Without Regret

“Oh really?” Jill demanded, crossing her arms over her chest as she looked up at him giving him a mocking smile. “Can you honestly tell me that you don’t want her around?” When he went to answer her she held up a hand stopping him. “And keep in mind that I was down in the foyer when you couldn’t take your eyes off of her,”

she said with the smug little knowing grin that he didn’t see too much these days.

“She’s my responsibility, Jill, and has information that we need, of course I’m going to keep an eye on her,” he explained casually, when he knew she was right. He’d had a hell of a time focusing on anything but Izzy, which was just another reason why she needed to leave.

“So you’re fine with sending her away? With the real possibility that you’ll never see her again?” Jill asked, watching him intently as she waited for his answer.

“She’s nothing but a distraction, Jill. We’ll all be better off when she’s gone.”

Shaking her head, she snorted in disgust. “Sometimes you can be such an ass**le.”

He didn’t say anything as she stormed off since he knew she was right, but there really was no choice in the matter. Izzy had to go.

Chapter 18

“Easy, just relax.”

Isabella threw Joshua a disbelieving look as she practically clung to the floor, wishing they were on the first floor or better yet outside on solid ground. Why the hell couldn’t she stop shaking? It didn’t help that she was still lightheaded and felt like she was going to be sick.

“It will get better in a few minutes,” he promised in a surprisingly soothing voice. Granted those were the same words he’d used on her ten minutes ago when he helped Ephraim get her down from the rope. As soon as she was lowered to the ground she’d clung onto him, unable to shove away the feeling that she was going to fall.

When Ephraim offered to carry her to a room she’d tightened her death grip-like hold on Joshua and flat out refused to go with Ephraim. Not because she was afraid of the man, she wasn’t. She wasn’t stupid. The man could have torn her apart or the very least threatened to do that a thousand different times by now, but he hadn’t. He’d been patient and very protective of her.

No the reasoning behind her refusal was very simple.

One, she’d felt as though she’d fall if she released Joshua, who’d held her tightly and tried soothing her and secondly, she was still pretty pissed that the man had left her with his psycho son. If the door slamming in Ephraim’s face moments later was any indication then so was Madison.

“Do you feel like you’re going to be sick?” Joshua asked as he knelt by her side and gently pushed her sweat slicked hair out of her face.

She squeezed her eyes shut and nodded firmly, once.

Any movement beyond that would probably make her sick, she decided.

“Okay, we’ll just sit here and talk for a little while. How does that sound?” he asked, sounding much older than he appeared. Then again Ephraim appeared to be only in his late twenties, early thirties so maybe Joshua was older. Granted he hadn’t exactly acted older earlier when he’d been flirting with her and taunting Chris for his own amusement.

“How old are you?” she found herself asking.

“Twenty-one.”

“Oh,” she mumbled.

“Why?”

“You just sounded older for a minute there,” she explained, wondering when her world would stop spinning.

“I have my moments,” he said, chuckling softly. “Are you feeling good enough so that I can finally take a look at those scratches?”

“I don’t think they need stitches,” she said absently as she reached up and tentatively touched them, wincing a little bit at the slight sting.

“I’m sure you’re right, but we really need to make sure that we clean them soon,” he said calmly, but Isabella was anything but calm now.

Her eyes shot open as a truly frightening thought occurred to her and she tried to sit up, but the lightheadedness intensified, causing her to drop back to the ground.

“Whoa, just relax, Izzy,” Joshua said soothingly, but nothing in the world would calm her down until she found out exactly how bad this was going to be for her.

“Am I going to sprout fangs and fur or do I have to worry about going Cujo on everyone?” she asked, squeezing her eyes tightly shut as she willed her nausea away.

“What?” Joshua asked, sounding confused.

“The bite marks! I was bitten by a werewolf right?” she asked, but didn’t give him a chance to answer as she continued her panic induced rant. “Will I be getting furry once a month? Do I need to invest in flea collars?

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.