He’d planned on staying here, getting trained and learning as much as he could about the piece of shit hunting his mate, but now he didn’t have time, not with a baby on the way and not after what happened this afternoon.
Not after they’d found her.
His first instinct had been to grab Cloe and get her the hell out of here, but then he’d caught Marc’s fear and he knew that there would be no more running. Not for him. Leaving wouldn’t change anything, they’d still be hunted and the Williams would still be in danger because they’d led the piece of shit to them. He needed to take care of this problem before it got any worse.
He started to head for the bedroom door, but the sound of the other men waiting in the hallway for him had him turning around and heading for the window. With one last look at Cloe, he opened the window, climbed out and dropped, landing on the ground forty feet below with a soft whoosh. He started to walk away when Chris stepped out from behind a tree with CJ in his arms, greedily suckling on a bottle.
“Going somewhere?” Chris drawled as he leaned down and kissed the tip of CJ’s nose, earning a cute little giggle from the smiling baby.
Christofer stared at the little boy in Chris’ arms as he nodded, more determined than ever to put an end to this nightmare. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said, moving to walk away when Ephraim and Caine stepped in front of him, looking oddly determined.
“Do you really think that going off on your own to take care of this piece of shit is going to change anything?” Ephraim asked, getting in his face.
“It will put an end to this,” he bit out, moving to step past him only to have Caine move in front of him, cutting him off.
“It will start a war,” Caine promised.
“According to you, we’re already at war,” Christofer pointed out, in no mood for more of this bullshit, not with that piece of shit somewhere out there, still breathing.
“Yes, we are,” Ephraim agreed firmly. “But if you go back there now and kill him, you will be starting another war, one where every shifter on earth will be honor-bound to hunt you and your family for eternity. They will go after your children, do unspeakable things to your mate, all because of some f**ked up code that more than half of them disagree with.”
“Every shifter will turn its back on us, demons will follow and soon the Sentinels will lose every ally that they have, turning this war into a massacre,” Caine added.
“But before that happens, they’ll wipe out that little town that you came from, attack the Sentinel compound that we hid you in and then come here and to punish everyone that you’ve ever known and make sure that you don’t have any allies left,” Chris said, drawing his attention back to that baby in his arms.
He didn’t give a flying f**k about anyone in their old town, but Marta had. She’d had many friends there, had loved that little town and would be devastated to find out that the only home that she’d ever known was destroyed. As for the rest of it, he couldn’t stomach the idea of putting women and children in harm’s way and they must have known that, which would explain why Chris was out here with CJ in his arms while they did their best to convince him to sit back like some coward and let the piece of shit that had ruined Cloe’s life live.
“What are you suggesting?” he bit out, turning his attention back to Ephraim and Caine. “That we sit on our asses and wait for them? I’ve made that mistake before,” he said, shaking his head as memories of the SS storming his childhood home replayed in his mind. “I won’t make it again.”
“We’re not suggesting that,” Caine said.
“Then what exactly are you suggesting?” he demanded again.
“We’re not about to let anyone attack our home or hurt anyone in our family, Christofer, and that includes you and Cloe, but we can’t do anything until he makes the first move,” Ephraim started to explain.
“They attacked today!” he snarled, getting in the other man’s face, but Ephraim didn’t back down.
“That was just a shifter trying to gain leverage over whoever marked her, nothing more,” Caine said, shaking his head as though the attempted attack today was no big deal when it had left him scared out of his mind.
“It’s only a matter of time before her marker finds us and when he does, we’ll be ready,” Ephraim said, placing his hand on Christofer’s shoulder. “All of us.”
“This isn’t your war,” he reminded them, resisting the urge to shrug off the other man’s hand.
“You’re one of us, Christofer. That makes this our war.”
“I can’t ask you to put yourself at risk for us,” he ground out, the need to take care of his own problems too well ingrained to ignore at this point.
“And we can’t just stand by and let you handle this on your own, not with a child involved now,” Ephraim said, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze before dropping his hand away, but not before Christofer caught sight of what he’d been hiding behind that gauze for the past few weeks.
Frowning, he looked over his shoulder and spotted the same tattoo on Chris’ wrist. He opened his mouth to ask about the symbol when he realized that he’d truly f**ked up.
“You…..bastard!” Cloe snarled, shoving Ephraim and Caine apart as she stepped past them, her red eyes locked on him as she pulled her fist back and let it fly seconds before she followed it up with a knee to his balls.
Chapter 57
“We shouldn’t be watching this,” Izzy said, her eyes locked on the large flat screen monitor as she blindly reached into the bowl for another peanut butter cup.
“Then look away,” he said, taking a large bite out of the fudge brownie that Chris had delivered earlier for Izzy to make up for the stolen fudge.
“I can’t,” she admitted whispering almost as though she was in a trance as they watched Cloe pull back her foot and-
Fuck, even he winced on the Pyte’s behalf as she made contact with his balls before Ephraim and Caine could pull her away. Trying to sneak out on a pregnant Pyte while her hormones were out of control to do something stupid was a bad f**king move. He still cringed when he thought about the hormonal rages that Madison went through while she’d carried the twins.
“Maybe you should help them,” Izzy suggested, grabbing another handful of peanut butter cups as he stole her glass of chocolate milk and finished it off.