Tall, Dark & Heartless (Pyte/Sentinel #3)(22)

He hated being considered a minion almost as much as he hated being the human child of a Sentinel, but that would end soon. After he completed this project and he was changed, he fully planned on showing the Master the error of his ways and taking Lucan's job. In time, he'd take his rightful place as Master.

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Why was she in so much pain? Danni wondered as she rolled over onto her side and shivered.

"Get up, Danni," Caine commanded, but she couldn't. She was too tired and weak, although that's not what stopped her.

The small sparks of pain going off in her head let her know that she wouldn't be getting up again for quite some time. She turned to bury her face against the soft mattress as the light began to bother her. It didn't matter that her eyes were closed, she couldn't tolerate any light right now. She knew from experience that it was only going to get worse before it got better.

As much as she would love to find out why Caine decided that she was worthy to speak to again, she decided to give into her exhaustion and pain and go back to sleep. If she was lucky she'd sleep through this migraine. That would only happen if Greg decided to leave her the hell alone.

The idea of him taking his anger and frustration out on her while she had one of her migraines turned her stomach. She probably would have vomited if her body hadn't chosen that moment to drift off.

*********

"Are you going to stay awake this time?" Caine asked tightly as the sounds of chains being dragged across the floor teased her now thankfully, dull headache.

She slowly rolled over onto her side and frowned at the sight that met her. Caine's eyes were bright red, his fangs were down and for some godforsaken reason, he was prowling back and forth like a caged animal.

Her eyes shot over to the glass case that was filled with light pink water. Was that her blood? she wondered as she tried to sit up, but couldn't. She was too weak and tired, a nasty side effect from one of her migraines that had only been made worse by starving and the fun little torture Greg had thought up.

As she tried to find the energy to get up and use the bathroom she looked at the pink watery mess on the floor. When she couldn't detect any pain that would go along with that much blood loss she wondered what the hell happened. She looked back at the tank for a clue and that's when she saw it.

"Look away," Caine snapped and she was helpless to disobey at the moment. Her stomach was already queasy. She didn't need to stare at half an arm floating in the water to make it worse.

"What happened?" she asked, proud that her voice sounded normal.

"Greg left us a parting gift," he answered and she didn't have to look back to know that he was still pacing back and forth. The sounds of his chains dragging across the floor gave him away.

Her lips twitched despite the nausea that threatened to take over. She curled onto her side, using her right arm as a pillow as she pressed her left hand against her stomach in an attempt to stop the hunger pains that were starting to make their presence known. She just needed a little more rest then she could make her way to the shower and fill up with water while taking a cold shower thanks to Caine, she thought with a heavy sigh.

"What's wrong?" Cain asked, sounding almost.....concerned?

Had hell frozen over? she wondered idly as her stomach began to cramp down. As much as she'd love to lay there and rest for a while, if she didn't get to the shower area now she'd probably be too sick to do it later.

She rolled over onto her side, took a deep breath and sat up as she averted her eyes from the morbid scene to her left since the last thing her stomach needed was dry heaves. Using her trembling arms she pushed herself onto her shaky legs, but didn't get far before her butt landed back on the mattress again.

"What are you doing?" Caine demanded.

"Why do you care?" she snapped weakly, hating being this weak, this whole situation, and the inevitable future that she faced.

She needed to get out of here before it was too late. This wasn't the way she wanted things to end. As long as she'd still been able to work, to function she'd been fine, but this situation was anything but fine.

Every minute she spent in here was a minute of her life wasted, a minute she would never get back and if things kept progressing the way they were, she wouldn't have to worry about dying of starvation or even Greg killing her because the cancer would. She'd already gone at least two weeks without her medication, medication that was supposed to slow its progress, help her keep her strength up and give her a fighting chance to leave this world doing what she loved doing.

She thought about telling Caine the truth, wondering if maybe there was enough concern for her left in him that he'd help her escape so she at least had a fighting chance, but she knew he wouldn't. He didn't care and nothing was going to change his mind.

She was nothing to him, just another human that didn't matter and was going to die someday. It would be foolish to think that he'd care enough to take a risk for her. Not that he would die, but they could torture or starve him.

"Why the hell did you let that ass**le do that to you?" he suddenly shouted, making her wince as a bolt of pain shot through her head. Great, now it was time to lay down again.

Carefully she lay on her side, facing the room, noting for the first time that her shirt was damp. No wonder she was freezing. She considered pulling the fitted sheet off the small mattress and curling up with it, but it was probably damp as well. Not that it mattered since she didn't have the energy to get up, never mind perform that little feat at the moment. All she wanted to do was lie here and wait for the hunger and pain to go away, but the man glaring at her as he paced the room didn't look like he was going to be very accommodating by shutting the hell up and stopping that damn rattling anytime soon.