Tall, Silent and Lethal

by R. L. Mathewson

  Chapter 61

  What the hell was wrong with her? she couldn’t help but wonder as she found herself shifting forward to let a reluctant Christofer step into the tub behind her and sit down.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said as he adjusted his legs on either side of her and wrapped his arms around her, bringing her flush against his body.

  “I want to,” she said, embarrassed by just how badly she wanted to be the one to feed him.

  After what he’d done to her, not to mention the attack that she’d endured as a child, she shouldn’t want to experience his bite again, but she did. Call it morbid curiosity, momentary insanity, but she wanted to experience the kind of pleasure that she saw on his face when she bit him while they made love and replace her nightmares. She wanted to know if Madison was right, if being bitten by a Pyte while making love was the most erotic experience of her life. But, most of all, she wanted Christofer to experience the pleasure that he denied himself every time they made love.

  She also wanted to change the past.

  “Why?” he asked, pressing a kiss just below her ear as she wrapped her arms around his as they held her tightly against him.

  “Does it matter?” she asked, shifting so that her legs were touching his.

  “Yes,” he said hoarsely.

  “Do you want to bite me?” she asked, wishing that he would just go ahead and bite her before she lost her damn nerve.

  He pressed another kiss to her neck as he released a low, sexy growl that had her toes curling. “More than anything.”

  “Then do it,” she said, tilting her head to the side to expose the base of her neck to him.

  When she felt his warm breath tickle her neck, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, her entire body going tense as she waited for those razor sharp teeth to slice through her skin and-

  “No,” he said, pressing a kiss against her neck.

  “But-” she started to argue even as her body remained tense, ready for his attack.

  “No,” he said, cutting her off with another kiss as he moved his arms out from beneath hers.

  “But-”

  “Shhhh,” he whispered soothingly as he pressed another kiss against her neck. “Just let me hold you for a few minutes.”

  She nodded numbly as she lay in his arms. There was no point in pushing him. He’d made up his mind and nothing she could say would change anything.

  Which of course meant that she was just going to have to go ahead and take the choice out of his hands, because there was no way that she was going to put this off for another day.

  *-*-*-*

  “Can I have some of that, please?” Marc asked, yanking him out of his thoughts as he sat at the large kitchen island, staring down at the large glass of lukewarm blood in front of him.

  He looked down at the counter and frowned until Marc gestured to his glass of blood. “You drink blood?”

  “Yup,” Marc said with a careless shrug as he reached for the cookie jar and pulled it closer so he could grab a handful of Oreos.

  “Why?” he asked, handing the glass of blood over to the boy, his own bullshit momentarily forgotten as he watched the young boy stuff an Oreo in his mouth and follow it with half the blood.

  Marc popped another cookie in his mouth before he answered. “So I can grow normally,” he explained, grabbing another cookie as Christofer digested the information.

  “So, when you’re sixteen you’ll actually look-”

  “Sixteen,” Marc finished for him around another cookie.

  “Of course,” Christofer said, chuckling as he shook his head in wonder. Of course his embarrassingly slow growth rate could have been fixed with something as simple as drinking blood, he thought as he grabbed the bag of warmed blood from the bowl and another cup from the cabinet.

  As Marc polished off the contents of the cookie jar and two more glasses of blood, he sat there sipping blood and thinking about all the things that his child was going to need. Christ, they weren’t ready, but that didn’t matter. He had a baby on the way and responsibilities to deal with. The first of course was to find a home of their own.

  He liked the Williams family, liked living here, but they were just starting out and needed some time alone before the baby came. He wanted to spoil Cloe, learn everything that he could about her, and make sure that she knew that he wanted to spend the rest of his very long life with her. He wanted to have the freedom to make love to her wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted and he couldn’t do that in a mansion filled with children and five other people who could hear every single thing they did.

  He would have liked to take Cloe away on a trip first. He wanted to explore the world with her by his side, but that wasn’t an option. He had a family now and that meant that he had to put his wishes aside and take care of them. They came first and always would.

  Everything else came second.

  “Do you think that-”

  “What the hell?” he rasped, cutting Marc off as he came to his feet, the scent of Cloe’s blood and an unknown shifter pushing all of his worries aside as terror struck.

  *-*-*-*

  “Real smart,” Cloe grumbled, shaking her head in disgust as she opened another window, grimacing when the cut she’d stupidly made across her palm stung as she gripped the window and pushed it up.

  There really was nothing sexier than a gushing hand wound, she thought dryly as she opened the last window, hoping to air out the room before Christofer returned. Sighing, she walked to the bathroom for a quick shower. This really hadn’t been her best idea.

  God, what the hell had she been thinking?

  She wanted to experience his bite, to see if it was pleasurable and for some asinine reason she thought cutting herself was the best way to make that happen. For about thirty seconds after she’d cut herself, she’d stood there, prepped and ready to get it over with. She’d been determined to get rid of this fear, to overcome her past so that she could honestly say that she wasn’t still afraid of him, but then she started to remember what it felt like that night of his attack and all her bravado had quickly fled.

  She hated this, hated the way she tensed up when he went too close to her neck, hated the way she forgot to breathe when his fangs dropped while they made love. She loved him so much, but this fear that she felt every time she saw his fangs was killing her. She didn’t want to live the rest of her life like this. She didn’t want to feel like she had to watch her back or worry when he didn’t feed every couple of hours, terrified that he would lose control and mistake her or their child for a late night snack.

  She wanted……..

  She just wanted him, but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to have him until she got over this innate fear of him. They were having a baby together, something that she’d known would never happen for her and now that it had, she would greedily protect it, even from its father.

  God, she hated feeling this way.

  She-

  Gasped as a strong hand grabbed onto her arm and yanked her out of the shower. Before she could scream, she found herself pushed back against the wall and staring into glimmering red eyes as trembling hands moved over her, searching for something. Her heart pounded against her chest as her gaze locked on the long, white fangs that looked ready to tear into her throat. When her mind raced to catch up with her erratically beating heart and she realized who was standing in front of her, her fear spiked.

  “Where are you hurt?” Christofer demanded as she took a deep breath to calm her frayed nerves. “I smelled your blood.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, pushing his hands aside as she stepped away from him, needing a moment to compose herself before he realized-

  “You’re terrified,” he said hollowly.

  She tried to shake it off as she grabbed a towel, forcing herself to appear casual as she headed for the bedroom, needing to put a little space between them so that she could calm down just enough to hide her reaction from him, something that she normally could
do, but tonight, he wasn’t going to give her that chance.

  “Look at me,” he said, grabbing her arm more gently this time to pull her to a stop when all she wanted to do was to walk away from him and pretend that he hadn’t just scared the hell out of her, and probably always would.

  Swallowing back her fear, she forced herself to look up and immediately wished that she hadn’t, especially when her breath caught and her stomach dropped when she realized that his fangs were still down. This time when she tried to step away from him, he refused to let her go.

  “You’re terrified of me,” he rasped, noticeably swallowing as he waited for her to deny it, but she couldn’t.

  So with a shake of her head, she closed her eyes in surrender and admitted, “Your fangs.”

  “My fangs?” he repeated as though he wasn’t quite sure that he’d heard her correctly. “You haven’t reacted negatively to my fangs since-”

  “I started to accept what I’d been changed into,” she finished for him, opening her eyes so that she could look at him as she admitted, “You scare me when you lose control.”

  “Then why did you want me to bite you?” he asked, looking as confused as she felt.

  She sighed, looking away from him, having absolutely no idea how to explain to him that she wanted to replace her fear with pleasure, to erase the memories of what he’d done to her, what she feared that he would one day do.

  “Look at me,” he said, reaching out and cupping her face as she tried to step away from him.

  “I would never hurt you,” he swore, gazing down at her with adoring eyes making it difficult to believe that he was capable of hurting anyone.

  But she knew the truth.

  “Never,” he stressed, giving her the courage she needed to find out.

  “Then prove it.”

  Chapter 62

  “What?” he asked, unable to hide his confusion as he watched Cloe’s expression turn from wary to calculating in a matter of seconds.

  “You’re going to prove it,” she said with a determined glint in her eye as she reached up and pushed him back.

  “How exactly am I supposed to prove that?” he asked, more than willing to do anything to make sure that she knew that he would never hurt her.

  “You’re going to bite me,” she announced as she shoved him back again.

  Well, almost anything.

  “No,” he said with a hard shake of his head as he moved to step around her, but she wasn’t having that.

  With one last push he found himself stumbling back and falling on the couch. Before he could get up, Cloe, naked and still wet from her shower, was climbing on his lap and straddling him.

  “Yes,” she said, placing her hands on his chest and pushing him back when he tried to stand up.

  “No,” he said, placing his hands on her hips to move her aside.

  She sighed as she settled more comfortably on top of him as she dropped her hands away from his chest and reached down to grab the hem of his shirt. “Yes.”

  “Not gonna happen, mein Schatz,” he said, moving to stop her, but she simply used the move to pull his shirt up until he was left with no other choice but to lean forward so that she could pull the shirt off the rest of the way. It was either that or allow her to rip the shirt clean from his body and judging by her expression, she’d been seconds away from doing just that.

  “You don’t want to bite me?” she asked casually as she pulled her long beautiful chestnut hair up and twisted it into a loose bun, drawing his attention to her neck where her pulse beat at a hypnotizing tempo.

  “No,” he lied, swallowing hard as he forced himself to look back up and meet her determined grey eyes, “I don’t.”

  Smiling coyly, she leaned in and brushed her lips against his. “Liar,” she said, pulling back before he could savor the feel of her lips on his.

  “I’m not going to bite you,” he said firmly, leaning in to kiss her to distract her from this asinine plan of hers.

  She leaned back and with a little sigh and a shake of her head. “I think you will.”

  “And why is that?” he asked, wishing like hell that she’d just drop it, because he wanted nothing more than to slide his fangs inside of her while he slid himself between her legs.

  “Because you owe me a redo,” she simply said, as she ran her fingers through his hair.

  “A redo?” he repeated dumbly, trying not to groan at the feel of her fingers going through his hair.

  “Mmmmhmm,” she said, leaning in and kissing him again. “A redo.”

  “And what exactly are we redoing?” he asked, placing his hands on her hips to pick her up and end this.

  “The night that you bit me,” she explained calmly, threading her fingers through his hair, “I want a redo.”

  He didn’t want to think about that night, never mind relive it.

  “Why?” he asked, reaching up to trace the back of his knuckles along her jaw, wondering why this was so important to her.

  “Does it matter?” she asked, not quite meeting his gaze.

  “Yes.”

  For a moment, she didn’t say anything. She just sat there, running her fingers through his hair. Just when he was about to press her again for an answer, he smelled it.

  “What is that?” Cloe asked, sounding nervous. Frowning, she quickly folded her arms over her breasts to cover them as she caught the scent that had sent him running in the first place.

  “The main reason that I was checking on you,” he said, all his focus on the window where the scent of shifter was coming through stronger than ever.

  “What is that?” Cloe asked, swallowing nervously as he helped her climb off his lap.

  “Grab your clothes and go to the others,” he said, moving past her towards the open window where the scent of shifter was becoming stronger with each passing second.

  “But-”

  “Go!”

  “Christofer, I-”

  “Goddamn it, run, Cloe!” he snapped, abruptly turning around, fully prepared to throw her out into the hall if that’s what it took when he found himself stumbling off balance.

  He felt hot liquid dripping down his stomach. Numbly, he looked down at the tip of the blade sticking out his chest. He looked up at Cloe just as she screamed.

  “Run,” he said hoarsely as a second blade rammed through his chest, piercing his heart and sending him into oblivion.

  *-*-*-*

  “Christofer!”

  “Shhhh, none of that now,” the man that looked vaguely familiar said as he pulled one of the large hunting knives out of Christofer’s back, making sure to keep his gaze locked on her.

  Before she realized what she was doing, her fangs had shot down and she was going for his throat only to come to an abrupt halt when he pulled out a gun and aimed it at her stomach. Fear for their baby had her ignoring the need to rip his throat out, but just barely.

  “I see it’s true,” the man remarked casually as he openly studied her. “I guess that means that everything else is true as well,” he mumbled to himself, his expression turning worried. “He’s not going to be happy about this.”

  “Who?” she demanded, risking a glance down at Christofer only to force herself to bite back a sob when she spotted the large, thick black handle of the knife sticking out of his now pale back as more blood pooled around him, soaking into the beige carpet.

  “Your owner,” the man said, drawing her attention back up in time to see him gesture towards the open windows with the gun. “He’s waiting for you.”

  She started to shake her head in refusal when she heard the familiar, long suffering sigh that normally had her rolling her eyes and biting back a smile.

  “Please tell me that you didn’t really break into my family’s home,” Chris said, shaking his head in disgust as he swung inside the room through one of the open windows.

  “Get back, Sentinel!” the man said, shifting slightly to the side so that he could keep them both in sight and the gun firmly
aimed at her.

  “No,” Chris said firmly, his gaze locked on the man starting to shift towards her.

  He cocked the gun in warning, making her breath catch as her hands shot to cover her stomach in a hopeless attempt to protect her baby. “Please,” she whispered as her eyes watered, terrified of losing the precious gift that Christofer had given her.

  “Put the gun down,” Ephraim said as he stepped into the room.

  “I can’t,” the man in front of her said, licking his lips nervously as Caine slowly climbed in through the window, his murderous red glare locked on the man holding the gun. “I have my orders.”