Tall, Silent & Lethal (Pyte/Sentinel #4)(99)

He caught her and hugged her tightly against him as he looked her over. She was pale, her beautiful brown hair was a tangled wet mess, she was wrapped in a damp white sheet and the scent of chlorine, lighter fluid and burnt flesh poured off her.

“What happened?” he demanded as he struggled not to lose control, but it was damn near impossible with Cloe lying limply in his arms like this.

“Why don’t you tell us?” Caine suggested, drawing his attention to the man sitting by the doors with Danni sitting between his legs, a bag of blood pressed against her mouth, looking pale and exhausted.

A terrifying thought occurred to him as he took in the rest of the van’s occupants. He took in the blisters and burns on Kale’s neck and hands, the blood soaked bandages wrapped around his arms and the charred remains of his clothes before shifting his attention to Chris who sat beside him, holding a splinted arm against his chest and finally down at the woman in his arms. He swallowed back bile as he asked, “Did I hurt her?”

“Not from a lack of trying, but you did manage to tear through about six dozen Sentinels, demons and shifters if it makes you feel any better,” Chris mused, shifting with a cringe as the move jostled his arm.

“Did I kill anyone?” he asked, not really caring, not after they’d locked Cloe up with him without making sure that they had enough blood so that he could keep her safe.

“No,” Chris answered, his tone curious.

“And we’d love to know how you managed that,” Caine said, regarding him with interest.

“What happened to her?” he asked, not giving a damn about anything else but how she ended up like this.

A heavy pause followed, drawing his attention away from the woman lying helplessly in his arms to the shifter glaring defiantly at him while Chris, Caine and Danni all looked torn between disgust and pity. Without a single word it told him everything that he needed to know.

The shifter needed to die.

“What did you do to her?” he demanded, welcoming the burn as his eyes shifted and his fangs descended.

“This shit can wait until we get home!” Ephraim pointed out firmly from the front of the van, no doubt hoping that he’d let it go for now.

“What needed to be done,” Kale said evenly, meeting his red-eyed glare with a silver-eyed glare of his own.

“Don’t start that shit in here. You’ll hurt her,” Chris warned, closing his eyes and letting his head drop back, looking exhausted.

“And what exactly needed to be done?” he demanded.

“He removed the mark,” Danni explained as she removed the bag of blood from her lips and handed the half empty bag to her mate with a reluctant shake of her head that had her mate’s expression shutting down, but not before Christofer caught the flash of fear in the man’s eyes.

“And how exactly did he do that?” he drawled, shifting his attention back to the shifter who was starting to look bored with the conversation.

“By setting her on fire,” Kale admitted with a shrug that had the other three occupants of the van cursing before he added, “But don’t worry, I shot her in the heart first,” with a wink that had Christofer carefully placing Cloe on the floor.

“I see,” he said, the last coherent words that would leave his mouth for an hour as it turned out.

Chapter 43

“You don’t want to do this,” Danni said, licking her lips nervously as she shot another glance down at her unconscious mate.

Instead of arguing with her, he gestured with the handcuffs in his hand for her to sit back down next to her mate. “I’ve never hurt a woman and I have no plans to start now,” he patiently explained as he waited for her to comply.

“I’m going to tear your f**king head off for this!” the shifter that he’d allowed to live for the moment, growled as he once again yanked at his handcuffs.

Since Christofer knew just how much it would piss the shifter off, he ignored him as he knelt in front of Danni, who looked paler, and handcuffed her right hand to her mate’s. He knew that he was probably going to regret it later, but he left her other hand free.

“We’re trying to help you,” Ephraim said, trying to raise his head, but the effort proved to be too much so he just laid there on a bed of pine needles and groaned.

“Yeah, it feels it,” he said dryly, shooting Cloe a quick glance to make sure that she was still curled up safely a few feet away from what was left of the van.

“We f**ked up. I’ll give you that, but we really are trying to help you,” Chris said, releasing a groan of his own as he tried to sit up, but just like his father, he gave up after the first try and settled for falling back on the ground next to his father.

“We don’t need your kind of help,” Christofer said, stepping back to admire his work.

“You need our help more than you know,” Ephraim explained as he tried to roll over onto his side, but since Christofer had cuffed his arms and legs to the men lying helplessly on either side of him, the move proved impossible.

“And why is that?” he absently asked as he walked back to the van lying in a tangled mess on its side and reached in and grabbed one of the coolers that had survived the crash.

He walked back over to the ragtag group of misfits sprawled out on the forest floor in various stages of unconsciousness and placed the cooler down. He grabbed two bags of blood before he sat down on top of the cooler, deciding that it was probably for the best if he overfed before he tried to hike out of here with Cloe in his arms.