Chapter 7

Chapter 7

“Idon’t think that’s helping,” Jacob said, sounding bored as excruciating pain shot through Kale’s arm, making it difficult to breathe as the bag of human blood that was making this worse slipped from his fingers and fell to the shower floor where it slowly made its way down the drain.

“I know that,”Kale snapped, struggling not to fucking pass out as he tightened his hold around the small girl that wouldn’t stop crying.

“Just trying to help,” Jacob said, shrugging it off as he tossed another handful of M&M’s in his mouth while Kale sat there, struggling to figure out a way to fix this.

He couldn’t fucking think right now. God, the pain…

Never should have given her blood, Kale thought numbly as he sat there, wondering how much longer it would be before it was finally all over. Judging by the way that the small girl in his arms struggled to breathe, probably not much longer.

After nine hundred years, this was how it was going to end, Kale thought numbly, unable to help but chuckle weakly as he dropped his head back against the tiled wall and closed his eyes on a pained groan. He should have just left her to die in that hospital bed and walked away.

“We should just give her our blood. It was working,” Jacob said, sighing heavily as Kale struggled not to pass out.

“She should be able to handle human blood,” Kale said, still trying to figure out why this wasn’t working. She was a Pyte, which meant that she should be able to consume human blood, but so far, all it did was make everything worse and they couldn’t figure out why.

This should be working.

His blood had helped her grow a little, he’d been able to clearly see that by the tan lines that were now half an inch lower than the large tee-shirt they’d put on her, but it had also caused her pain and he honestly wasn’t sure that he could stomach putting her through that again. Then again, so was this, Kale thought as the pain tearing through his arm made its way up his shoulder and shot down his spine.

“Why don’t we bring her to the Williams mansion? They’re only a few miles down the road. We could bring her there and hand her over to the Sentinel doctor and-”

“We’re not handing her over to the fucking Sentinels,” Kale bit out even though he knew that’s exactly what he should do.

They’d either find a way to fix this or do something that would deliver the final blow and put him out of his fucking misery. If he managed to survive the next blow, he could wash his hands of her and collect his fee. It would be the smart thing to do, especially knowing that fee would bring him one step closer to his goal.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t do it. No matter how much he wanted to, and god, did he fucking want to, Kale couldn’t hand her over to the Sentinels. She was his mate and-

“Did you know that she was forty-five?” Jacob asked conversationally, drawing Kale’s attention as he sat down next to them in the shower.

“Yes,” Kale said on a heavy sigh, only to bite back another groan as fresh pain tore through his mating mark, letting him know that she was getting worse.

“That’s pretty fucked up. Do you think that’s why her mate didn’t want her?”

At Kale’s questioning look, Jacob looked pointedly at the mating mark on Ashley’s small wrist, the same one that marked Kale’s wrist and was now covered by the thick leather band of his watch. If the other shifter noticed that Kale switched his watch to his other wrist, he hadn’t said anything yet.

The only way that anyone, shifter, Pyte, demon, or vampire would be able to tell that Kale was mated is if he let her mark him and there was no fucking way that was happening. Even if she wasn’t a Pyte, and he still couldn’t fucking believe that this was happening to him, he wouldn’t touch her for one simple reason.

She looked like a child.

“I don’t have any fucking idea why he didn’t want her and I don’t care. She’s just a fucking job,” Kale said even as he couldn’t help but wonder when this was going to fucking end.

“You’ve gotta admit that this is a pretty easy job,” Jacob said as he bit into his wrist. When he moved to press his bloody wrist against Ashley’s mouth, Kale stopped him. “You’ll kill her.”

“It might be the best thing for her,” Jacob said with a pointed look at the pale little girl dying in Kale’s arms.

She was suffering.

As he watched tears slowly stream down her small face, long ago memories that still had the power to break him brought him back to a time when he’d been forced to watch as the little girl who’d meant the world to him suffered because he hadn’t been able to save her. Swallowing hard, Kale allowed his fangs to slide down as he brought his wrist to his mouth.

“I’ll do it,” Kale said, knowing that he didn’t have a choice.

He couldn’t let another little girl suffer because of him.

* * *

“Hold her down!”

“She keeps slapping me!” Jacob bitched as he was once again hit in the face by the small cast as the little girl continued to flail.

“Man up!” Kale snapped, struggling to focus when agonizing pain tore through his mating mark as he pinched Ashley’s nose shut and pressed his bloody wrist against her mouth, forcing her to drink more blood.

“I don’t understand why we can’t just tie her down again,” Jacob said as he pinned her small arms against the bed only to grumble when she managed to hit him in the side with her leg, causing the cast that wasn’t going to last another hour to split down the middle.

“Because it was hurting her,” Kale said, trying not to think about the crippling pain that tore through his arm when they’d decided to tie her to the bed.

“So, is this,” Jacob pointed out, only to sigh heavily when she landed another blow against his leg.

“But it’s also working,” Kale said as he ran his eyes over the little girl that had grown at least two inches in the last hour. If that hadn’t clued him in to the fact that they were on the right path, the fact that his pain subsided every time that they managed to get blood into her did.

“I thought that she was supposed to go into a coma for her transition,” Jacob said as Kale released his hold on her nose so that she could breathe.

“She also shouldn’t have been born,” Kale pointed out, still wondering how this was even possible.

Pytes were born male since the females never made it past the second trimester. No one was sure why that was, but he had a feeling that it had something to do with hormones. Whatever the reason, she shouldn’t have been born and she definitely shouldn’t have been left weak for so long, not when Pytes normally went through their transition at sixteen, which made him wonder why she hadn’t.

“Do you think she’s an Impure?” Jacob asked as he frowned down at the little girl only to follow that up with a murmured, “I can’t scent any shifter blood on her.”

Neither could Kale.

He also couldn’t scent any demon blood, which really didn’t tell him anything since there were several demon species that didn’t give off a scent. She could be a combination of a hundred different things or simply a mistake.

“I have no idea what she is,” Kale admitted, but he planned on finding out.

* * *

“Come on,sweetheart. Open your eyes for me,” the incredibly sexy voice with a touch of a brogue said soothingly, but Ashley didn’t want to open her eyes.

She didn’t want to do anything but fall back into oblivion so that she wouldn’t have to feel her body being torn apart again. It felt like every bone in her body was being crushed and her skin was being devoured by acid and all she wanted to do was beg someone to stop it, but she couldn’t make a sound. All she could do was lie there, praying for it to end.

“Mix it with Coke,” Ashley heard before she felt herself moved and-

Everything went black.

* * *

“Please, don’t,”Ashley mumbled weakly, struggling to open her eyes and biting back another sob as she grabbed hold of the sheets, but he wasn’t listening.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” that voice that she could happily listen to forever under normal circumstances promised as she was rolled onto her back, but he was lying and they both knew it.

“Please, stop,” Ashley whispered as she struggled to use her hold on the sheets to pull herself away, only to release a choked sob as the sheets slipped through her trembling fingers.

“Open your mouth,” the man who wouldn’t leave her alone bit out as her lips were pried open and she felt his wrist pressed against her mouth.

She struggled to turn her head, to beg him to stop, only to end up gagging as the hot liquid that would start the nightmare all over again filled her mouth. Ashley tried to spit it back out, but she couldn’t move her head, could barely lift her arms to push him away. She finally managed to open her eyes so that she could glare at the bastard that had broken her.

As her world slowly came into focus and more blood was forced down her throat, and the pain that was about to swallow her whole began prickling along her spine, she focused on the pair of silver eyes glaring back down at her as everything went black.

* * *

“No!”

“Shhhh, it’s okay,” immediately came the soothing tones of the man that was trying to kill her, making her wonder why he was doing this to her.

It didn’t matter how much she begged, how many times she cried, screamed for mercy, hit him, or pushed him away, he kept coming back, kept forcing her to swallow more blood, and kept lying to her, telling her that everything would be okay, he wouldn’t stop. He wouldn’t listen. Every time the pain subsided and she thought it was over, he would send her right back there and this time would be no different.

“Please, don’t,” Ashley said on a broken sob as she struggled to turn her head away, but that only made him tighten his hold on her jaw and pull her head back so that he could press his wrist against her mouth and-

“This is the last time,” he promised, but they both knew that he was lying.

* * *

“Jesus Christ…”Jacob whispered as Kale stood there, staring down at the woman that looked nothing like the little girl who’d finally gone into a coma three weeks ago.

“She needs more blood,” Kale said hollowly as he found himself standing there, unable to look away from the proof that he’d fucked up.

Once upon a time, he’d watched the same changes take place in the man that had destroyed everything that he loved, and now…

He should have killed her when he had the chance.

As Kale stared down at the incredibly beautiful woman before him, he remembered the scent of smoke and blood teasing his senses while he’d held his sister in his arms as she’d struggled to take her next breath. When he ran his eyes over Ashley’s long blonde hair that reminded him of honey, the screams for mercy played in his head. His mother begging for her life quickly followed as he took in a face that looked like it belonged to an angel. His sister screaming his name as she was-

God, he couldn’t fucking do this!

Without a word, Kale headed for the door. He was fucking done. He’d done his duty and taken care of her when she’d needed him and now that she’d made it through her transition, he was done. She could do whatever the fuck she wanted and he would-

“Fuck!” Kale roared as soon as he reached his car.

He couldn’t walk away and take the chance that she would destroy someone else’s family. He couldn’t fucking do it, which meant that he was going to have to spend the rest of his life making sure that she didn’t cross that line, and if she did…

He was going to make sure that she never got the chance to do it again.