to the small SUV parked on the side of the road and jumped in.

Lucan was definitely getting added to the list. Well, he was already on the list, but his position had just been bumped up a few spots. Then again, maybe he should give the man a little credit since he'd warned him about the Master. Not that Greg had believed him.

He hadn't.

He knew that he was indispensible to the Master, especially now that the Pyte and the bitch had escaped. The Master needed him more than ever and the man obviously wanted him, Greg reminded himself, letting his mind wander back to the other night and hating the way his c**k twitched in interest.

Fuck it, the Master was at the top of his list for not only lying to him, but for convincing him to enjoy it and making him think that it would get him what he wanted that much faster. The bastard had lied to get him into bed, he thought with disgust for probably the hundredth time that morning.

It was obvious, or at least now it was thanks to the fact that he had to run for his life a few hours ago, that he'd gone about this whole thing the wrong way. Instead of making a deal with the Master and signing on as a f**king slave he should have just kidnapped the bitch, locked her ass up somewhere and refused to tell the bastard where she was until he changed him. If he had he'd be a Pyte right now instead of-

"I'm a f**king moron," he muttered to himself, standing up and dusting himself off with his only hand, but that would change and soon.