Tall, Silent & Lethal (Pyte/Sentinel #4)(130)

“Cowards,” he muttered, keeping his eyes locked on the furious woman beneath him as the other three men made their escape.

“Damn straight,” Chris said, walking past them.

“Get off me, Christofer!”

“Are you going to take another shot at my balls?” he asked, even as he loosened his hold on her.

“No,” she bit out, shaking her head firmly and as much as he wanted to believe her, he didn’t, but he still rolled off her anyway, terrified that he was hurting the baby by keeping her pinned to the ground.

As soon as he rolled off her, he expected her to go for his balls or to storm off, but she didn’t do either of those things. When he looked over at her, he realized that she was crying. The realization that he’d made her cry hurt a hell of a lot more than his balls at the moment and had him reaching for her.

“Leave me alone,” she whispered, absently wiping at her face as she got to her feet.

“I can’t do that,” he said hoarsely, coming to his feet.

She shook her head, laughing without humor as she said, “That’s kind of funny since you were about to do just that.”

“Mein Schatz-” he said, reaching for her, but she pulled her arm away as she stepped away from him.

“It’s over, Christofer. I’m sick and tired of your secretive bullshit!” she said, delivering the final blow that knocked him on his ass before she turned around and walked away.

*-*-*-*

“Cloe, please-”

“Just leave me alone, Christofer,” she said, too exhausted to play this game with him.

Falling in love with him had been a mistake, something that she’d tried to stop herself from doing, but clearly she was an idiot because-

“They came for us in 1941,” he announced as he closed the bedroom door behind them.

“What?” she asked, turning around to face him only to find him by the window, bathed in moonlight as he stared off into the distance.

“It was a cool night, much like tonight when they came for us. My father thought, hoped really that we had a few more weeks, but someone must have tipped off the SS because they’d showed up at our door, armed and looking for me.”

“Why were they looking for you?” she asked, her anger pushed aside as her curiosity got the better of her and she found herself sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting to hear the rest of his story.

“Because I was an oddity,” he said with a sad smile. “I was sixteen years old, on the cusp of manhood, but trapped in the body of a child. Someone in the village had talked, someone that my father had helped, had kept safe, had decided that a few dollars was worth betraying my father’s kindness. They came with orders to find the boy that wouldn’t age and bring him to one of the labs that the Nazis were so fond of.”

“My father refused to let them take me. He screamed for me to take Marta and run, but I couldn’t force my legs to listen. I stood there like a fool while a soldier pulled out a gun and placed it against my father’s temple as he struggled to get to us. I remember screaming his name as his body fell to the ground, but nothing much after that.”

“A few days later I woke up in a cage being held in a large white lab. I had no idea how I got there or where I was. I just remember being hungry, really hungry, which was odd since my appetite had waned over the last few years.”

“What happened after you woke up?” she found herself asking once he’d grown quiet.

“The guards told the doctors that I was awake. They started asking me a million questions, but once they’d realized that I wouldn’t talk they brought Marta out, fresh from surgery.”

“What did they do to her?” she asked, immediately wishing that she hadn’t.

“They performed an autopsy of sorts on her, the first of many,” he said, folding his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the wall. “When I fought to get to her, one of the doctors placed the sharp edge of a scalpel to her throat and just like that they owned us. I couldn’t do anything without risking Marta’s life.”

“W-what did they do to you?”

“Everything,” he simply said, looking as though he wasn’t going to continue, but much to her horror, he did. “They started off with trying drugs out on me, then gases, looking for better ways to kill. When nothing worked on me they turned to weapons, fire, acids. They systemically cut off every body part, watching in fascination as it grew back.”

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, horrified.

“When they realized that I couldn’t die, they decided to try and make an army of monsters. They stole my blood and would give it to volunteers, prisoners, anyone that they could get their hands on and when that didn’t work, they started to shove women in my cage.”

“Women?”

He nodded as he shifted closer to the window. “They were brainwashed, led to believe that they were doing their part for the Aryan race. At first, I’d attack the women, half-starved and desperate for blood, but soon the scientists running the lab learned to overfeed me before placing a woman in my cage.”

Her stomach dropped as she imagined all the women being shoved in his cage. “Did you…..,” she started to ask, but she couldn’t make the words come out of her mouth.

“Did I f**k them?” he asked, looking at her for the first time since he’d started. He shook his head as he dropped his head back against the wall. “No, I didn’t. No matter what they did to entice me, I refused to touch them. I refused to let them get their hands on my child. I’ve touched women after that, but I’ve never risked a child, not until you,” he added with a shrug as she struggled to accept what he was saying. He’d been a virgin? Impossible. Before she could ask him, he continued distracting her.