Ephraim laughed. “I don’t think I could handle two of you.”

Chris sighed heavily. “I’m a pleasure to be around and you damn well know it.”

“Uh huh, just tell your brother that. When I left the house he was still limping and looking for an ice pack for his ass.”

“I had to make my point,” Chris said, chuckling.

“And that was….,” Ephraim prompted even though they both knew the answer already.

This was just bullshit chit chat to kill time until they intercepted the pack. Normally they’d be running through the woods, but right now with his untrained mate they settled for doing it at a clipped pace. Besides, if the pack shifted directions his father would scent it and have them haul ass.

“Not to f**k with my sleep,” Chris informed him as he tried to give his trembling little mate a reassuring pat.

“Stop. Touching. My. Ass,” she bit out from what sounded like clenched teeth.

“Just making sure you’re okay,” he explained as he gave her ass one last rub and nearly groaned. He really needed to figure out how to handle the changes she was bringing out in him.

“I’d be okay if just let me go!” she snapped.

“Really?” he asked, knowing he was irritating her and unable to stop himself. It had been a long time since he’d enjoyed screwing with someone.

“Yes!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! Now let me go, damn it!”

“Sure…wait, nope can’t do that,” he said, chuckling when she let out a frustrated groan and slapped his ass.

“You’re an ass**le, did you know that?” she asked in a huff.

He sighed heavily. “Yes. Yes, I did know that.”

Her cute little frustrated growl earned a laugh from him that she apparently didn’t appreciate if the little punches against his ass were any indication.

“I. Hate. You!” she bit out, punctuating each word with a direct hit that he sadly didn’t really feel, making him wonder how in the hell she survived this long without drawing the attention of a vampire, demon or shifter, anything that would make her abilities kick into gear.

Hell, his abilities started to surface when he was a kid when his mother’s boyfriends and his foster parents started slapping him around and they’d only been human. Something or someone should have triggered the change in her a long time ago instead of leaving her helpless and afraid. Hearing that his mate actually cowered or ran away like a coward when faced with any type of confrontation hadn’t exactly been his favorite moment. The shame of having her as his mate that followed was even worse.

He’d forced himself to shove his reaction to her little announcement away and reminded himself that it had obviously been a matter of bad luck or good luck; however one looked at it that kept her from discovering the real world she lived in up until this point. He was just glad that it was going to be him and his father that took care of showing her their world. Not that he didn’t trust other Sentinels with preparing his mate, but….

Who was he kidding?

He wanted the job done right without any f**k ups and he knew the only people that he trusted to make her training go off without a hitch and make sure she could protect his family was himself, his father and Eric. If anyone else had trained her he would have insisted that she go through training again with him just to make sure she knew her shit.

“You know I don’t scent any drugs in her system, right?” Ephraim suddenly announced.

“I know,” he said on a resigned sigh, noting that his little mate gave up her sad little attack to listen. He knew the moment she announced that she’d been drugged that she hadn’t.

The amount of drugs that it would take to screw with a Sentinel’s body or mind was insane and there was no way she wouldn’t notice that she was drinking a cup filled with straight medicine or a bowl of ice cream with pills sprinkled over it. She’d also have to consume the drugs at a constant rate for hours to have any real effect on her.

He’d admit that he had panicked slightly when she made the claim. For a moment he’d been frightened that someone had hurt his mate and hadn’t been thinking. Once rational thought kicked in he realized that she was confused and knew he’d discovered the reason why she wasn’t freaking out.

Besides, his father or Madison would have been able to scent the amount of drugs she’d have to take to be affected fifty yards away. There were a few things that they couldn’t scent off a person like disease and problems with the blood like anemia that would require a taste test, but drugs, hormones, and about a hundred and one other little things could be scented off a person from a short distance away.

He knew he should probably explain to her what they were about to do, but he was afraid she’d chop the whole thing up to drugs and let herself get hurt. He’d rather her first reaction be an honest one and hope a spike of adrenaline would kick in and keep her safe.

“We’re about a hundred yards away,” his father suddenly announced as he stopped walking.

Chris stopped next to him. “Have they scented us yet?”

His father didn’t say anything as he listened. Finally he shook his head. “No and I don’t think they will until they shift. I don’t scent an Alpha among them.”

That surprised Chris. “Seriously?”

A pack without an Alpha was one of the stupidest things a group of shifters could do. He understood the concept behind it, but that didn’t make it any less stupid. Having to obey someone because they were naturally more powerful had to f**king suck and he could understand getting sick and tired of being bitch slapped into submission. If he’d been born a shifter instead of a Sentinel and had an ass**le for an Alpha he’d leave too. He wouldn’t be dumb enough to join a pack of low level shifters who were of equal strength and all thought they had what it took to be pack leader.

There was a reason why there were Alpha’s. They could shift at will, or use their strength even in human form to protect their pack when they were most vulnerable.

They also had the power to keep their pack in line and stop them from doing anything stupid like what this group had planned tonight.

He really wasn’t looking forward to this bullshit tonight, but at least there was a good chance that it would trigger Izzy’s abilities. Maybe they’d also luck out and get the group to disband and join more appropriate packs with an Alpha that wouldn’t allow something this f**ked up to happen again. He could hope at least.

“Alright, down you go, Munchkin,” he said, shifting his load to the ground between him and his father.

“You son of a-whoa!” She broke off her rather touching endearment when she stumbled, probably from the blood rushing from her head, he decided as he reached out and grabbed her arm steadying her as his father did the same with her other arm.

His eyes dropped and narrowed on his father’s hand and he barely stopped himself from reaching out and tearing the man’s arm off. It startled the hell out of him to realize that for a second there he’d come close to hurting his father over a woman he didn’t even know.

What the hell?

“You’ll get used to it,” his father said, sounding amused.

Chris inwardly winced, knowing his father could smell his aggression over a woman he didn’t know was embarrassing.