Tall, Silent & Lethal (Pyte/Sentinel #4)(63)

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 bastard leaning against the wall next to him and grabbed the doorknob, twisting it until the lock broke.

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

“Anytime, ass**le,” Christofer said, looking forward to beating the shit 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.

“Shit! 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**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**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 shit out of Ephraim.