Without Regret (Pyte/Sentinel #2)(18)

Back then he’d been too damn scared to really care what Jill said or did to him. Back then this house had been a boarding house with very little privacy for them and easily the best place he’d ever lived in. It had been too good to be true at the time and he’d been scared shitless that he’d screw up and they’d kick him out, or worse send him to foster care.

For the first few weeks he’d been too scared to act up and cause any problems, afraid he’d upset Madison or Grandma. So, he made it a point to stay out of everyone’s way and do what he was asked the first time without any bitching. He even made sure to do extra chores without being asked to so that Grandma and Madison would want him to stay.

At night he waited for everyone to fall asleep before he silently snuck into Joshua’s room and made a bed for himself on the floor right by the door. Joshua had only been ten years old at the time and had been more than happy to have Chris stay in his room. He viewed it as secret sleepovers. Chris had viewed it as keeping the little boy safe.

He hadn’t cared how nice the men who rented rooms from Grandma seemed. They were still men he didn’t know and therefore didn’t trust. It was one of the life lessons he learned early on in foster care and one that took the first time.

His hands clenched into fists almost painfully at the memory of that long ago night. It hadn’t been his first time in foster care or even the first time he’d had the shit kicked out of him by an adult entrusted with his care, but it had been the first time a man tried to crawl into his bed.

He could still remember the smell of beer and body odor coming off the old couch he’d been forced to sleep on as he did his best to stay warm. His foster parents gave him a decent amount of blankets, but they’d been thin and worn and didn’t do much to keep him warm in the cold room.

At some point during the night he considered going to their room and asking if they would turn the heat on in the living room, but the split lip they’d given him earlier that day when he spilled milk stopped him. He didn’t want to know what they’d do if he woke them.

After getting dressed he considered leaving and walking back to the trailer where his mom lived, but he hadn’t been sure if she was still in jail or not. Even at six years old he knew she’d be serving at least thirty days for solicitation, not that he’d known what that meant at the time, but it was the usual reason she went away.

To this day he thanked his lucky stars that he hadn’t been asleep on the couch when Ted, his foster father at the time, came into the room. If he had…..

He didn’t even want to think about what could have happened if things had been different. It was bad enough that he ended up in the hospital with a broken arm and three cracked ribs. A broken bone or two he could handle, but what that man and several others after had in mind for him would have broken him.

They were the reason why he still went to bed with a weapon nearby and why he slept on Joshua’s floor ten years ago. He didn’t want the sweet little boy hurt. He wasn’t sure if Madison or Grandma knew what was going on. If they did they never said anything to him and Joshua certainly never told anyone. The only person who knew what he was doing as far as he could tell was Ephraim.

Of course it hadn’t been exactly a shock that the man knew what he was doing. His father was a Pyte after all.

Of course Chris wasn’t sure if his father knew he was in Joshua’s room because he heard him or smelled him since Pytes also had an incredible sense of smell, almost twice as strong as a shifter’s and easily a hundred times stronger than a vampire’s. When he patrolled with his father it was like working with a living GPS unit. The man could hunt anything and anyone down with very little effort, which is why it wasn’t too surprising when he discovered Chris sleeping on Joshua’s floor.

Three weeks after Ephraim bought the house and tossed all the boarders out, not to mention adopted him, and Chris still hadn’t been able to sleep at night unless he knew the little boy was safe. It wasn’t because he thought Ephraim would hurt the boy. He trusted Ephraim, probably since the first time he’d arrested Chris when he was still a detective for the state police.

He also knew without a doubt that the man would tear anyone stupid enough to hurt the little boy apart with his bare hands. No, the problem was Chris couldn’t accept that he was safe and loved for the first time in his life.

When he woke up that night to find Ephraim standing over him he thought for sure his father was going to yell at him. Instead Ephraim looked down at him with so much compassion in his eyes that Chris had almost wished the man would yell or hit him.

Just when he was about to give his father some lame ass excuse for sleeping on a ten year old’s floor, Ephraim sat down on the floor next to him, stole his pillow, and laid down. Chris would never admit it to anyone, but that night was probably the first time he slept like a baby, because he knew Ephraim would protect him.

The next night Ephraim silently joined them, probably after he exhausted the hell out of Madison, because she never once came looking for Ephraim. After a week, Chris decided it was safe to sleep in his own room and trusted Ephraim to keep an ear out for Joshua’s safety.

He was a little surprised when Ephraim walked into his room after he crawled into bed and sat down in the corner.

For three weeks straight Ephraim did that for him.

He’d come in quietly and sit there all night and go to work the next morning exhausted as hell, but he never once complained. It was one of the hundreds of things his father did to let him know that he was loved and cared for and the reason why he’d sacrifice anything for his family.