Without Regret (Pyte/Sentinel #2)(56)

Or am I going to be foaming at the mouth and chasing cars?”

She heard Joshua clear his throat and slowly opened her eyes to find the man biting back a smile. “This isn’t funny,” she bit out, narrowing her eyes on him.

“No, no, of course it’s not,” he said with a straight face, but she didn’t miss the humor glimmering in his eyes.

“Well?” she snapped when he didn’t answer her, at least not fast enough.

“Did you drink his blood?” he asked, lips twitching for some insane reason.

“Did I…..what?” she mumbled as his words sank home.

“Ew! No, I didn’t drink his blood!”

“Not that it matters, because you’re a Sentinel, but if you had been human and drank his blood-“

“Why the hell would I drink his blood?” she demanded, cutting him off and wondering when her life was going to get back to normal.

Joshua ignored the interruption as he continued. “-then there would be a fiftyfifty chance that you would shift three nights in a row, starting on the full moon, but since you’re a Sentinel and you’re alive I’m going to just go ahead and say that you didn’t digest any blood.”

“Oh,” was her lame response.

“Exactly,” he said, reaching back and picking up a small red First Aid kit. “We do however have to worry about infection, which is why I’m going to clean up your cuts if you think you can handle the scent of disinfectant right now,” he said, arching a brow in question as he pulled out a small bottle of antiseptic and a small pile of bright white gauze pads.

“That would be great, thank you,” she managed to say as she tried to wrap her mind around all the information she’d learned in the past twentyfour hours and failed miserably.

“I’ll be as gentle as I can, but I need to make sure your cuts are thoroughly cleaned,” he explained as he applied a small amount of the antiseptic and started to carefully clean out her cuts.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked, wincing when he cleaned out a particularly nasty scratch.

“Of course.”

She nibbled her bottom lip nervously as she wondered if she really wanted to know the truth. As much as she’d love to leave here and pretend that none of this had happened, she couldn’t. There were too many questions unanswered and she knew if she didn’t find what else was out there she would never leave her apartment again and would soon be known to the neighborhood children as that creepy computer geek in apartment 7B.

The only way to lead a safe, relatively normal life was to find out exactly what she had to fear and how to protect herself. She also needed to find out what would be more effective, bathing in garlic water or holy water.

She’d wear holy relics, bath in whatever would keep the monsters away and only come out during the day if that’s what it took, but she needed to know exactly what would work.

But before she found out what else was out there she needed to find out a few things about herself and their merry little house of psychos.

“What’s a Sentinel?” she asked, tilting her head back to give him better access.

He paused mid-wipe as he frowned down at her in clear confusion. “Chris didn’t tell you?”

“No, not really,” she said, wincing when a drop of antiseptic landed on a cut.

“Maybe he didn’t get to it. There’s a lot to cover after all. What exactly did he go over with you so far?”

“That I shouldn’t run away from a werewolf,” she said, trying to remember if he’d gone over anything else.

“Oh, and that I’m a Sentinel, whatever the hell that means.”

For a moment he only stared down at her until she finally had about enough of being gawked at and slowly, oh so slowly, sat up. She leaned back against the bed and took a slow calming breath as she waited for her body to stop shivering. If nothing else, she owed Chris an ass whooping for not only hanging her upside down, but for leaving her there.

“You’re kidding right?” Joshua asked, giving her a funny look that she was too exhausted to even hazard a guess at.

“No, I’m not. The ass**le, as I am now referring to him as, threw me in a car, didn’t tell me a damn thing and then surprised me by taking me to a clearing with na**d men, which wouldn’t have been bad except for the fact that they all shifted into huge vicious beasts and tried to eat me,” she explained, biting back a yawn as she wondered if she’d ever be able to sleep with the lights off again.

“Shit,” he muttered, ramming his fingers through his hair, “no wonder mom’s pissed at him.”

She eyed him warily. “And by mom you mean Madison, right?” she asked, wondering exactly how old Madison really was to have a grown man for a son. She would have guessed mid-twenties, but apparently life spans were different in this household.

“Yes,” he said with a fond smile as he crossed his legs and leaning back against the wall, “she’s my mother.

Jill is my sister and you’ve already met my brother Chris,” he said with a wink. “I also have a little brother named Marc, who’s already in bed, but I’m sure you’ll meet him later.”

Isabella nodded slowly as she took that all in. “And Ephraim is your father?”

“Yes,” he said proudly.