Tall, Silent & Lethal (Pyte/Sentinel #4)(111)

Chapter 48

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up,” Kale snarled, clearly unhappy with Chris’ choice of entertainment to pass the time.

Chris sighed dramatically. “I’ve lost my place,” he said with a shake of his head. “I guess there’s nothing to do but to start over again.” He pointedly cleared his throat, preparing himself for another round of “A thousand bottles of beer on the wall,” but before he had the chance to utter another syllable of torture, Ephraim was slapping a hand over his son’s mouth and ending his son’s reign of terror.

“Thank f**king God,” Caine said weakly from where he sat with Danni curled up in his arms and somehow fast asleep.

Ephraim wasn’t sure how she’d managed to block out Chris’ bullshit, but he had to admit, he was impressed. Over the last couple of hours he’d been forced to remind himself that he loved his son and would regret killing him, but a few times he found himself reaching out to strangle the little bastard. While his son normally loved nothing more than to aggravate the shit out of the shifter straining against his chains so that he could wrap his hands around Chris’ throat, he’d gone overboard this time.

Then again, Chris hated being restrained almost as much as he did, but what made matters worse was the fact that Chris couldn’t get to his mate. He could tolerate being away from her for a few days only because he knew that he could drop everything and go to her or at the very least, call her. This time, there was nothing. He hadn’t spoken to his mate in over twenty-four hours and it was killing him.

So, of course he was taking it out on the rest of them.

“Is anyone else here curious how one Pyte not only managed to take us all by surprise, but also survived the car crash without so much as a scratch and managed to chain us all up together like ragdolls?” Danni asked from the safety of her mate’s arms as she continued to lie there with her eyes closed.

He shared a look with Caine. Oh, they were more than a little curious and judging by the way that Kale’s eyes went all silver at the reminder of his recent ass whooping, he was also curious.

“I’d love to know how he did it, especially just coming out of bloodlust,” Chris said against Ephraim’s hand.

“You and me both,” he muttered, dropping his hand away from Chris’ mouth even as he shot his son a warning glare not to start the bullshit back up again.

“She didn’t have a mark on her either,” Caine added, looking thoughtful.

“That’s because he wrapped his body around her and protected her,” Chris pointed out, wincing as he shifted his broken arm. It was already halfway healed, but the process hurt like hell. Not that Chris would let anyone know just how much pain he was in. He hated being fussed over by anyone but his mate.

“He didn’t grab her until after the van had already rolled over once,” Kale said, looking equally thoughtful. “She should have had a few bruises or cuts from that crash, but she didn’t. Not a single one.”

“She was wrapped up in a blanket so for all you know, she could have had a few injuries,” Chris said, giving up on trying to sit up and just laid there, staring up at the early morning sky.

Caine shook his head right along with him as he answered, “We would have smelled the blood pooling beneath her skin. She wasn’t injured.”

“Now that I think of it,” Caine said, looking a little confused, “her back healed a hell of a lot faster than it should have.”

“That’s because we kept a line down her throat, pumping blood inside her the whole time,” Chris added, but the expression on his face told him that even he realized that she’d healed a little too fast.

“The cut on her hand didn’t heal quickly,” Danni pointed out, reminding them of Ephraim’s f**k up.

“No, it didn’t,” Ephraim said, frowning as he tried to make sense of everything.

“But she also didn’t slip into bloodlust,” Kale announced, drawing everyone’s attention.

“How do you know?” Caine asked before Ephraim or anyone else for that matter, got the chance.

“Because I slipped back up to their floor and listened,” Kale admitted with a careless shrug.

“He probably fed her,” Danni pointed out around a yawn as she settled more deeply in her mate’s arms.

“Not for a few hours,” Kale said, leveling a pointed look on Ephraim, making sure that he got the message.

He definitely got it.

There was something different about Christofer’s blood, something that allowed the woman he’d turned to put off bloodlust a hell of a lot longer than she should have been able to after being freshly turned and losing blood. If what Kale said was true, and he had no reason not to believe it, something had changed since the last time that they saw the couple and when they returned for them and he had a feeling he knew what that something was.

“He’s fed her his blood,” Caine murmured, a pained expression on his face as he looked down at Danni, who was looking worse as the morning progressed.

“Maybe he’s part demon,” Chris suggested, raising his broken arm and resting it across his stomach, taking Ephraim’s arm right along with it. The bones had fused back together so that the arm was no longer hanging at an odd angle, but it was still broken. He could smell the marrow slowly seeping out.