Without Regret

They also did a damn fine job of scaring the living hell out of her. First this morning with “vampires,” which was the only thing she could describe men with fangs who bit her and supposedly burst into flame. Granted the jerk that bit her neck did a damn convincing job by sucking her blood, she thought with a shudder.

She’d bet that whole bursting into flames thing was an optical illusion, not that she’d fallen for it a hundred percent since she’d been pretty sure she’d been drugged, and still was, but that made more sense than hallucinating for this long. There was no they’d been unable to drug her again since she’d refused to drink or eat anything they’d given her and she’d checked her candy bar really well before she’d eaten it, plus two of them had taken huge bites out of it and she really didn’t think they’d drug themselves.

This morning had been pretty bad and they’d scared the hell out of her, but now she was prepared for whatever bullshit story they’d throw her way. She wondered what they’d try this time. Demons? Witches?

Goblins? Frankenstein, Caper the Friendly Ghost, she thought with an amused snort that earned a curious frown from Chris. If they really wanted to scare her they should have had her parents show up. Nothing on earth would have scared her more into talking just so she could get the hell away from them.

“Whatever you do, don’t move away from my side,”

Chris stressed softly.

“Yeah, sure whatever,” she said with a lazy wave of her hand for him to get the show on the road.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Chris demanded softly as he kept his eyes on the men around them, whom she noted were now all naked. Some of them were inching back towards the woods while others were moving forward with an odd gleam of anticipation in their eyes.

“Nothing,” she said around a loud yawn.

They weren’t going to kill her, she’d realized. They were going through too much trouble to scare her with elaborate hoaxes to simply kill her. If they were going to kill her they’d at least threaten her by now, but they hadn’t, at least not yet. They were still playing games and she was no longer as frightened as she was an hour ago. Instead she was back to feeling exhausted, hungry, and pissed. They’d save themselves so much time and probably money if they’d just asked for the damn program so she could tell them to go to hell.

“What the hell is he?” one of the men demanded as Ephraim suddenly appeared on the opposite side of the clearing, causing the men who’d been inching away to move closer to the fire.

Almost as one, all of the na**d men tilted their heads back and sniffed like they were dogs, making her roll her eyes. “Give me a break” she m uttered, wondering when the theatrics would end.

“He’s not human!” one of the men yelled just as Ephraim’s eyes turned a bright red, making her sigh heavily and wonder just how far they were willing to take this.

“We haven’t done anything wrong, Sentinel,” a man with shoulder length dark hair said, stepping in front of the rest of the men, but turned slightly so he could keep a wary eye on Ephraim who looked ready to kill someone. “We know the rules, Sentinel. You can’t touch us as long as we follow your Council’s rules.”

“You’re not following my rules, cupcake,” Chris said, looking relaxed, but once again that little muscle was ticking beneath his eye. No doubt the man hated having to do this. Something told her the man didn’t enjoy drama of any sort.

“We don’t have to listen to you,” another man yelled, only to be silenced when the man in front of her held up his hand.

“The moment you crossed into my territory your asses belonged to me,” Chris said coldly, sending a delicious shiver through her. The man might hate his job, but he was damn good at it. She idly wondered if he’d given any thought to acting professionally. With his bad boy good looks and “take no shit” attitude he’d probably be a hit, she thought.

“We’re following the Council’s rules,” the leader said with a mocking smile as he gestured around them.

“We’re well away from the humans.”

“You’re two miles away from a bonfire,” Ephraim said, drawing everyone’s attention.

“Really?” the leader said, trying to appear innocent. “I guess we missed that,” he said, earning a few chuckles from his men.

“I guess you did,” Chris said tightly. “I guess we’re going to have to make sure you keep following my rules,” he drawled out coldly, earning nervous, and in her opinion, over the top looks of fear from the na**d men.

With a bored sigh she ran her eyes over the dozen na**d men in front of her. At least she had something pretty to look at, she thought as she ran her eyes over each man, noting their decent looks and mostly lean muscular bodies. She hadn’t missed the fact that most of them seemed to be very excited. She simply didn’t care. They didn’t do anything for her.

The man glowering down at her on the other hand did many naughtily delicious things to her nerves. As she looked over the leader of the bunch she couldn’t help but notice how well endowed he was, she wondered if Chris was as well endowed and giggled when she realized the first time she wondered about a man’s naughty parts she was in the middle of the woods surrounded by a group of g*y actors, she guessed since they were all na**d and obviously liking the view, who were going to try and scare her into giving up a program that two days ago she would have probably just sold to the highest bidder if the FBI hadn’t gotten involved.

“What’s so funny, bitch?” the leader growled, making her laugh even harder.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Chris demanded as he half stepped in front of her and pushed her back.

“Oh no, you guys went through so much trouble,” she said, not bothering to hide the fact that she was annoyed as she stepped in front of him, determined not to miss the little show that they went through so much trouble to put on for her, “the least I can do is……….,”

her words trailed off as she watched the men in front of her suddenly drop to their hands and knees, some growling as others cried out in pain.

She watched in horror as limbs elongated, sharp black claws shot out where fingernails should be, backs arched and lengthened the same time as their faces morphed from human to doglike as various shades of hair began to cover every inch of their skin.

“What the hell?’ she mumbled, stumbling back. This was real. Oh god, this was really happening. There was no way any of this could be staged considering it took movie studios weeks and hundreds of hours of tech work to get the same results she was seeing in person in a movie.

That meant…..

She swallowed hard. That meant she’d really been attacked by vampires or whatever the hell they were this morning and these men were turning into beasts right in front of her. Her eyes shot over to Ephraim who was kicking anything that tried to crawl into the woods back into the middle of the morphing men with surprising ease, sending them flying through the air as they howled.

He wasn’t human. None of them were human, she realized, taking several steps back as her brain screamed for her to run.

Chris grabbed her arm and pulled her closer until his warm breath fanned her ear. “Whatever you do, don’t run.”