Sighing in disgust, Danni walked past Christofer and Kale, and picked up the bag of blood that Ephraim had dropped in order to rush to Kale’s aid. With another roll of her eyes and a muttered, “pathetic,” she walked past the trio still struggling to get to their feet, plopped down on the couch and tossed the bag of blood on the coffee table.
“Fucking hell!” Kale groaned as he shoved Christofer back in order to gain some ground, but within seconds Christofer was back on top of him, beating the shit out of him.
“Is he in bloodlust?” Chris asked, panting heavily as he shoved Caine off his legs and finally managed to get to his feet.
“Don’t you ever f**king touch her again!” Christofer snapped, laying punch after punch on Kale’s face and chest as Kale returned the favor, punching Christofer, landing several nasty blows that had Cloe wincing and wondering what she should be doing. Then she remembered that she was supposed to be standing there, bleeding all over the kitchen because the bastard just getting to his feet had lied.
“Does that answer your question?” Ephraim asked, groaning as he stretched his back, a loud crack accompanying the action.
“He’s coherent,” Chris said, sounding impressed as he gestured for his father and Caine to get back in there.
With a snort, Caine stumbled past them and headed to the fridge to grab two bags of blood before returning to the living room section of the large open space. He tossed Ephraim a bag as he joined Danni on the couch. Ephraim watched the fight for a good minute while he drank the blood, at which time Cloe had to force herself to look away before she got sick. Not because the sight of him drinking blood disgusted her, but because her stomach actually growled viciously at the sight.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She tried to focus on the pain in her hand, but the cold water had numbed it by this point. It made it difficult to focus on anything but the tantalizing scents around her. They teased her, making her realize just how hungry she was. She didn’t want to notice how good the air smelled. Even the overly sweet scent coming from Chris was mouthwatering. She’d never considered herself one of those girls with an uncontrollable sweet tooth before.
As she slowly inhaled, savoring his scent, she had to wonder just how much sugar he had to ingest to end up smelling like pure sugar. She didn’t know much about Sentinels other than they weren’t human, but she couldn’t imagine that ingesting sugar like it was going out of style could be good for him. Turned off by the idea of eating something overly sweet, she moved onto the other scents competing for her attention.
She scented a heavily metallic odor and immediately wrinkled her nose in distaste. It didn’t take much to figure out that she’d smelled the bagged blood the trio on the couch was drinking. If they thought that she was going to willingly subject herself to that crap then they were out of their-
An enticing aroma grabbed her attention. Her stomach growled viciously as she breathed in the slightly spicy scent with just a hint of that metallic odor, but this time her stomach didn’t turn in disgust. Instead her stomach rumbled, demanding the delicious treat that she was scenting. Confused, and really hoping that she was smelling a medium rare steak cooking somewhere in the building, she opened her eyes to find her focus already zeroed in on its source.
And that’s when she finally lost it.
*-*-*-*
“Cloe, open the door,” he said, sighing heavily in exasperation as he reached up and wiped away the blood dripping in his eye.
“Just leave me alone,” she said softly, too soft for the human ear to pick up, but he didn’t have that problem.
He could hear everything going on in that room, which was how he knew that Cloe, the woman terrified of enclosed spaces, was hiding in a closet. It was enough for him to know just how poorly she was handling this new situation. It also made him feel like more of an ass**le for not helping her. She hated him and if she didn’t, she should.
He’d destroyed her life, attacked her like some sort of animal and would have killed her if she hadn’t decided to fight back and unintentionally taken his blood at just the right time. Turning her had been an accident and one he deeply regretted, more so right now that the poor thing was stuck hiding in closet as she…..
His brows arched in confusion as he zeroed in on the odd grinding noise coming from the closet. It took him a good minute to figure out what she was doing. Sighing heavily, he shook his head in disgust. He ignored the bleeding bastard leaning against the wall next to him and grabbed the doorknob, twisting it until the lock broke.
“I want a rematch,” the sore loser growled, looking furious as glowing silver eyes narrowed on him.
“Anytime, ass**le,” Christofer said, looking forward to beating the shit out of the shifter again as he walked into the room and slammed the door shut behind him. He headed straight for the closet where those odd grinding noises were growing increasingly louder.
He wasn’t exactly surprised to find Cloe hunched down in the closet trying to make a stake from what appeared to be a broken chair leg. Although, he was surprised to discover that she’d already managed to wrap a ripped piece of lavender sheet around her hand, made a large cross by tying two broken chair legs together with what looked like a shoelace from her sneakers in the short time since she’d fled the living room. What he couldn’t figure out was the bathroom trashcan filled to the brim with water. Besides getting him soaked, he rectified a minute later when Cloe spotted him, squealed and grabbed the trash can and sent the cold water flying across the short distance to soak his crotch and legs.
“Shit! Holy water doesn’t work!” she muttered with alarm, anxiously grabbing her makeshift cross and holding it up like a shield as she got to her feet. “Stay back!” she ordered, giving the cross in her hand a little shake for emphasis that had him biting back a smile that she probably wouldn’t appreciate at the moment.
“What are you doing?” he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose, struggling not to laugh. It surprised him that he actually had the urge to laugh after everything that happened.
“I’m making my escape,” she said firmly, shifting her attention to the closed bedroom door.
She moved ever so slightly towards the door, homemade cross still firmly raised in his direction. She held the stake with the splintered end in the other hand, probably thinking that it would be enough.
“I see,” he murmured, reaching out and placing his hand against the cross.