Tall, Silent & Lethal (Pyte/Sentinel #4)(100)

“You have no idea what you’re up against,” Danni said, looking pained as she closed her eyes and dropped her head back against the tree.

“Why don’t you explain it to me?” he suggested, glancing down at the bagged blood in his hand with a frown. He was definitely going to regret this later, he told himself as he tossed one of the bags to her.

She didn’t even open her eyes as she said, “I can’t drink that.”

“Why not?” he asked, wondering if the female Pytes had some sort of defect or disorder that he was going to have to watch out for in Cloe.

“I can’t consume human blood anymore,” she said, shifting slightly as she gestured lazily towards her mate. “I need his blood along with demon blood.”

“Then I suggest you feed him,” he said, his upbringing too well ingrained in him to ignore. His father believed that it was a man’s responsibility to take care of the women and children in his care and he’d made damn sure that Christofer believed that as well.

Danni’s eyes flicked open and after a slight hesitation, she reached for the bagged blood with a trembling hand and a murmured, “Thank you.”

“Do all females have this problem?” he asked, standing up so that he could grab another bag and toss it to her.

“No,” Ephraim said with obvious difficulty as he sat up, forcing a whimpering Chris to sit up as well so that he could reach over Caine’s prone body and pick up the other bag of blood.

Before Christofer could tell the ass**le to give the blood back to Danni, Ephraim dropped the bag on Caine’s chest and moved to tilt Caine’s head back and force his mouth open while Danni bit into the first bag and then carefully positioned the bag at her mate’s mouth. The move surprised him, as did the fact that this group of misfits genuinely cared about each other. He’d never really belonged anywhere, he thought with just enough self-pity to make him shake his head with disgust as he stuck the bag in his hand to his teeth.

“Danni was turned when she was dying of cancer. Caine didn’t know about the cancer, not that it would have made a difference since he didn’t have enough blood on hand to kill the cancer,” Chris explained for his father as he shifted, careful of his broken arm and leaned back against the tree that Kale was currently attached to. The shifter’s murderous gaze was focused solely on him, so of course he had to make a big show of enjoying the last sip of blood.

“Tear. Your. Fucking. Head. Off,” Kale bit out, emphasizing every word with a vicious growl.

“Good luck with that,” Christofer said with a chuckle, already knowing that he’d come back from that particular injury without a problem.

“You’ll be putting her at risk if you try to do this on your own,” Ephraim said, returning to that broken record that he just wasn’t buying any more.

“The ass**le removed her mark,” he reminded them as he toyed with the second bag in his hands, wondering what bullshit they were going to spin for him now.

“Yes,” Ephraim snapped angrily as he shifted his gaze to Kale, who was still glaring his way, “he did.”

“Then she’s all set,” Christofer said, tossing the bag in the air as he looked over his shoulder at the deserted country road behind him, wondering just how long he had before someone showed up.

“The shifter that owned her will be looking for her, now more than ever since word has spread about a shifter’s property being stolen by a Pyte,” Chris explained.

“You never know, he might have lost interest over the years,” Christofer said, knowing damn well that he would never lose interest in the woman that was currently pretending to be asleep.

“The shifter didn’t lose interest,” Kale said, his gaze shifting to Cloe. “He’ll be coming for her sooner or later.”

“I see,” Christofer murmured absently as he studied the bag in his hands, wondering if it would be best to move Cloe up to Canada for a while until this blew over.

“No, you really don’t,” Kale explained coldly. “With or without that mark, the shifter that claimed her will find her. He will move heaven and hell to get to her and now that every f**king shifter, demon and vampire knows that a marked bitch was stolen, they’ll be after her as well.”

“Then I guess I should make sure that they don’t find us,” he said, having had more than enough of this bullshit.

*-*-*-*

“Are you,” Cloe cleared her throat awkwardly as she struggled to free her hands from the blankets that he’d cocooned her in, “going to put me down anytime soon?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his shoulders with the hopes that it would help stop the jostling motion that was wreaking havoc on her stomach.

“No,” Christofer said, not even bothering to spare her a glance as he jumped onto a boulder, causing her to suck in a surprised breath at the motion only to expel it with a stomach turning grunt a second later when he jumped down and continued running through the woods at a neck breaking speed.

“I’m perfectly capable of running,” she pointed out, not mentioning that she could probably handle running a half mile before she was forced to take a break or pass out.

“No,” he said firmly, forcing her to bite her tongue before she said something that she would regret later.

And right now she had plenty that she wanted to say and do, but she knew that if she opened her mouth right now that she would definitely regret it later. Maybe not in a day, a week, or month, or probably even in a year, but someday she would feel really bad about kicking the shit out of his balls.