“Why the hell did you do this?” Ephraim demanded, looking from Cloe’s blood soaked body to Christofer’s and shaking his head in disgust like Kale really cared if he was pissed or not.

“Make yourself useful and feed the male. We’re going to need him,” was all he said as he made his way over to where he’d stashed his bag.

“You really are an ass**le, aren’t you?” Danni asked tightly as she took in the scene.

Since he’d never denied it and he really didn’t give a f**k if another Pyte was pissed at him, he ignored her and made his way back to Cloe. The bullet wound was still healing, which meant that he had some time to get this job done.

“What are you doing?” Chris asked, watching as he pulled a large bottle of water out of his bag and poured it over Cloe’s back so that he could see what he had to work with.

“Fucking hell,” he said hollowly, seeing the extent of her marking.

Whoever had marked her was a f**king sick bastard. While most Shifters settled for a single swipe of their claws down their human’s back to mark their property, this sick prick had sliced up every inch of her back. The message was clear, the shifter that had marked her wanted to make sure that everyone knew that she was someone’s bitch.

This Pyte had seriously f**ked up by touching her. Any hope that the shifter had forgotten about her over the years evaporated when he saw the extent of her mark. You didn’t mark a human like this unless you had plans for her. He had no idea who’d marked her, but he knew one thing.

He was going to tear the sick f**k’s throat out for this.

“I’m not going to be able to destroy the mark like this,” he muttered to himself as he ran his fingers over the scars slashed all over her back and the large angry pink scar that ran across her side, confirming his fears for the woman.

The sick f**k definitely had long term plans for her, otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered to rip Cloe’s uterus out.

“You’re removing the mark?” Chris asked, shooting him a questioning look that he would normally ignore, but since he actually needed the bastard’s help, he decided to play along.

“Yes,” he said, pouring more water over her back so that he could see the full extent of the damage that needed to be fixed.

“I didn’t think that was possible,” Ephraim said, getting up to grab a small stack of clean towels from one of the shelves lining the wall behind them.

“It’s not,” he said, shaking his head as he shot the male lying only a few feet away another glance. If this was going to work, he was going to need the big bastard. “We need him awake.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have shot him, ass**le,” Chris said with a snort of disgust as he released his hold on his broken arm and pulled his phone out of his pocket with a grimace of pain.

“He was in bloodlust and useless to me. I need him focused,” he said, getting back to business.

“And you couldn’t have waited until he snapped out of it?” Chris demanded as he sent a text message.

“No,” he simply said as he mentally evaluated his choices. After a minute, he had to admit that they weren’t very good.

“And why’s that?” Caine asked, sounding pissed as he knelt by the prone male as he bit into his own wrist.

“Because,” Kale said, reaching into his pack and pulling out the bottle of lighter fluid that he’d swiped from one of the weapons rooms, “word has spread about the theft and every shifter in the state is coming for her.”

*-*-*-*

“About f**king time,” was the warm welcome that Christofer received when he finally managed to crack open his eyes.

“What the hell happened?” he asked groggily as he reached up and attempted to the rub the sleep out of his eyes while he tried to make sense of the images racing through his mind. Most of the images were confusing, but between what he remembered in the elevator and the tenderness he felt in his chest, he knew that they’d been forced to put him down, again.

Shit!

He hoped like hell that Cloe hadn’t seen any of it. He didn’t like the idea of her having to see something like that, but he really hated the idea of her seeing him lose control. The last thing that she needed was to be reminded of what he really was and what he’d done to her. He wanted her to…….to……

To know why he could scent burnt human flesh.

Memories of his time in the lab tried to force their way in, but he ignored them, knowing that they wouldn’t help as he opened his other senses and took in his surroundings. The scent of chlorine, blood, adrenaline, lighter fluid, smoke and the unforgettable odor of burning human flesh and the fact that he was in the back of a van registered.

As did the fact that another man had Cloe in his arms.

“Relax,” Chris said calmly from where he sat across from him, but Christofer barely spared him a glance as he sat up and glared at the shifter who had absolutely no right to look at Cloe, never mind hold her.

“Slip into bloodlust while we’re in this van and I’ll blow your f**king head off,” Kale threatened even as he shifted with Cloe in his arms and moved forward so that he could abruptly deposit her in Christofer’s arms.

He caught her and hugged her tightly against him as he looked her over. She was pale, her beautiful brown hair was a tangled wet mess, she was wrapped in a damp white sheet and the scent of chlorine, lighter fluid and burnt flesh poured off her.

“What happened?” he demanded as he struggled not to lose control, but it was damn near impossible with Cloe lying limply in his arms like this.

“Why don’t you tell us?” Caine suggested, drawing his attention to the man sitting by the doors with Danni sitting between his legs, a bag of blood pressed against her mouth, looking pale and exhausted.

A terrifying thought occurred to him as he took in the rest of the van’s occupants. He took in the blisters and burns on Kale’s neck and hands, the blood soaked bandages wrapped around his arms and the charred remains of his clothes before shifting his attention to Chris who sat beside him, holding a splinted arm against his chest and finally down at the woman in his arms. He swallowed back bile as he asked, “Did I hurt her?”

“Not from a lack of trying, but you did manage to tear through about six dozen Sentinels, demons and shifters if it makes you feel any better,” Chris mused, shifting with a cringe as the move jostled his arm.

“Did I kill anyone?” he asked, not really caring, not after they’d locked Cloe up with him without making sure that they had enough blood so that he could keep her safe.

“No,” Chris answered, his tone curious.

“And we’d love to know how you managed that,” Caine said, regarding him with interest.

“What happened to her?” he asked, not giving a damn about anything else but how she ended up like this.

A heavy pause followed, drawing his attention away from the woman lying helplessly in his arms to the shifter glaring defiantly at him while Chris, Caine and Danni all looked torn between disgust and pity. Without a single word it told him everything that he needed to know.

The shifter needed to die.

“What did you do to her?” he demanded, welcoming the burn as his eyes shifted and his fangs descended.