Without Regret

“You’re pregnant?” The words rushed out of his mouth before he could stop them and he really wished he had.

The last pregnancy, and god only knows how they all survived it, she was a tad emotional at times, especially when sugar was involved or she was hungry. A hungry pregnant Pyte was no joke.

She pulled away from Eric, her chin wobbling. “It was going to be a surprise,” she said, wiping away a few tears.

Aw, f**k….

All three men in unison took a cautious step back.

Seems he wasn’t the only one that remembered the last pregnancy.

“I was planning a big family dinner,” she mumbled. Her beautiful caramel brown eyes suddenly turned a fiery red as they focused on his father. “You told him!”

Ephraim shifted nervously. “No, I didn’t tell them, baby. I promise. He just guessed.”

She narrowed her eyes on her husband. Deciding that sacrificing his father was the only way to go, Chris discretely shoved the man forward. Ephraim turned his head to glare at him.

“You bastard,” he mouthed.

“I know,” Chris mouthed back, grinning.

“Then how did he know?” Madison demanded.

Mouthing one last expletive at Chris, Ephraim turned around to face his wife’s emotional outburst. He put his hands up in a placating gesture while Chris slowly, ever so slowly, eased to the right towards the stairs only to find Eric doing the same.

“He just guessed, baby, that’s all,” Ephraim said in his most charming tone, hoping to calm her down.

Madison gasped. “You’re saying I’m fat!”

Chris and Eric moved faster towards the stairwell. As much as he loved his father the man was on his own.

“No, no, baby, that’s not why,” Ephraim quickly said.

“That’s not why as in I’m fat, but that’s not the reason he guessed?”

Before Ephraim could come up with a reply that would save his ass he was flying through the air. Chris and Eric just barely managed to duck out of the way as Ephraim went flying past them, landing a good thirty feet down the hall.

Sighing, Ephraim remained on his back and threw up his arms and let them drop by his sides. “I give up.”

From their crouched positions on the floor Chris and Eric looked back to find Madison crying.

“You’re so mean to me! I can’t believe you called me fat!” she said, waving her hands in front of her face as if that would stop this little breakdown.

“I don’t remember it being this bad last time,” Eric whispered softly, but of course his father heard him clearly. Pytes could hear a pin drop a half mile away if they focused.

“She’s having twins. The hormones are a bit out of control right now,” Ephraim explained, not bothering to move.

“You’re calling me hormonal?” Madison demanded. “I cannot believe you would say that! I….,” she let her words trail off as she scented the air. “Is that,” sniff, “caramel, nougat and milk chocolate I’m smelling?” She sighed dreamily. “I haven’t had a Milky Way in years.”

Her sudden look of rapture evaporated as she turned another glare on Ephraim. “It’s your fault I haven’t had a Milky Way in over nine years, you high handed bastard!” she said accusingly.

“Of course it is,” Ephraim said dryly. “But shouldn’t we be focusing on Chris?”

And just like that the bastard sold him out.

Madison was back to crying, but almost happily. “That’s right! Chris, you’ve found your mate! I’m so happy for you!” she gushed, instantly in front of him before he could blink. Damn Pyte abilities! He had no choice but to stand up and pull her into his arms.

She sobbed against his chest. “I am so happy for you, Chris! You’ve waited so long! I thought this day would never come! I thought you were going to be alone forever!”

“Er, thank you?”

“This is so great!” She sniffled. “You’re going to be so happy, just like me!”

“Oh, goody,” Chris mumbled.

“And don’t worry, if she ever hurts you,” sniff, “I’ll rip her throat out.”

“That’s really sweet,” Chris said dryly, unable to help himself.

Madison nodded solemnly against his chest. “I know.”

*********

Eric threw a cautious look at Madison who was now happily cuddled in the arms of her husband on a small love seat in second floor living room. After offering to kill Chris’ potential mate she burst into tears in his arms and went on for about two minutes about how much she loved him and how he was her best friend and how much she loved all her babies. That of course turned into a one minute sobbing mess about how lucky she was to have found Ephraim and how much she loved and adored him.

Ephraim, being the love sick bastard that he was, was instantly by her side taking her into his arms and pressing kisses all over her face while he apologized for being an ass**le. Chris could only shake his head in amazement, glad he was never having kids. He was more than happy spending time with his little brothers, nieces and nephews, but kids of his own? Hell no.

Eric decided to take advantage of the hormonal break and get down to business. The man lived and breathed the job. “Four Sentinels in Seattle came across a woman this morning being attacked by several vampires. From what we could see they were trying to change the woman.”

Chris nodded. “What’s so special about the woman?” he asked, knowing vampires were very selective about who they changed. The prospect of changing an ass**le and getting stuck with them for a few centuries tended to make them selective. If a human was only good enough for protection, had slave qualities or were a good f**k and a meal, vampires usually kept them around as human cattle, minions. They tended to only change humans who had special qualities that would benefit a Master.

“We ran a background check on her and what we found is scary.” Eric exhaled slowly as he leaned back in his chair.

“What? Is she a martial arts expert or a fire arms expert or something?” Masters liked collecting vampires with skills to boost their armies. An expert in some form of fighting would go a long way in the war against other Masters, Sentinels, demons and shifters.

“No, better.”

Chris frowned at that. “What’s better than a weapons expert?”

Eric looked over giving him a sly grin. “She’s a computer expert.”

Okay…….

Eric chuckled. “This woman is in demand by every Fortune 500 company, hackers want to be her, Bill Gates fears her and we’ve got her,” he said, sounding smug.

“So, we’re going to give her a job in the tech department?” Chris asked, not really seeing the big deal here. Maybe that was because he didn’t have much use for computers other than emailing his family and Sentinel business.

“Right now we’re more concerned about what she has that has vampires scrambling after her.”

“You think she’s working with the vampires?” Ephraim asked as he soothingly ran his hand over Madison’s back.

Eric shook his head. “No, the fact that they were meeting in a park at three in the morning and her reaction when she was attacked tells us she had absolutely no clue what was going on. We don’t think she’s been trained either.”