Tall, Silent & Lethal (Pyte/Sentinel #4)(22)

While his sister had been struggling to survive on the bathroom floor, the bastard that he’d trusted to care for her was off f**king another woman. In two minutes he’d made his sister a widow and hadn't cared, because he would never allow another person to harm her.

After that, he’d made Marta his world once again. He’d brought her to specialists who’d discovered that the damage done to her from the experiments he'd been helpless to stop had done far more damage to her than anyone had realized. It took years of surgeries and almost constant care before Marta was able to function once again. The damage had left her weak and vulnerable. Christofer hadn't had the heart to ask her to move from the only home she’d ever known and loved when he knew that he shouldn't stay. There had been so many reasons for him not to stay, but none of them had been more important than Marta's happiness and wellbeing.

During the first year, Marta made him promise to stop feeding off people, afraid that he'd draw attention to himself and he'd be taken away. He’d reluctantly agreed even though he knew the pain from hunger would be unbearable thanks to his time spent in the lab, but for her, he happily did it.

For that first year, he managed to keep most of the hunger pains at bay by drinking animal blood he'd purchased from butchers in town. It was the vilest thing he'd ever put into his body, but he hadn’t had much of a choice. If he let himself go hungry for too long the monster inside him would take over and leave him with no choice but to attack someone and he was afraid that someone would end up being his sister.

He'd hoped his purchases would go unnoticed, but they hadn't. People in town began talking about them. Not long after that, their attention shifted to the fact that he wasn’t aging. It wasn’t long before men he used to work for started refusing to hire him and women and children would go out of their way to avoid him by crossing the street or running into the nearest building when they spotted him.

He quickly went from being a welcome member of the community to the town freak and there hadn’t been anything that he could do to stop it. He'd already cost his sister so much. He refused to take her away from her home. Since leaving her wasn't an option, he’d learned to ignore the glares, whispers, and looks of revulsion. He’d also managed to make a living doing what he loved, something he doubted would have happened if the people in town were still willing to hire him and he hadn’t been forced to turn back to drawing out of desperation to support his sister.

The only other good thing that came from his position as town freak was meeting Seth. Seth had heard the rumors of a man that didn’t age and lived off animal blood. Seth decided to come to the house late one night and introduce himself. At first, Christofer had denied the rumors and threatened to tear the man apart if he didn't get off his property, but Seth had been persistent. Just when Christofer was about to make good on his threats, Seth had thrown him a toothy grin.

It was the first time he'd ever seen anyone like himself. For the longest time he'd truly thought he was a freak of nature, especially when the doctors in the lab failed time and time again to replicate his abilities in soldiers who'd volunteered for the chance at becoming stronger and indestructible. No matter how much of his blood they took or how they gave it to the soldiers, none of the experiments had worked. Within minutes of receiving his blood, every single man had died, violently.

That hadn't stopped the doctors from trying. They’d refused to give up until they had an army of soldiers with all of his abilities, and they made damn sure they knew all of his abilities. For four years he was tortured in every single way imaginable and he'd had no choice but to allow it so that he could keep Marta safe. The only thing that gave him peace was the fact that they’d failed to duplicate him.

For the first sixty seconds after Seth had displayed his fangs, Christofer had been terrified that one of the experiments had worked, but that thought left almost as quickly as it came when he realized that Seth could not enter his house without an invitation. During that meeting he’d learned that vampires truly did exist and that some of the old wives' tales were true.

He led Seth to believe that he'd been recently turned so that he could garner information about their world. At first Seth had been reluctant to share any information with him, claiming that Christofer didn't give off the earthy scent of a vampire. It wasn’t until after Christofer had shown off his own fangs, careful not to allow his eyes to shift, that Seth had been more than happy to share information with him.

He’d learned that some of the Hollywood hype had been right and that vampires couldn’t tolerate sunlight or holy relics. He’d also learned that garlic didn't bother them. He’d been shocked to discover that most vampires were loyal to a leader called a Master, but that there were others like Seth, who didn't belong to anyone. They led a different life than most vampires. Instead of feeding from the source, humans, Seth and other vampires like him survived on bagged blood.

When Seth offered his blood delivering services to Christofer, for a price, he'd jumped at the chance, desperate for human blood and half afraid that he was close to finally losing control.

“John said you're cut off,” the waitress suddenly announced, pulling him away from his rather depressing thoughts.

Christofer shoved the hood off his head and looked past the waitress to find the bartender taking a nervous step back. They might not know exactly what he was, but they knew enough to be wary around him. Now Cloe did as well, he thought, the realization leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.