Chapter 56
“Shhhhh, stay calm,” Cloe whispered, keeping her eyes locked on the bloody back of the man crouched down in front of them.
“I’m trying,” Marc whispered as she reached back and took his hand in hers as she pushed back, making damn sure that he wasn’t going to get another chance to push past her and put himself in front of her again. She swore that if he tried to do that again, that she’d put him over her knee and spank the shit out of him.
“He’s going to hurt you,” Marc said, trying to step past her again, but a firm squeeze had him keeping his butt where it belonged.
“No, he’s not,” she said as she debated telling Marc to keep running towards the mansion, but she wasn’t sure if Christofer would chase after the boy or not.
Since he’d snarled at the boy when he’d stepped in front of her the last time, she couldn’t be sure of anything at the moment. She knew that Christofer would rather die than hurt a child, but in this state….
She wasn’t exactly sure what Christofer would do if Marc took off running and she didn’t want to find out.
A vicious snarl drew her attention back to Christofer as he tensed, every blood coated muscle in his back bulging as he prepared himself to face whoever they heard running towards them. A few seconds later she nearly sagged with relief when she caught the sweet scent of Sentinel blood until she realized something very important, Christofer had also caught the scent. He growled viciously as he shifted his weight forward, preparing for an attack.
“Christofer,” she said, licking her lips anxiously, praying that she could talk some sense into him before this turned into a bloodbath. “I think we’re okay now.”
“Mine!” he snarled, shifting as he searched for the new threat that was coming their way.
“I-I think that’s my brother,” Marc said, squeezing her hand as he shifted behind her and she knew, just knew, that if she gave him a chance that he’d try to make a run for it to stop Chris from coming too close, but she wasn’t giving him that chance.
“Don’t move, Marc,” she whispered, moving back to make sure that Marc wasn’t going anywhere. “Chris can take care of himself. He’ll be fine.”
“No! Please, just let me go to my brother!” Marc said, frantically trying to pull his hand free.
“Marc, he’ll be-”
“You stay where you are, Marc,” Chris suddenly said as he came into sight, about twenty feet away to their right. He immediately stilled when he caught sight of Christofer.
“Don’t move,” Ephraim said softly, coming into sight fifteen feet away and to their left.
“Shit,” Caine said, stopping right beside Ephraim as he took in the scene before him. “What the hell happened?”
“Shifter…..attacked…..,” Christofer answered, taking everyone by surprise. “Scented my mate, my child and the boy,” he answered in a low growl that sent chills down her spine.
“A shifter attacked you?” Chris asked, looking as surprised as the other two men. “How the hell did he get in town?”
“It was black,” Marc told them, once again trying to move past her, but she wasn’t having that.
“Where?” Ephraim demanded, his eyes shifting red.
“It was waiting for us on the road,” she said, swallowing nervously as she watched Caine’s eyes shift as well and wondered if she was about to have two more Pytes going into bloodlust.
“Caine, can you hunt the shifter down and-”
“Dead,” Christofer bit out in a guttural tone as he slowly stood up and faced the three men.
“Were there any others?” Chris asked, looking past Christofer to make sure that they were okay.
“Two men….armed……smelled like the beast,” Christofer answered.
“An Alpha and two shifters,” Caine surmised, looking thoughtful as he leaned back against the tree.
“I take it they’re dead as well?” Chris asked, and after a slight pause, started walking in their direction.
When Christofer growled in warning, Chris continued towards them, “No worries, big guy, I just want to make sure that my brother is okay,” and to her utter surprise, Christofer let him by.
“Are you okay, little man?” Ephraim asked his son, stepping past Christofer with a nod.
“I’m fine,” Marc said firmly as she released his hand, but he refused to let hers go. “But Cloe is sick.”
Before the last word was out of his mouth, Christofer was standing in front of her, cupping her face gently in his hands as he looked her over. His red eyes searched every inch of her, looking for an injury that wasn’t there. When he dropped one of his hands away from her face and pressed it against her stomach, she fell a little more in love with him even as she struggled to not flinch away from him.
“The baby’s fine,” she said, her breath catching as it finally started to hit her.
She was pregnant.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, her lips curling into a watery smile as her eyes teared up. “Oh my God!”
“Cloe?” Ephraim said, sounding worried as he moved to her side, but all she could say was, “Oh my God,” as she placed her hand over Christofer’s where a baby was growing, their baby, a baby that she was told would never be possible.
“Cloe, are you sure that you’re okay?” Chris asked, sounding worried.
She opened her mouth to tell him that everything was fine, when she suddenly found herself racing for the nearest bush and cursing Christofer to hell and back for not stopping her from having that second burger.
*-*-*-*
“Where are you going?” Cloe asked sleepily as she tried to force her eyes open, but after the day that she’d had she was too exhausted to do much more than to give him a sleepy smile as he leaned down and kissed her softly.
“Go back to sleep, mein Schatz. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he lied to her, indulging himself in one last kiss before he forced himself to step back when all he wanted to do was pull his clothes off, climb in bed beside her and make love to her one last time.
“Hurry back,” Cloe said with that same smile that she’d been wearing since she’d realized that they were really having a baby, the same one that felt like a kick to his gut every time he saw it.
They were having a baby and he wasn’t ready.
His father might not have expected him to have a family of his own one day, but he’d taught him what it meant to be a man nevertheless. His father had taught him that the first thing a man needed to do was to keep his family safe and that’s exactly what he was about to do.