“He did?” she mumbled with a frown, looking deep in thought and a little confused as she asked, “What do you mean by when ‘we’ were recovering?”

Deciding that now was not the time to inform her that Ephraim had been forced to shoot him in the back of the head to stop him from killing his son because he’d lost control, he instead gestured towards the shower. When she threw a hesitant glance at the door, he knew that she was worried about the others coming in.

“They’ve already left,” he gently explained, lying his ass off, but he knew that one of the Pytes in the other room would hear him and take the hint.

He knew that they were eager to continue explaining things to Cloe, but not tonight. Tonight she needed a break, some time to relax and accept what happened to her. Tomorrow……

Tomorrow they could finish destroying what was left of her world.

Chapter 27

“Tell me that you really didn’t start with the whole, ‘you’ll heal from anything,’ bullshit,” Caine grumbled, rubbing his palms down his face while Danni wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned into him.

He dropped his arm around his mate’s shoulders and kissed the top of her head as he closed his eyes and savored her touch, welcoming the peace that just being near her gave him. The last couple of days had been grueling and he was starting to feel it. Right after they’d come back from patrol on Monday morning, the ass**le, a.k.a. Kale, had barked orders for them to hurry their asses up and get in the van.

After telling the bastard to go f**k himself and he’d finished explaining exactly where the shifter could shove his orders, he’d taken Danni, who’d been dragging ass by that point, inside. He’d badgered her until she’d finally given in and drank the demon blood the Council supplied her with. Once he’d made sure that she’d consumed enough demon blood and he’d managed to consume five bags of bagged blood, he’d pulled her into his arms and held her while she took what she needed from him.

It hadn’t been enough, not nearly enough, but Danni, stubborn as always, had been in a rush to get on the road. She’d needed to rest, but she’d refused to listen, promising him instead that she’d sleep on the drive. He hadn’t exactly been surprised when she’d broken her word to him.

Instead of doing as she’d promised, she’d spent the entire ride going over the files that Izzy had sent to their iPads. He had to admit that he had as well. The files the Nazis had left behind of what those sick f**ks had done to Christofer and his sister had turned his stomach and had him seeing red the entire ride. His own captivity and torture was hard enough to deal with, but Christ, he didn’t have shit on what they’d put Christofer through.

Ephraim hadn’t said anything, but the way his jaw had clenched tightly every few seconds and his eyes had glowed red as he’d read through the file lead him to believe that Christofer’s time spent in the lab had been just as bad as Ephraim’s time spent in the dungeon. The sick f**ks had cataloged absolutely everything that they’d done to Christofer and Marta, everything.

There’d been pictures of doctors smiling while they’d congratulated each other on a job well done as they’d stood over Christofer’s eviscerated body, of them looking at a loss when their experiments had failed, but mostly, there had been pictures cataloguing every humiliating moment that Christofer had endured to keep his sister alive. The worst pictures, the ones that had him wishing that he could hunt every last one of those sick f**ks down, were the ones where Christofer had been forced to watch as they’d experimented on his sister.

The pictures had been bad, but the journals and notes they’d kept……

There were no words to describe the revulsion he’d experienced when reading over everything that they’d done to Christofer. The way they’d detailed everything from Christofer’s reaction to being dipped in acid to having his balls cut off with a straightedge razor was almost as bad as the pictures. One thing he’d realized early on in the notes, the doctors performing the experiments had gotten a kick out of making Christofer react.

It appeared that a few of them had turned it into a game. They’d wanted to see who could make Christofer lose control the fastest and had even encouraged the guards to torture him. They’d been immensely pleased each and every time Christofer’s eyes had turned red and his fangs had made an appearance. They’d taken the changes as a sign that their experiments were working, that they could sneak past the façade of the perfect blonde haired, blue-eyed male and drag the red-eyed monster to the surface.

He had to smile when he’d realized that Christofer had figured out their sick game and started to deny them the reaction that they’d craved. They’d perform tests on Christofer, but they’d mutilate what they’d deemed the “monster” inside him. Whenever Christofer eyes shifted and his fangs dropped, the scientist believed that they’d released the monster inside of him and hadn’t held anything back.

By the end of the first year of Christofer’s captivity in that lab he’d started fighting back by not giving them what they’d wanted. It started off by Christofer managing to briefly put off allowing his eyes to shift and his teeth to descend. At first he’d only been able to hold back the shift for a minute at a time, but slowly he gained control for several minutes, hours, and days until finally, Christofer had stopped reacting at all.

At least that’s what Caine had assumed at first.

But after seeing him beat the shit out of Kale, Caine knew better now and of course, couldn’t help grinning every time he thought about it. An untrained Pyte, one without any military training as far as he knew, had beat the shit out of Kale Quinn, packless Alpha shifter, deadly mercenary and pain in the ass without having to go into bloodlust. It should have been damn near impossible for Christofer to land a blow against Kale, never mind beat the shit out of him.

Kale was a very old and very powerful shifter. His control was legendary. He could harness the strengths and abilities of his werewolf form without actually having to shift. It was something that no one else had been able to accomplish….

Until now that is.

It seemed as though Christofer not only had the ability to keep a tight leash on his control, but that he could harness the uncontrollable strength that bloodlust provided without actually having to fall victim to it. That is of course, unless his mate was involved. She seemed to have the uncanny ability to rattle him, but then again, Caine’s mate had the same effect on him.

“I didn’t realize that she knew absolutely nothing about our world. I thought she’d already figured out that part from her recovery,” Ephraim bit out, glaring straight ahead as they waited for the elevator doors to close.

“You know what they say when you assume…….” Caine murmured, chuckling when Ephraim shot him the finger as he leaned back against the elevator wall. He pressed the button for the fifth floor, the guest floor, when the door still hadn’t shut a few seconds later.

“Madison didn’t become cut happy after she’d been turned,” Chris pointed out in a helpful tone, but Caine caught the familiar glint of mischief in the Sentinel’s eyes. He knew Chris was just trying to push his father’s buttons, something the Sentinel seemed to really enjoy doing.