She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She tried to focus on the pain in her hand, but the cold water had numbed it by this point. It made it difficult to focus on anything but the tantalizing scents around her. They teased her, making her realize just how hungry she was. She didn't want to notice how good the air smelled. Even the overly sweet scent coming from Chris was mouthwatering. She'd never considered herself one of those girls with an uncontrollable sweet tooth before.

As she slowly inhaled, savoring his scent, she had to wonder just how much sugar he had to ingest to end up smelling like pure sugar. She didn't know much about Sentinels other than they weren't human, but she couldn't imagine that ingesting sugar like it was going out of style could be good for him. Turned off by the idea of eating something overly sweet, she moved onto the other scents competing for her attention.

She scented a heavily metallic odor and immediately wrinkled her nose in distaste. It didn't take much to figure out that she'd smelled the bagged blood the trio on the couch was drinking. If they thought that she was going to willingly subject herself to that c.r.a.p then they were out of their- An enticing aroma grabbed her attention. Her stomach growled viciously as she breathed in the slightly spicy scent with just a hint of that metallic odor, but this time her stomach didn't turn in disgust. Instead her stomach rumbled, demanding the delicious treat that she was scenting. Confused, and really hoping that she was smelling a medium rare steak cooking somewhere in the building, she opened her eyes to find her focus already zeroed in on its source.

And that's when she finally lost it.

"Cloe, open the door," he said, sighing heavily in exasperation as he reached up and wiped away the blood dripping in his eye.

"Just leave me alone," she said softly, too soft for the human ear to pick up, but he didn't have that problem.

He could hear everything going on in that room, which was how he knew that Cloe, the woman terrified of enclosed s.p.a.ces, was hiding in a closet. It was enough for him to know just how poorly she was handling this new situation. It also made him feel like more of an a.s.shole for not helping her. She hated him and if she didn't, she should.

He'd destroyed her life, attacked her like some sort of animal and would have killed her if she hadn't decided to fight back and unintentionally taken his blood at just the right time. Turning her had been an accident and one he deeply regretted, more so right now that the poor thing was stuck hiding in closet as she.....

His brows arched in confusion as he zeroed in on the odd grinding noise coming from the closet. It took him a good minute to figure out what she was doing. Sighing heavily, he shook his head in disgust. He ignored the bleeding b.a.s.t.a.r.d leaning against the wall next to him and grabbed the doork.n.o.b, twisting it until the lock broke.

"I want a rematch," the sore loser growled, looking furious as glowing silver eyes narrowed on him.

"Anytime, a.s.shole," Christofer said, looking forward to beating the s.h.i.t out of the shifter again as he walked into the room and slammed the door shut behind him. He headed straight for the closet where those odd grinding noises were growing increasingly louder.

He wasn't exactly surprised to find Cloe hunched down in the closet trying to make a stake from what appeared to be a broken chair leg. Although, he was surprised to discover that she'd already managed to wrap a ripped piece of lavender sheet around her hand, made a large cross by tying two broken chair legs together with what looked like a shoelace from her sneakers in the short time since she'd fled the living room. What he couldn't figure out was the bathroom trashcan filled to the brim with water. Besides getting him soaked, he rectified a minute later when Cloe spotted him, squealed and grabbed the trash can and sent the cold water flying across the short distance to soak his crotch and legs.

"s.h.i.t! Holy water doesn't work!" she muttered with alarm, anxiously grabbing her makeshift cross and holding it up like a shield as she got to her feet. "Stay back!" she ordered, giving the cross in her hand a little shake for emphasis that had him biting back a smile that she probably wouldn't appreciate at the moment.

"What are you doing?" he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose, struggling not to laugh. It surprised him that he actually had the urge to laugh after everything that happened.

"I'm making my escape," she said firmly, shifting her attention to the closed bedroom door.

She moved ever so slightly towards the door, homemade cross still firmly raised in his direction. She held the stake with the splintered end in the other hand, probably thinking that it would be enough.

"I see," he murmured, reaching out and placing his hand against the cross.

Her eyes widened in surprise before narrowing with disgust as she tossed the useless item aside and held the stake higher. "I don't want to have to hurt you, Christofer, but if you don't let me go I'll-"

"Give me a splinter?" he finished for her as he absently reached up and scratched the back of his neck. He nearly cringed when he realized that except for washing up quickly in the hotel sink this morning, he hadn't showered or shaved in days.

"I don't want to have to hurt you, Christofer!" she repeated, licking her lips nervously as she gave the stake a little jab in his direction. She didn't even come close to his chest, which surprised him considering everything that happened.

He scented the air around them and frowned. He didn't smell anger coming off her. The only thing that he could detect was her anxiety and fear and even that had gone down since he'd opened the closet door. If anything it should have gone up with him in the room. He'd attacked her, destroyed her entire world and instead of attacking him like she had every right in the world to do, he could smell her fear diminishing and her heart rate slowing down to a normal tempo.

It had to be the f.u.c.king blood exchange, he thought with a sigh as he reached back and grabbed the back of his shirt. He yanked it off and tossed it aside.

"W-what are you doing?" Cloe demanded, shifting anxiously as she moved her gaze from his bare chest to the closed door.

"Getting out of these dirty clothes so that I can take a shower," he said, toeing off his shoes as he undid his pants.

"Well stop!" Cloe said, waving her sad little stick even as her eyes ate up every inch of him.

"Yeah, I'll get right on that," he said around a yawn, wondering if he should try to get her to drink some bagged blood before her bath or just go straight to plan B, and she was definitely taking a bath.

He needed her relaxed, very relaxed if he was going to convince her to eat. She needed to eat soon or she'd lose control and that would only make things worse for her. There was nothing quite like losing control of your mind, your actions and giving into rage and need. It left you feeling helpless, weak and frightened of doing something, anything that would make it happen again.

At some point it would happen to Cloe. It was inevitable, but he didn't want it to happen when she was still struggling to deal with everything else that happened to her. She needed to get strong, learn to control her reactions, learn to feed and learn to hide what she was, especially since their kind apparently held the number one spot on some f.u.c.ked up wish list.

He'd planned on leaving her education on her new life in the hands of Ephraim and the ragtag group that had brought them here since they obviously knew more about their world than him, but seriously? Who in their right mind starts off by telling someone that they'd heal from absolutely everything, especially to a woman as pigheaded as Cloe?

As soon as Ephraim made that little announcement, Cloe, obviously curious and eager to see if it was true, had stopped listening to Ephraim as he'd tried to explain her new abilities and walked over to the kitchen island to see for herself. It had taken everything he had in him to continue sitting there when all he wanted to do was to tackle the woman and kick the s.h.i.t out of Ephraim.

He'd also wanted to kick the s.h.i.t out of Chris for rushing after her and making a grab for the knife, startling Cloe and making the cut a h.e.l.l of a lot worse than she'd probably intended. At least one good thing came from this experience. Cloe now knew that she wasn't invincible and that she could still experience pain. It would hopefully stop her from doing something stupid like climbing to the roof and doing a header in an attempt to escape. She'd survive, yes, but by the time she'd hit the ground below she'd be wishing that she hadn't.

"Seriously, what are you doing?" Cloe asked, absently waving that stake at him as she ran her eyes, hungry eyes, he noted, down his body.

He ignored her question as he shoved his pants, along with his boxers, down and stepped out of them. "Come on," he said, reaching out and taking her empty hand into his. With his other hand, he reached over and gently plucked the stake that was more splinters than anything, out of her hand and tossed it aside.

"I don't want a shower," she protested even as she allowed him to lead her into the bathroom. "I just want to leave."

"You don't think you'll be noticed dressed like that?" he asked, pointedly looking at her blood stained shirt and pants.

She frowned down at herself. "But I don't have anything else to change into," she murmured, sounding a little lost.

"Ephraim had our stuff sent here while we were recovering," he told her, pushing the bathroom door open and flicking on the light, making sure that she followed him inside before he closed the door behind them.

"He did?" she mumbled with a frown, looking deep in thought and a little confused as she asked, "What do you mean by when 'we' were recovering?"

Deciding that now was not the time to inform her that Ephraim had been forced to shoot him in the back of the head to stop him from killing his son because he'd lost control, he instead gestured towards the shower. When she threw a hesitant glance at the door, he knew that she was worried about the others coming in.

"They've already left," he gently explained, lying his a.s.s off, but he knew that one of the Pytes in the other room would hear him and take the hint.

He knew that they were eager to continue explaining things to Cloe, but not tonight. Tonight she needed a break, some time to relax and accept what happened to her. Tomorrow......

Tomorrow they could finish destroying what was left of her world.

Chapter 27.

"Tell me that you really didn't start with the whole, 'you'll heal from anything,' bulls.h.i.t," Caine grumbled, rubbing his palms down his face while Danni wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned into him.

He dropped his arm around his mate's shoulders and kissed the top of her head as he closed his eyes and savored her touch, welcoming the peace that just being near her gave him. The last couple of days had been grueling and he was starting to feel it. Right after they'd come back from patrol on Monday morning, the a.s.shole, a.k.a. Kale, had barked orders for them to hurry their a.s.ses up and get in the van.

After telling the b.a.s.t.a.r.d to go f.u.c.k himself and he'd finished explaining exactly where the shifter could shove his orders, he'd taken Danni, who'd been dragging a.s.s by that point, inside. He'd badgered her until she'd finally given in and drank the demon blood the Council supplied her with. Once he'd made sure that she'd consumed enough demon blood and he'd managed to consume five bags of bagged blood, he'd pulled her into his arms and held her while she took what she needed from him.

It hadn't been enough, not nearly enough, but Danni, stubborn as always, had been in a rush to get on the road. She'd needed to rest, but she'd refused to listen, promising him instead that she'd sleep on the drive. He hadn't exactly been surprised when she'd broken her word to him.

Instead of doing as she'd promised, she'd spent the entire ride going over the files that Izzy had sent to their iPads. He had to admit that he had as well. The files the n.a.z.is had left behind of what those sick f.u.c.ks had done to Christofer and his sister had turned his stomach and had him seeing red the entire ride. His own captivity and torture was hard enough to deal with, but Christ, he didn't have s.h.i.t on what they'd put Christofer through.

Ephraim hadn't said anything, but the way his jaw had clenched tightly every few seconds and his eyes had glowed red as he'd read through the file lead him to believe that Christofer's time spent in the lab had been just as bad as Ephraim's time spent in the dungeon. The sick f.u.c.ks had cataloged absolutely everything that they'd done to Christofer and Marta, everything.

There'd been pictures of doctors smiling while they'd congratulated each other on a job well done as they'd stood over Christofer's eviscerated body, of them looking at a loss when their experiments had failed, but mostly, there had been pictures cataloguing every humiliating moment that Christofer had endured to keep his sister alive. The worst pictures, the ones that had him wishing that he could hunt every last one of those sick f.u.c.ks down, were the ones where Christofer had been forced to watch as they'd experimented on his sister.

The pictures had been bad, but the journals and notes they'd kept......

There were no words to describe the revulsion he'd experienced when reading over everything that they'd done to Christofer. The way they'd detailed everything from Christofer's reaction to being dipped in acid to having his b.a.l.l.s cut off with a straightedge razor was almost as bad as the pictures. One thing he'd realized early on in the notes, the doctors performing the experiments had gotten a kick out of making Christofer react.

It appeared that a few of them had turned it into a game. They'd wanted to see who could make Christofer lose control the fastest and had even encouraged the guards to torture him. They'd been immensely pleased each and every time Christofer's eyes had turned red and his fangs had made an appearance. They'd taken the changes as a sign that their experiments were working, that they could sneak past the facade of the perfect blonde haired, blue-eyed male and drag the red-eyed monster to the surface.

He had to smile when he'd realized that Christofer had figured out their sick game and started to deny them the reaction that they'd craved. They'd perform tests on Christofer, but they'd mutilate what they'd deemed the "monster" inside him. Whenever Christofer eyes shifted and his fangs dropped, the scientist believed that they'd released the monster inside of him and hadn't held anything back.

By the end of the first year of Christofer's captivity in that lab he'd started fighting back by not giving them what they'd wanted. It started off by Christofer managing to briefly put off allowing his eyes to shift and his teeth to descend. At first he'd only been able to hold back the shift for a minute at a time, but slowly he gained control for several minutes, hours, and days until finally, Christofer had stopped reacting at all.

At least that's what Caine had a.s.sumed at first.

But after seeing him beat the s.h.i.t out of Kale, Caine knew better now and of course, couldn't help grinning every time he thought about it. An untrained Pyte, one without any military training as far as he knew, had beat the s.h.i.t out of Kale Quinn, packless Alpha shifter, deadly mercenary and pain in the a.s.s without having to go into bloodl.u.s.t. It should have been d.a.m.n near impossible for Christofer to land a blow against Kale, never mind beat the s.h.i.t out of him.

Kale was a very old and very powerful shifter. His control was legendary. He could harness the strengths and abilities of his werewolf form without actually having to shift. It was something that no one else had been able to accomplish....

Until now that is.

It seemed as though Christofer not only had the ability to keep a tight leash on his control, but that he could harness the uncontrollable strength that bloodl.u.s.t provided without actually having to fall victim to it. That is of course, unless his mate was involved. She seemed to have the uncanny ability to rattle him, but then again, Caine's mate had the same effect on him.

"I didn't realize that she knew absolutely nothing about our world. I thought she'd already figured out that part from her recovery," Ephraim bit out, glaring straight ahead as they waited for the elevator doors to close.

"You know what they say when you a.s.sume......." Caine murmured, chuckling when Ephraim shot him the finger as he leaned back against the elevator wall. He pressed the b.u.t.ton for the fifth floor, the guest floor, when the door still hadn't shut a few seconds later.

"Madison didn't become cut happy after she'd been turned," Chris pointed out in a helpful tone, but Caine caught the familiar glint of mischief in the Sentinel's eyes. He knew Chris was just trying to push his father's b.u.t.tons, something the Sentinel seemed to really enjoy doing.

Ephraim's eyes narrowed on his oldest child as he snapped, "That's because she knew what to expect, a.s.shole."

"a.s.shole?" Chris repeated back, doing his best to sound hurt as he pressed a hand over his heart. "Is that any way to speak to your favorite child?"

"Izzy's his favorite child," the shifter, who'd gotten his a.s.s handed to him, grumbled as he stepped into the elevator to join them. He looked as though he'd like nothing more than to go back inside that penthouse and beat the s.h.i.t out of the Pyte who'd kicked his a.s.s.

"Puhlease," Chris said, closing his eyes as he leaned back against the elevator wall. "He f.u.c.king loves and adores me. Worships the very ground I walk on and would be lost without me," he finished off the familiar litany with a loud yawn.

After another minute of just standing there, too tired to torment Ephraim for his f.u.c.kup, Kale snapped, "Why aren't we moving?"

"No f.u.c.king clue," Ephraim said around a loud yawn as he reached over and pressed the b.u.t.ton for the fifth floor again.

Muttering obscenities in Gaelic, Kale reached over and flicked open the cover for the first floor b.u.t.ton, revealing a fingerprint scanner. He gestured for Ephraim to press his finger against the smooth piece of gla.s.s. "You can't get off a restricted floor in a Sentinel compound without requesting access," Kale explained as though they were all idiots and at that moment, he sure as h.e.l.l felt like one.

He'd been working with the Sentinels for over twenty years and this was the first time that he'd heard about this. Granted, he'd never even been allowed on a restricted floor before so he had no reason to know about this security measure, but still.....

"How do you know about this?" Caine demanded, knowing that the shifter standing in front of him was the last person on earth that the Council would willingly share their security secrets with.

"I make it a point to know everything about my enemies," Kale said, meeting his gaze head on and delivering the unmistakable message that the shifter definitely counted him as an enemy.

"Me too," Caine said with a wink, letting the c.o.c.ky p.r.i.c.k know that he more than shared the sentiment.

In fact, that was one of first things he did upon deciding to stay at the Williams' mansion with his mate. He'd investigated everyone living there, even the p.r.i.c.k who came and went as he pleased. He knew all about Kale Quinn, probably more than most people. He definitely knew things that the shifter wanted kept secret and as long as the shifter stayed away from his mate and didn't try to f.u.c.k her over, he'd keep those secrets.

Ephraim pressed his finger to the scanner and held it there for a minute before he dropped his hand away and sighed. "What time are we leaving in the morning?" he asked, sounding almost as tired as Caine felt, which was pretty f.u.c.king exhausted.

"Don't f.u.c.king care," Kale said, pulling out his iPhone. "I'm leaving tonight."

"Tonight?" Chris asked, opening his eyes as he shot a frown at the shifter that they all tolerated for Izzy's sake.

"Tonight," Kale confirmed, looking bored as he scrolled through his messages.

"What about the Pytes we just left upstairs?" Caine snapped. "They need to know what's going on. They need-"

"That's not my job," Kale said, barely sparing him a glance as he shoved his phone back in his pocket as he reached over and pressed the b.u.t.ton for the lobby.

"Not your job?" Danni repeated in disgust. "How is that not your job? You're supposed to-"

"Find them, capture them and deliver them," Kale fired off rapidly, cutting her off. "Babysitting them and making them feel good about their f.u.c.ked up existence isn't part of my job description."

"So, that's the game plan?" Ephraim asked in a deceptively bored tone. "You're going to hunt them down and deliver them to the Council with no questions asked?"

"Not a one," Kale answered absently, pulling his phone back out when it chimed again.

"And what about Pytes like Christofer and Cloe who have no f.u.c.king clue what they are or what they're getting themselves into?" Ephraim pressed on, asking the questions that they were all wondering.

"Pytes like Christofer can get their answers from whatever Sentinel is a.s.signed to hold his hand," Kale drawled, once again putting his phone away.

"And newly turned Pytes like Cloe?" Danni demanded, moving to get in the shifter's face, but Caine knew his mate well enough to keep her right by his side.

"Will be exterminated before they draw their last mortal breath," he said in that same bored tone that let them all know that he wasn't f.u.c.king playing around.

"You f.u.c.king p.r.i.c.k," Chris growled, all signs of the playful exhaustion he'd been displaying only seconds before gone and in its place was the deadly Sentinel that most people learned not to f.u.c.k with.

Chris moved to get in Kale's face, but before he could move so much as an inch, Ephraim was standing between them and in the shifter's face. His eyes flashed red as he stared the shifter down. A muscle ticking in his jaw as he bit out, "Not. f.u.c.king. Happening."

"The Council won't agree to that," Danni hissed, struggling to get away from Caine and as much as he would love to tear the b.a.s.t.a.r.d apart, he couldn't allow it.

He was still technically on probation and Kale, the f.u.c.king piece of s.h.i.t, was the Council's golden boy at the moment. He couldn't chance getting his a.s.s back on probation, not when he needed the Sentinel's resources to make sure that Kale never got a chance to put his f.u.c.ked up beliefs into action. He knew the shifter well enough to know that he wouldn't hesitate in killing a child or a woman just to make sure that they never got the chance to reach their immortality.

"Really?" Kale asked, chuckling darkly. "Do you really believe the Council's going to care if I kill a few unauthorized turns?"

No, he didn't.