Page 57 of Flawed Revenge

It had been hours since they’d seen that helicopter fly overhead, carrying his girls away from them, and they hadn't come up with any meaningful plan to track it. Lion was frustrated, and it was only getting worse because no one else was as upset as he was, and that was driving him crazy, even though he knew there was no reason for it to.

The rest of his team cared about Kate and Ariella, and would do whatever it took to find them and get them back, that was never in doubt, but they were able to maintain a level of control, of calm, that was spiraling ever further out of his reach.

What happened if that control he was struggling to cling to snapped?

Because he’d never been able to let go of his love for Kate, his regret for his command that she terminate the pregnancy, Lion had always known that he wasn't quite the monster that Dr. Gardner had claimed them to be. A monster couldn’t love someone else with the depths of emotion he felt for his Katie-Bear.

But that didn't mean he was normal.

Nowhere close to normal.

Those reasons that had led him to end things and walk away from Kate a decade ago still existed. Watching his teammates fall in love, hearing Whitney’s perspective on the drugs and what they could and could not do, learning that while the drugs did mess with their conscience and ability to feel emotions, it didn't remove it, had all helped him understand more about what he was capable of and what he wasn't.

None of that erased the very real fact that a beast of anger lived inside him.

Inside each one of his team members as well.

Over the years, it had been Dragon who struggled to contain that beast the most. That didn't mean he and the others didn't have those same struggles. They’d just always been better at maintaining control. Lion might have been the best of all of them because he already knew the person he loved the most was safely out of his reach.

Only now, his girl had returned into his orbit, bringing with him the most perfect little girl. Now he had more to lose than ever before, and he had lost it. It had flown right over his head and possibly disappeared for good.

Struggling to breathe as emotion lodged in his throat, Lion felt that rage bubbling over.

He needed an outlet, needed to kill, to spill blood, to offer a sacrifice to that furious beast so he didn't wind up hurting someone he cared about. No one else was out there in the forest. They’d found the place where Kate and Ariella had been caught, the dozens of footprints, including small ones that could only have been his daughter’s, along with what looked like wheel marks, possibly from a wheelchair. They needed to find a way to contact Prey, but the forest they’d crashed in was vast, and although they’d found a road and spotted a few cars, there had been no way to reach any cell phones inside them without traumatizing innocents, and they wouldn't do that.

Which meant there was no outlet for that rage that slowly consumed him.

Turning him.

Into the monster he’d been afraid a decade ago would wind up hurting his girl.

As he spun in a circle, desperately seeking an outlet that didn't end with him tearing to pieces one of the people he considered his family, Lion felt his already enhanced vision sharpen. Every detail, from the patterns on each leaf to each individual line in the exposed skin of his teammates and their partners, assaulted his mind.

Overwhelming him.

Too many details.

Too much anger.

Any second now he was going to snap, and if he lost his sanity to the beast inside him, there was no guarantee he’d ever be able to reclaim it. It was why he and his teammates lived the way they did. They were dangerous, their control always tenuous, letting the anger take over meant the possibility of not being able to leash it.

Breathing sawing in and out of his chest, his body vibrating with rage, Lion vaguely registered voices, no doubt someone trying to calm him down before it was too late.

But it was already too late.

Even though he was aware that losing control lessened their chances of finding Kate and Ariella, he couldn’t seem to stop it.

Already too lost to that monster that had prowled around inside him for a decade.

Now it demanded to be let free, and wouldn't take no for an answer. It wasn't something he could fight any longer.

With a growl, he turned on the closest living being he could find. Shedding blood would help. When he felt the wet, sticky, warm liquid coat his skin, an offering to the beast, maybe then he’d be able to draw a breath that didn't feel like he was inhaling fire.

There.

A target.

As he leaped forward, there was one last echo of a thought in his mind, a plea to Steel that the man would use his enhanced strength to kill him if that was necessary to protect everyone else, and then to go after his girls, rescue them, save them, and make sure they knew that he loved them more than anything else.