Without Regret (Pyte/Sentinel #2)(102)

“What do you mean by, ‘if I kept the child’?” she asked numbly, afraid to even blink and discover that this was a dream. This couldn’t be real, she thought with a watery smile. A baby? She never dreamed this could ever happen, but what if it was?

Having a baby would change things and she’d definitely have to see about getting trained and buying a house with the best security money could buy, but she’d do it. She do anything to give her baby the childhood she always wanted. She couldn’t believe it. It felt like winning the lottery. She wanted to cry, jump and hug someone.

“I meant exactly what it sounded like, Munchkin. You can’t keep the baby. As soon as we get to the compound I’m having a doctor terminate the pregnancy,” Chris said, bringing her world crashing down around her.

*********

This f**king hurt, he thought , grinding his teeth together as he did his best to get them the hell out of there. At least four of his ribs were broken, one of them pressing against his lung if the pain he felt every time he sucked in a breath was any indication. His shoulder and leg were killing him, but at least they hadn’t hit the rocks, he thought, wincing when sharp pain shot through his lung.

Izzy yanked her hand away from his and he barely caught himself before he stumbled. She didn’t need to know he was in bad shape. He didn’t want to scare her, but if they were found now he wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight to keep her safe. He’d only be able to shoot them and that wouldn’t do a hell of a lot of good with Djaeho demons. It would just piss them the hell off.

As much as he hated doing this, he needed help for his mate. It was a chance he didn’t want to take, but he had no choice. His only hope was that whoever answered his call had brains enough to get Izzy to a compound and under protection before nightfall. Leaving her in a Sentinel home would only cause more problems, problems that a Sentinel couple wouldn’t be able to handle on their own. Izzy needed to be brought to a compound where there would be more than enough Sentinels to guard her and help get her ass out of the country.

“Did you seriously just tell me that I’m pregnant only to turn around and tell me that I’m not keeping it?” Izzy demanded, thankfully using her anger to haul ass through the water ahead of him.

Sucking in a pained breath, he pulled his Sentinel phone out of his bag and scanned his thumbprint. As the phone slid open he kept his thumb firmly pressed to the screen and pressed 1-1-2-5, the SOS code that would hopefully get his little mate the protection that she needed.

When he didn’t answer, because he couldn’t, she continued. “Because I’ll let you know right now, buddy, that’s not your choice! I never expected this and I sure as hell never planned on it, but I’m telling you right now that I am keeping this baby and it’s going to take more than just you to take away from me,” she practically yelled, which was okay at the moment since it meant that she couldn’t hear him struggling to breathe.

With a shaky hand he placed the phone back in the bag, sealed it and placed it in his pocket before he did something stupid like drop it. He wrapped an arm around his chest to help lessen the pain, but it didn’t help. Holy f**k, this hurt. Every breath felt like someone was taking a hot poker and ramming the tip into his lungs.

“I don’t want children, Munchkin,” he somehow managed to bite out. He’d never allowed himself to want any children of his own. He was more than fine with his brothers and sister and future nieces and nephews, but he would never have one of his own. He just couldn’t take the chance that he’d hurt his child, he just couldn’t.

“Good for you, buddy. You don’t want this baby then that’s fine,” she said, sounding close to tears and if he wasn’t in so much f**king pain or struggling just to keep putting one foot in front of the other while he slowly trailed behind her he’d grab her and pull her into his arms and explain everything, but he couldn’t.

“Slow……down,” he said, coughing.

Of course she didn’t. For such a small woman she moved damn quick when pissed, he mused as he slipped and stumbled, landing on his knees on small jagged rocks as the current threatened to shove him backwards. Gasping, he fought against it as he slowly got back to his feet. His little mate of course was a good thirty yards ahead of him now.

He stumbled backwards, in too much pain to put up much of a fight. “Munchkin,” he gasped, cringing as pain shot through his chest.

“What?!” she demanded as she turned around to glare at him.

“I-“

“That’s right, buddy,” she said, taking that as her cue to storm towards him. “You have a lot of nerve,” she said, angrily wiping the tears off her face. “You people kidnap me, screw around with my life, scare the living hell out of me, threaten to drop me off on an island and leave me there and when something good, something that I thought would never happen for me, happens and you think you’re going to keep bossing me around,”

she said, stomping over to him as he looked around praying that help would arrive for his Munchkin. “Well, you have another thing coming, buddy, because I am through with you bossing me around,” she snapped, prompting her fists on her h*ps as she glared up at him.

“It’s,” he gasped for breath, “for your own good.”

“For my own good?” she nearly screeched.