Without Regret Read online

Page 13

 

  Not that she knew that little tidbit of information, but she had to wonder why she healed faster than everyone else and never got sick. When he was a kid, long before he found out what and who he was, he just thought he was a lucky bastard. While most people took months for a broken bone to heal it took him a few hours for a small bone and maybe a week for a larger bone.

  He wasn’t exactly sure about the scientific reasoning behind their healing abilities, but he knew it had something to do with half his soul belonging to an angel. No doubt it did something to his human body.

  Many Sentinels believed that when the half souls combined it triggered something in their DNA, giving them protection, sweetening their blood, and prolonging their lives. Whatever it was it had come in handy a time or two in his life. It also connected him to the woman who held the other halves of his souls, this woman, making her his mate.

  When his eyes began to trail down her body he had to force himself not to groan. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair as he discretely grabbed a floral throw pillow and placed it over his lap. How in the hell did human males live like this? he wondered, shifting again as his erection threatened to tear through his pants. It was damn distracting and something he was clearly going to have to learn to ignore.

  It’s not like sex was a top priority in his life or even interested him. Even as a teenager he couldn’t force himself to be into it. Sure he’d made out with his fair share of girls in high school, but that had been more to save face than anything.

  His situation had already been f**ked up enough without letting everyone think he didn’t like girls.

  Having a hooker for a mother hadn’t exactly been easy, but he’d managed. As long as he didn’t have to deal with foster homes he’d been happy. It hadn’t mattered that sometimes he had to sleep under the trailer because her “dates” hadn’t felt comfortable f**king her with only an old sheet used as a door separating them, or that most of his food came from charity, school lunches, and five finger discount.

  Okay, so happy might not be the way he described his childhood, but it had been manageable as long he’d stayed out of foster homes and didn’t let everyone know how truly f**ked up his life really was. As long as everyone thought he was untouchable and that nothing could hurt him he’d been fine. Just f**king peachy.

  “Oh my god, you’re pregnant!” he heard his sister Jill shriek happily from the foyer. Cursing under his breath, he quickly made his way over to the double doors and shut them, hoping she was too wrapped up in Madison’s news to notice.

  For the past ten years she’d been taunting the hell out of him about his mate, but thankfully not in a bitchy way. Her bitchy days were long gone, thank god. He’d probably have killed her by now if she was anything like she was the first time he met her.

  When she first arrived in Rerum, New Hampshire with Madison, Joshua and their mother Candy, she’d been a Class A bitch, much like Candy. At least for the first week of her arrival, then she kind of simmered down a bit. He wasn’t sure what the hell happened, but he had a feeling Madison and Grandma were behind the change. She’d still been a bit of a spoiled bitch at times after that, but he’d done his best to stay the hell out of her way when he moved in.

  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.