R.L. Mathewson Chronicles

“I don’t fucking care!” the large Pyte anxiously pacing the deserted hotel parking lot snarled into his phone as Joshua watched him for another minute before he stepped back from the window and allowed the heavy curtain to fall back in place.

Dismissing the angry male, he turned his attention to the small woman curled up on the bed, nearly comatose as her body struggled to kill off the cancer that had followed her into immortality. Tilting his head to the side, he moved closer and sat down on the edge of the double bed, studying the small woman that seemed doomed to suffer for an eternity.

Closing his eyes, he slowly scented the air around her, taking in the scent of her mate’s blood, the cold blood from another Pyte male that they carried with them and shook his head. The mixture of blood was only prolonging the inevitable. Sooner or later that cancer would spread through her body and finish her.

“Fuck!” he snarled as Danni took him into her mouth and-

Did she just growl?

Looking down into the glimmering red eyes of his mate, the one who currently had him in her mouth, he sighed heavily and looked down at his watch only to discover that it was missing. It was probably in the bottom of that pit, he thought absently as he tried to take a step back and-

Immediately stopped when his mate growled viciously around his cock. Cursing that fucking cave, he stopped breathing and stood there, trying to think of the best course of action that would get him out of this without it scarring him for life. He couldn’t believe he’d lost his fucking watch, he thought with disgust as he risked another glance down and-

“I think we’re getting closer,” she said, giving him a reassuring smile as she continued to scrub his skin raw, wondering when he was going to stop glaring at her through those beautiful red eyes of his.

When he didn’t answer, she decided that perhaps his back could use another scrubbing. Giving his chest one last scrub, she quickly moved around him and began scrubbing the already cleaned skin, hoping to buy herself some time.

“Maybe we should expand our search grid,” she suggested, shifting nervously as she tried to come up with something to get her out of this, but since he was genuinely pissed about being dropped into things that she would rather not think about, she could understand.

“Why don’t we take this into the tent, hmm?” she suggested in the sultriest tone that she could manage while hanging upside down over her mate’s shoulder only to once again be ignored.

He was going to be difficult today.

That was fine with her, because she knew how to handle him when he got like this. He’d ignore her for a while before the glaring started and then he’d go back to ignoring her while she did her best to look sweet and innocent until he eventually caved, and he always did, and then she would make it up to him by doing all those naughty things that he seemed to love and by morning all would be forgiven.

Knowing that it was just a matter of waiting him out, she simply settled more comfortably over his shoulder and waited for him to place her by the fire where he could make sure that she knew that he was ignoring her. She would sit there and make sure that she looked miserable, adding a sad little smile and a sniffle every few minutes so that he knew just how sorry she was about the whole pit thing.

“Oh, God,” she mouthed as she clung to the large wet rock and swung her gaze to the left and then to the right before she slowly lowered herself back into the frigid water that was doing its best to bash her against the rock that she was currently hiding behind.

Where was he?

Swallowing, she slowly looked over her shoulder and sighed when she didn’t see her incredibly angry mate standing there, watching her. Nibbling on her bottom lip, she ran her gaze along the woods and grassy beach, looking for any sign of him. When she didn’t find anything she slowly crept her way back out of the water until she was peeking just over the top of the large rock and could see the other side of the embankment.

He wasn’t there either.

“It’s not that bad,” Dani managed to get out with a straight face, which became difficult to maintain when Caine slowly turned his head to lock her with a glare that she shouldn’t find amusing, but did.

“We’re no longer speaking,” Caine said slowly, enunciating every rage-fueled syllable as she pretended to find the foliage marking their trail interesting.

“Fair enough,” she said with a nod, because she really couldn’t blame him.

Terrified that the smile that she was struggling to hold back would break free at any moment, she cleared her throat and tried to get her mind off the glowering man walking beside her. It probably would have been easier to pull off if he hadn’t been covered from head to toe in mud, clay and other things that she really wished that her sensitive nose hadn’t picked up.

“Why am I here?” Chris asked, closing his eyes as he settled more comfortably on the hotel bed.

“Because I need help,” Madison said distractedly as she continued to do whatever it was that she was doing with all those candles.

“With what exactly?” he asked, slowly exhaling as he relaxed on the soft down comforter.

“Setting up the room,” she said, making him wonder if she really knew him at all.

“You’re doing fine,” he said, having absolutely no idea if she was or not and not really caring, not when he could sneak in a nap before he had to go on patrol.

“You could help,” she said with an exasperated sigh that he chose to ignore.