“Calm the f**k down!” he heard Chris shout as he made it into the kitchen.
“I told you not to pick her up, you dumb bastard!” Kale snapped just as Ephraim headed down the stairs.
When he made it down the last step, he found Kale standing in front of Chris. Holding the marked woman in his arms, Chris tried to back up towards the door where the vampire stood, looking terrified and for good reason.
“Mine!” Christofer snarled as he backhanded Kale, sending the shifter flying across the room and getting rid of the one thing that was standing between him and Ephraim’s son.
“Shit!” Chris groaned, looking torn between placing the innocent woman down so that he could fight the furious Pyte and keeping her in his arms so that he could protect her.
Deciding that enough was enough, Ephraim released the safety off his weapon, raised the gun, aimed it at the back of Christofer’s head and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 22
“We’re not bringing her back to the house!” a man shouted, jolting Cloe awake.
Gasping for air, she opened her eyes and quickly scanned the room. Terror sank in as her mind registered her last waking moment, the moment she’d accepted death and the fact that she would never get the chance to kill the son of a bitch that attacked her. Her hands shot up to her neck, frantically searching for the torn skin and blood that she knew should have been there, but instead her fingers met only smooth, sticky skin. Anxiously licking her dry lips, she sat up and scooted back as she quickly glanced around the room only to discover that she was in a hotel room. The second thing she noticed was the large bastard that had attacked her lying on the bed next to her with his hands cuffed to the headboard, appearing dead to the world and looking hotter than ever with several days of beard growth.
The bastard!
She took a shaky breath as memories assaulted her. He’d attacked her. He’d actually attacked her! The man that she’d stupidly allowed herself to feel safe with had attacked her, she fumed, her anger building to a dangerous degree. Every muscle tensed, her jaw clenched tightly until she was literally seeing red, which only told her just how pissed she was if she’d actually managed to burst the capillaries in her eyes.
Moving off the bed, she got to her feet, not really surprised that her legs were trembling since she was literally shaking with rage. That son of a bitch! She forced herself to move closer as she glared down at the bastard who looked nothing like the monster that had attacked her. Right now he somehow looked handsome and peaceful even though he was handcuffed to a bed and covered in dried blood.
Dried blood…..
Her blood!
Furious at the realization, she looked around the hotel room, hoping to find a weapon that she could use to pay the bastard back for what he’d done to her. When she didn’t find anything weapon-worthy she grabbed the closest thing to her. Not really caring that it was a pillow and that it wouldn’t do any serious damage, she started to beat the shit out of him with it. Barely two hits in and the damn thing practically disintegrated in her hands, clumps of cheap cotton filling and torn pieces of the pillow casing covered the bastard, the bed and floor, but he didn’t stir, pissing her off even more!
With a frustrated growl, she looked around again for something else to beat the shit out of him with when something occurred to her. It was something that probably should have occurred to her as soon as she woke up to find herself in a strange hotel room and Christofer was handcuffed to the bed. Someone had grabbed them and dragged them off to wherever the hell they were.
They’d obviously realized that Christofer was dangerous, something that she’d apparently missed, and had handcuffed him to the bed. They either hadn’t expected her to wake up at all or they’d assumed that she wasn’t going to be a problem. Yeah, they were wrong about that, because if they didn’t let her go, promise her that Marta was okay, give her back her phone, keys, etc. and bring her ass back to the house so that she could check on Marta then she was going to be a very big problem for them.
Her hand went back to her neck, ran over the smooth skin again, and for a split second she had to wonder if she’d dreamed the entire thing, but she knew deep down that it hadn’t been a dream. It had been too detailed, too real and the fear and pain had been too much for a dream. The memory of the attack was solid with none of the weird pauses or missing details that a dream, a nightmare really, would have created.
No, the attack definitely happened and based on how well the wound had healed it had been a while since it happened. Keeping her hand where it was, she sent one last glare at the bastard out cold on the bed and walked into the bathroom, flicking the light on as she went. Maybe there was a scab or bruises left, something that would give her a hint of how long……of how…..
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO!”
The denial rushed out of her mouth as she shook her head frantically. She stumbled back the short distance until her back slammed back against the wall, leaving her with no where else to go, nowhere to hide from the ugly truth that stared back at her in horror.
This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. There was no way. This part was definitely a dream, a horrible dream that she would wake up from at any minute. She’d most likely be in a lot of pain, her neck still torn apart and the bastard would still be tearing into her throat, but it would save her from this nightmare and right now that was okay with her.
She stared in horror at the image in the mirror as it stared right back at her, looking terrified. This wasn’t her. She didn’t have red eyes and she sure as hell didn’t have fangs in her mouth. This was not happening.
“Please don’t let this be happening,” she mumbled, feeling desperate as she raised a trembling hand to her mouth, praying that this was someone’s idea of a sick joke. She touched the tip of one fang with her fingertip, hoping the pressure would be enough to knock the obviously fake tooth out of her mouth.
Instead, she pulled her finger back with a wince as the sharp tip pricked her finger, drawing a drop of blood. This was real. It wasn’t a dream. It was either that or her mind was registering pain that her unconscious body was experiencing at the moment and carrying it into this dream. Please let it be-
“You’re not dreaming,” a deep voice suddenly announced, cutting into her panicked thoughts and drawing her attention to three very large, and very gorgeous men, standing in the hotel room behind her.
“Yes, I am,” she said weakly, hating how her voice cracked, but hating the way her chin trembled even more.