Not even a minute later, Christofer cursed, turned right back around and stalked back to her. Before she could rail at him for brushing her off, he’d had her in his arms and was giving her the sweetest kiss as he whispered to her how sorry he was. Much to her shame, she’d melted, instantly forgiving him. She’d never given a guy that pissed her off or hurt her in any way a second chance before, but with him, she hadn’t hesitated for a second before she was wrapping her arms around him and letting him know that everything was going to be fine.
However, she did make him carry her on his back during that ten-mile hike to the next town as punishment. He hadn’t said another word since and she hadn’t pushed him for anything and neither had anyone else. They seemed to understand that he was dealing with some personal issues and had left him alone for the most part. The only time they’d bothered him was to make sure that coming with them was what he wanted. Other than a nod, he hadn’t acknowledged them at all.
Now, thanks to her big mouth, they were once again the focus of attention and judging by the way that Christofer had stilled behind her, he wasn’t happy about it.
“You must be Cloe,” Izzy said with a sweet smile. “I’m Izzy, Chris’ mate.”
“And the biggest sugar addict that you’ll ever meet,” Ephraim said with a fond smile as he looked down at the small woman in his arms.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said quickly, barely paying attention to the woman as her attention locked back on Danni, who was now gripping Caine’s shirt tightly as she buried her face against his chest. “Do you want me to take a look at her?” she asked, moving forward.
Caine arms tightened around Danni as he glanced at Ephraim, who explained, “She’s a nurse.”
“Nurse practitioner, actually,” at Ephraim’s confused expression she added, “I work at the RN level so that I can work as a live-in,” with a shrug as she moved forward, but she’d barely taken two steps before she found herself shoved back behind Christofer.
“She’s not going anywhere near her,” Christofer growled, and wasn’t that sweet? He was worried about her.
It really was nice to have someone care about her safety, she thought as she stepped past him, pinching the back of his hand when he went to grab her again. “Ow!”
“I’m fine,” Danni said, looking anything but fine. “I just need to lie down for a bit that’s all.”
“Are you sure?” Cloe asked hesitantly, not entirely sure that she should take no for an answer, but after a minute she reminded herself that this wasn’t one of her patients. If they wanted her help, they’d ask.
“I’m sure,” Danni mumbled sleepily as she closed her eyes.
“I’m going to take her upstairs,” Caine said softly, pressing a kiss against the tip of Danni’s nose, which earned him a tired smile from his mate as he carried her up the stairs.
“Are you mates?” Izzy suddenly asked, startling her.
“I’m sorry, what?” she asked, not a hundred percent sure that she’d heard correctly or even how to respond.
Izzy frowned, looking adorably confused as she asked, “You’re mated, right?”
When Cloe didn’t answer right away, because she couldn’t seem to find the right words, Izzy quickly explained, “It’s just that there are children in the house and we don’t want them to get the wrong idea. If you’re not mated, then I planned to set you both up in different rooms. If you are-”
“We’re mated,” she blurted out before Izzy had the chance to suggest that they stay in separate rooms.
She didn’t know anyone here, didn’t trust anyone and until she-
Okay, fine. She just didn’t want to be away from Christofer. She’d grown addicted to sleeping in his arms over the past week and she wasn’t ready to give that up yet. She felt safe in his arms. Besides, if she was going to end up getting her heart broken she should at least be able to enjoy herself before she ended up hating him.
Chapter 50
Demon.
His father was a fucking demon, he thought with a bitter laugh at the irony as he dropped his head forward, allowing the hot water to rain down on him.
Of all the rumors that he’d heard over the years, it figured that the one that he’d never believed would turn out to be the truth. His father was a demon, one of the first that Satan supposedly set loose on earth in an attempt to gain the upper hand in this fucked up game he played against God. He didn’t want to believe it, would give anything for it not to be true and as Ephraim had delivered the bad news to him, he’d known that there was no denying it.
He truly was a monster among monsters.
“Are you okay?” Cloe asked, pressing a kiss against his back as her arms wrapped around him.
“Yes,” he said automatically, the habit well ingrained in him after too many years of trying to protect Marta from his personal bullshit.
“Liar,” Cloe said, chuckling as she pressed another kiss against his back.
Lips twitching in amusement despite the fact that he felt like putting his fist through a wall, he placed one of his hands over hers where it laid against his stomach. “I’ll be fine,” he promised, wondering how it was possible for one woman to bring him so much peace.
“That’s better,” she said, turning her head so that she could rest her cheek against his back as she held him.
“How are you holding up?” he asked, wondering how she was taking the news.
“Oh,” she said, wrapping her fingers around his hand as she allowed her other hand to trail over his stomach, “I think I’ll be okay.”
“Even after what Ephraim just told us?” he asked, not really sure that he would be.
“You mean that you’re really part demon?” she asked in a seductively teasing tone as she trailed her fingers down his stomach until she was tracing the trail of hair that led from his navel to his groin with the tip of her finger and making it damn near impossible to stay focused on anything other than just how good it would feel if she would lower her hand and wrap it around-
A loud groan escaped him as she did just that. He licked his lips as he watched her stroke his hardening cock. The sight of her running her hand over his cock was enough to have his balls pull up tight, greedy for her touch.
“You done pouting now?” she asked, giving his cock a hard pull.
“Yes,” he growled, finding it difficult to care about anything, even his fucked up existence, when he had the woman he loved stroking his cock.
“It doesn’t change anything, Christofer,” she said, punctuating her words with another kiss to his back.
“It changes everything,” he told her, slapping his hands against the tiled wall when he felt his legs begin to tremble.
“And how exactly does it change anything?”
“It-”
“-doesn’t change anything,” she finished for him, giving the head of his cock a squeeze that had him moaning. “But…….,” she said, letting her words trail off as she suddenly dropped his cock and stepped away, taking her warmth and his peace away. “If you would rather pout, I could-”
Her words ended on a pleased sigh as she suddenly found herself in his arms. “I’m done pouting,” he promised, leaning down to kiss her.
“Are you sure?” she asked against his lips.
“Yes,” he swore, willing to promise her anything as long she stayed in his arms.
“Then you’re willing to give this a try?” she asked, pulling back just far enough so that she could meet his gaze as she wrapped her arms around him.
“Will it make you happy?” he asked, because he refused to argue with her and risk making her unhappy.
He’d done that with Marta, taking her from place to place, constantly on the run, always looking over his shoulder, terrified that if they didn’t run fast enough, far enough that he’d fail her, but in the end, he’d failed her anyway. Too many years on the run had drained Marta and he couldn’t stomach the idea of doing that to Cloe. He should have listened to Marta the first time sh
e’d asked him to stop running. It was a mistake that he was going to have to live with for the rest of his too long life, and one that he had no plans of repeating.
If Cloe needed to stay in order to feel safe, then that’s what they would do, because there was nothing on this earth that he wouldn’t do for her.
God, help him if she ever figured that out.
*-*-*-*
One week later…..
“I tagged her!” Ephraim frantically pointed out as Christofer grabbed him by the back of his neck and pulled him away from the adorable giggling baby girl rolling over on the mat.
Danni sighed contently from the sidelines where she sat between Caine’s legs. “Karma’s the best.”
“It really is,” Caine said, wrapping his arms around his mate and pulling her back as they settled in to watch the daily show.
“Chris is getting away!” Ephraim shouted, struggling to get free, but after two straight hours of getting his ass handed to him, he was too exhausted to put up much of a fight.
“You bastard!” Chris gasped from where he lay boneless on the floor, breaking his own heavily enforced rule about not swearing in front of the children. “I’m your son!”
“You’re also a Sentinel trainer so man up!” Ephraim groaned as he was yanked to his feet.
“Baby on the mat!” Chris called out, sounding almost relieved.
Christofer looked down to see baby Jessica crawling towards her daddy. With a bored sigh, he dropped Ephraim, who hit the ground with a weak grunt, and picked up the adorable baby girl who was quickly staking a claim on his heart. All the children living in the mansion had him thinking about something that he’d once refused to even consider.
But now……
Things were different.
At first he hadn’t been happy about staying here, but after seeing the others with their mates and their families he’d quickly changed his mind. He’d never thought that a future with a wife and children was in the cards for him, but now he couldn’t help but hope for more. He wanted it all, a wife, children, and a purpose in his life and now he could have it all. There was only one thing standing in his way.
The past.
He couldn’t risk a future with Cloe, not until he took care of the monsters from her past. He’d already lived a life on the run. He didn’t want that for Cloe, or God help them, their children if they were ever lucky enough to have them. He wanted to see the world with her, to live their lives without fear, but until he took care of the bastard that had marked her, they couldn’t do anything. They were stuck here, and even though he was enjoying himself more than he thought he would, they were still trapped.
“You think maybe it’s time to stop ‘Assessing’,” Danni said, making air-quotes around the word assessing, “his skills and actually move on to training him.”
“I hate you,” Chris said, trying to sit up, but only managed to fall back on the mat with a pained groan.
“Such a big baby,” Christofer said softly, smiling down at the grinning baby in his arms. “You want a chance to beat up your daddy?”
Deciding to take her excited giggle as a yes, he carried the little girl over to Chris and placed her by his side. The little girl immediately attacked, going for her daddy’s nose. No doubt she was getting a little revenge for all those games of “I’ve got your nose” where Chris stole her nose and refused to give it back. Chris took his beating like a man, properly whimpering and pleading for mercy as she continued her attack.
“I think I’m dying,” Ephraim said from his spot on the floor.
“Wimp,” Madison playfully teased as she walked in the large training room with her two baby boys in her arms and her oldest son bringing up the rear with baby CJ in his arms.
As soon as little Jessica spotted Marc, she released her hold on Chris’ nose and went for the little boy. With a patient smile, he handed CJ over to Christofer and picked up the little girl who was known to throw screaming tantrums in order to gain Marc’s attention. Sighing, Marc carried the little girl, who now had a firm grip on his nose, over to the section Chris had set up for the babies and sat down with her in his lap.
“I thought I’d go into town tonight. Does anyone want to come?” Madison asked, walking over to Danni and handed one of the babies to her.
“I think we’re going to stay in tonight,” Danni said, smiling down at the baby in her arms, which didn’t exactly surprise him since she didn’t seem to be able to do much more than sit on the sidelines when she wasn’t sleeping the day away. The woman was sick and getting sicker each day. He wondered just how long it would be before even coming downstairs to sit became too much.
“I need to patrol, but after that I can take you out if you want,” Ephraim offered, rolling over onto his side with a pained grunt.
“Will you be able to walk by then?” Madison asked, sounding thoughtful as she looked her husband over.
“Probably not,” he said, chuckling as rolled over onto his back.
“I promised Izzy that I’d watch an X-File marathon with her,” Chris said with a pained sigh that probably had more to do with the night Izzy had planned for him than the actual damage that Christofer had done to him.
“What about you, Christofer?” Madison asked as the baby boy in his arms smiled sleepily as he nodded off.
“We’ll probably just stay in,” he said, carrying the sleeping baby boy to one of the bassinets lined up against the wall and placed the baby carefully on the small bed.
“Are you sure?” Madison asked, sounding like she wanted to say more, but thankfully she kept the questions to a minimum.
That was one thing that he liked about this group, they didn’t ask too many questions. They didn’t harp on him or demand answers. They left him alone to do whatever he wanted. He could train, draw, walk the grounds or sit in the nursery with a baby in each arm in peace and enjoy the quiet-
Screams for help.
Chapter 51
“Stop!” Izzy screamed as she tried to slap Cloe’s hands away, but she’d been doing this long enough now to know that stopping was the last thing that she should do.
“She’s trying to kill me!” Izzy yelled, continuing to slap at her hands until she finally accepted the fact that Cloe wasn’t going to stop and decided that it was time to make her escape. Unfortunately for Izzy, that large belly of hers and the agonizing pain that had twisted her muscles and forced her to drop to the floor stopped her from moving more than a few inches.
“What the hell is going on?” Christofer demanded, dropping to his knees across from them.
“What the hell are you doing to her?” Chris snapped as he dropped by Christofer’s side on the foyer floor and moved to pull Izzy into his arms, but Cloe took him by surprise by taking a firm grip of his hand and placing it on Izzy’s ruined hip.
“Keep your hand here while I work the tension out of her muscles,” Cloe ordered, returning her focus to the tense muscles cramping up in the smaller woman’s back, hip and leg.
“What are you doing?” Christofer asked, watching them with a frown.
“What does it look like she’s doing?” Izzy snapped, once again trying to shove Cloe’s hands away. “She’s trying to-ooohhhhhh, oh God, yes!” she ended on loud moan as her eyes slid shut and she smiled.
“What exactly are we doing?” Chris asked, looking amused as Izzy let out another small sigh of pleasure while Cloe continued to work the knots out of her muscles.
“We’re helping to stretch Izzy’s muscles so that she can function without pain,” she explained, carefully massaging Izzy’s back and hip, knowing that the wrong amount of pressure could trigger a muscle spasm.
She honestly didn’t know how Izzy had managed to go all these months like this. It was crazy. She’d understood, after she’d made them explain everything to her a few times to make sure that she understood correctly, that medication didn’t work on Sentinels. She also knew that they hadn’t wanted to risk surgery, but that didn’t necessarily mean t
hat the situation was hopeless. There was absolutely no reason for this woman to be in constant pain and while she was here, she was going to do what she could to help her.
“Please don’t stop,” Izzy moaned, a smile of pure bliss lighting up her face as her body finally relaxed.
“I won’t,” Cloe promised, happy to see a real smile on Izzy’s face instead of that fake smile that she wore in the hopes of making everyone around her believe that she was fine.