Heart of a Lion (Awakening Pride Book 11)

by Lacey Thor

  She paused for a second then continued. Where had that thought come from? Did it matter? It felt right. Mitch was her mate. She’d accepted she wasn’t completely human anymore. Wasn’t a shifter, either. She was something new and different, and whatever that was, Mitch was her mate.

  It seemed eerily quiet when she entered. She noted the way the room seemed to be on edge, everyone pressing forward, gazes fixed firmly on the glass where Kenzie stood on the other side, facing off with Talbot. Whatever was inside Quinn stilled, almost as if it held its breath, and Quinn wasn’t sure if it was Talbot or Kenzie who kept that side of her in thrall.

  “It was only a matter of time before you showed up here. I brought you to life. Held your tiny body in my hands.”

  “You ripped me from my mother’s womb and left her to die,” Kenzie snarled. “Not the romanticism you’re trying to hustle.”

  Talbot laughed. “You’re remarkable. I knew you would be.”

  Quinn saw the fury on Kenzie’s face. The woman didn’t plan for Talbot to walk out of that room. Quinn understood but wouldn’t be denied her own vengeance on the man either. She bypassed the group by the mirror and slipped inside, feeling a body press close to hers before the door shut behind them and the locks engaged. Something thumped against it, and a muted roar could be heard. She didn’t have to guess who that was as she noted Amia moving up to her side.

  “Fuck!” Tony muttered, and Quinn knew he was unsure of who he needed to protect the most. “What did you hit, Amia?”

  He charged across the room to the door. “You’ve locked us down. It will be at least thirty minutes before I can get the locks to disengage.”

  They all heard the pounding on the door.

  “Unless your mate finds a way to tear down the damn thing. What the hell were you thinking?” Tony demanded.

  “That I wanted answers,” Amia answered quietly.

  Kenzie barely spared a glance for any of them, keeping her attention on Talbot.

  “Isn’t this your lucky day?” she taunted. “Two experiments and Blane’s daughter. Must be like Christmas for you.”

  “You’re alive.” Talbot’s gaze dropped to Quinn’s belly, his gaze narrowed then jerked back up to hers. “I’ll create another child. I still have some of your eggs left. Some of the lion sperm I can use. We’ll get them. Make another.”

  “So you can manipulate another baby? Try to play God with his or her life.” Kenzie was seething, and so was Quinn.

  “No womb,” Quinn offered. “Tony took it out.”

  Talbot shrugged. “I can give you another.”

  Bile rose in Quinn’s throat, but something else built, as well. Rage. She couldn’t ignore the proof Talbot had harvested another woman’s organs and placed them inside Quinn. Especially when she swore she felt that woman’s anger growing inside her.

  Then Talbot started laughing. In all the time she’d been held by him, she’d never heard him laugh. It sent chills over her skin, and the prickle of awareness from that something other intensified.

  “My first real experiment, my last, and Marcus’ most hated enemy all in the same room. It’s a wonderful moment for me.”

  “I’m not your anything,” Kenzie snarled. That seemed to be the only way she could speak to Talbot.

  “Agreed,” Quinn added.

  “I think I might be honored to be Marcus’ most hated enemy,” Amia admitted.

  “I never would have imagined the three of you meeting.”

  “Yet, here we all are,” Quinn said. “Three women you’ve fucked over with your warped mind.”

  “I saved your life!” He snapped out of whatever spell seeing the three of them together had put him under.

  “After you took it,” Quinn snarled, sounding far too much like Kenzie.

  “It was mine to take. You belong to me. Your heart was failing. Human bodies are so weak. I’d thought you might mate the lion I gave you, but no matter. I gave you a new heart, a better one. There were plenty of specimens to go under my knife. Of course, it had to be a lion.” Talbot’s gaze went to Kenzie. “Your mother wasn’t the only animal I experimented on. There were several others. You weren’t the only infant I delivered during that time. You were the only one who managed to get away.”

  There was something behind his words. Quinn couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was a tingle at the base of her neck. Something inside her pushing for answers. They wanted Quinn to know.

  “Who’s heart do I have?”

  His glance bounced between them. Her then Kenzie then Amia.

  “I have three male specimens. Strong, healthy. They’ll be good breeders. I can start again. I know more now. No more mistakes.”

  His gaze moved across the three of them, as if he were already planning who he would do what to.

  “You’re not leaving this room alive.” Kenzie’s words were softly spoken, controlled.

  Talbot squealed when Tony grabbed him by the back of the neck and forced him across the room.

  “None of us are leaving this fucking room for another twenty-two minutes. You three need to calm down. No one is killing the little prick until I know everything I need to know.”

  “We,” Amia corrected. “Everything we need to know.”

  “You said three,” Quinn repeated, playing that over in her head.

  “What?” Tony questioned.

  “He said he had three specimens,” Kenzie answered, obviously picking up on what Quinn had noted. “Who do you have, Talbot? Murphy?”

  “I don’t know anyone named Murphy.”

  “You wouldn’t.” Tony roughly shoved Talbot against the wall. “What’s another dumb beast to you? What do you label them as? Subjects A, B, and C?”

  “New Mexico.” Quinn’s voice brought all eyes to her. “Close to the border with Mexico. There’s a facility there that we went to several times in the last few months. A special project that Talbot liked to oversee.”

  “I like to oversee all my special projects,” Talbot stated.

  “No. Not like that one. If he had three specimens, they’re there. I’d bet on it.”

  “Do you know where it is?” Tony asked.

  Quinn nodded. “It’s remote and made to blend in with the environment, but I can get us close enough to find it.”

  “They’ll all be dead by now anyway,” Talbot yelled. “Don’t you get it. With me gone, Marcus has taken over. He never believed in the science of it the way I did. Kill and kill and kill until there’s nothing left. That’s always been his way.”

  “One you supported,” Amia reminded at the mention of her father. “You both enjoyed torturing and killing. Don’t I know how much you enjoyed torturing.”

  “Still afraid of enclosed spaces?” Talbot asked, and Amia launched across the room at him.

  Tony caught her around the waist and hauled her back against his chest, whispering something in her ear. The door took several hard hits, and Quinn could pick up the growls from the other side.

  “Maybe, we should see how fond you are of enclosed places,” Kenzie offered, and Quinn came up to stand beside her.

  “Look at the two of you. I could do so much more with each of you. And Amia would give me a fresh specimen.”

  “Are you forgetting that two of us are mated?” Kenzie offered.

  “Three of us,” Quinn corrected, ready to throw her relationship with Mitch out there.

  Talbot waved that off as if it were inconsequential. Maybe, it was to him.

  “Doesn’t matter. There doesn’t have to be a mating for conception to occur.”

  “Or even consent,” Amia murmured. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Why would we ask an animal for consent,” Talbot commented as if that were a strange thought.

  “We’re not fucking animals!” Kenzie yelled, throwing up her hand. Her shirt drew snug across her belly, revealing the growing bump. Talbot’s gaze immediately zoned in on her stomach.

  “You’re pregnant. I didn’t have the chance
to correct that as I did for Marcus’ daughter. I’d planned to do that when I knew you’d mated, but my shifter failed to extract you. Never trust an animal.”

  “What did you do to Amia?” Quinn asked, knowing the other woman wanted that answer, needed it in order to move on.

  Talbot waved his hand. “Little procedure. I injected a blocker when she was captured. Her father was to give her another every three years until he was ready to breed her. If not injected, it will eventually self-correct.”

  Quinn heard Amia’s indrawn breath and felt the rush of emotion from the other woman. Amia had been correct. Talbot had done something to prevent her from conceiving. That had to give her some relief. If it self-corrected, then Amia and Reno could have kids eventually. Quinn knew Amia wanted that.

  “Are you having multiples?” Talbot asked Kenzie. “It’s not uncommon for animals to give birth to litters of two or more.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Kenzie demanded.

  All Quinn felt was unwavering rage. It consumed her. The emotions inside her weren’t her own. Yet, they were. They had to be if she was the one feeling them. Talbot had taken more from her than she’d realized and given her more than he ever intended. She stared at him, wanting to take his neck between her hands and squeeze until he was silent, but he kept his attention on Kenzie.

  “They managed to get you out. All their focus was on you. No one paid attention to the other babies. The tiny little girls I told everyone had died.” Talbot’s gaze went to Quinn. “Easy to manipulate one if they believe they’re protecting the other. And I have three lovely puppets willing to do whatever they’re told. Correction. Two now.”

  “No,” Quinn shook her head, but she knew the truth in his words. Felt the horror and rage and even the acceptance of what was done.

  “Whatever he did or didn’t do isn’t a reflection of you,” Tony warned, releasing Amia to move toward Quinn as he spoke. “You know that. Don’t let him mess with you.”

  “Three identical replicas. Even then, I knew they’d prove useful.”

  Quinn trembled with rage, and Amia moved nearer, wrapping her arm around Quinn’s waist and tugging her close, holding tight. Quinn didn’t know how to process what she felt. The avalanche of emotions building and ebbing inside her left her reeling. Why did she feel as if she needed to protect the remaining sisters? As if they were her sisters? The truth slammed into her so hard there was no more denial. Who are you? whispered through her mind, but the answer was just out of reach as if an invisible barrier still existed inside her.

  “Who was she?” Quinn forced the question past the tightness in her throat.

  “Inconsequential. I still have two others and the sacrifice was needed. For you. You were so fragile. I had to make you stronger. Had to replace the weaknesses inside you. So I took what I had at my fingertips. She was there when her sisters weren’t, so she was used to serve my purpose. Any of them would have done. I would have sacrificed all of them to save you. That’s how much you mean to me. My perfect specimen.”

  “Perfect.” The word was spit from Quinn’s mouth as if it were coated in filth. “Nothing you’ve touched stays perfect for long.”

  “You were untouched. Except by my hands. My little Madonna. I didn’t let the men touch you. Gave them whatever animal was on hand when they needed relief. I protected you. Then I gave you a baby in your womb. Kept your virginity intact.”

  Did he think he was fucking God? That he had made a virgin pregnant? That she should feel appreciative that he’d let other women be hurt to protect her?

  “You sick, vile bastard.”

  “Look at you,” he roared, spittle flying in his rage. “I brought you back. I did that.”

  “You should have let me die,” she said, wanting desperately to mean them. Maybe, at one point, she would have. Before Emery. Before Mitch. When she’d truly believed she had nothing to live for, that her father would be better off without her in his life. That was gone now. Plus, there was someone else with her now. A woman who’d been robbed of life so that Quinn could live. She owed that woman answers and made a vow that she wouldn’t stop looking until she found the sisters left behind.

  “I brought you back,” Talbot screamed.

  And killed part of her, as well. The two parts of her merged completely, set on one goal. She moved toward him before she fully accepted what she was going to do. But then, this had always been the end she’d imagined between her and Talbot. It was the right thing. For her. For Lander. For the unknown woman who was a part of her.

  “You need to fucking die!”

  Kenzie yelled it, but Quinn felt as if the words had tumbled from her own lips. He did need to die. Deserved it.

  “Tony!” Amia yelled, and he turned to intercept a screaming Kenzie, knocking away a gun she’d pulled from behind her back.

  With his focus off her, Quinn altered her path slightly. She never paused as she scooped up the gun and pointed it straight at Talbot. He’s reign of terror was over.

  “Try bringing this back.”

  Quinn fired until the gun merely clicked with every pull of the trigger, screaming with rage the entire time. It was for Lander and her son. For her mother and father and what they’d been robbed of. For Kenzie and Amia and all the other shifters who’d been traumatized or killed at Talbot’s command. It was for two lost souls out there who must sense their sister was missing but had no clue what had happened. It was for Quinn and the hell he’d put her through. She emptied the gun and still, it wasn’t enough. She wanted to do it again and again and again.

  She turned to face the others, feeling completely empty as Tony slipped the spent weapon from her fingers.

  “Quinn?” Tony grasped her as she stumbled.

  “He’s dead,” she told them as if they hadn’t just watched her kill Talbot.

  Then, as if a damn had broken or chains had snapped or something inside had shifted, emotion flooded her. It was grief and rage and hurt and pain and the gutted feeling of the turmoil he’d created that she now had to learn to live with. Tears poured down her face as she yelled her rage aloud. Kenzie’s arms wrapped around her from behind while Amia moved in front of her and wrapped hers around both of them.

  “I wanted to be the one,” Kenzie murmured, and Quinn knew the other woman was crying, too.

  “He’s gone,” Amia whispered. “That’s all that matters.”

  They huddled together. Three women whose wounds had been ripped open and lain bare. They both offered and took comfort from one another.

  Tony stood apart from them, lingering in the middle of the room as if he weren’t sure which direction to turn. Quinn, Amia, and Kenzie stood together on one side of the room while Talbot’s body lay on the other.

  “Fuck me,” he muttered, and somehow, the look on Tony’s face warmed Quinn’s heart.

  She held out her hand to him, and after a moment, he came over and joined them, wrapping the three of them in his arms.

  “You’re mates will probably try to kill me, and I’m blaming every single one of you. You better protect me,” Tony joked, and Quinn appreciated his attempt to lighten the mood.

  “We’ve got you,” Amia said and leaned her head against Tony’s shoulder.

  Kenzie leaned hers against his other shoulder while Quinn snuggled against his chest.

  “Hell,” Tony huffed again. “Let’s at least get comfortable.”

  He moved them to the side of the room and slid down the wall. Kenzie remained on one side, Amia on the other, and Quinn ended up in his lap.

  They were still sitting like that when the locks disengaged. The door pushed open, and the first three through were Mitch, Reno, and Gabriel, followed closely by Tah and the others. Jonah snickered as the men growled at seeing their mates cuddled up with another male, even platonically.

  “Fuck me,” Tony groused again, but Quinn heard the amusement in his voice this time.

  She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

 
“You’re a good man, Tony. Thank you for saving my life and my son’s.”

  With Amia and Kenzie scooped up by their mates, Tony stood, bringing Quinn to her feet with him.

  “I couldn’t do anything else for the woman one of my best men is madly in love with.”

  Quinn immediately flicked her gaze to Mitch. When he stopped in front of her, she turned to him, wrapping around him and clinging tightly. She wanted to say it was finally over, but the truth was, it was only beginning. Talbot was gone, but they needed to take out another head to the monster. Marcus Blane. Amia would never be safe as long as he lived.

  Plus, there were rescues to plan. She’d have to get them to the place she remembered in New Mexico. Then there was the revelation Talbot had thrown out at the end. That he’d taken one of triplets and used that woman’s organs inside Quinn. She wasn’t sure how to deal with it or what she’d say when she found the other two women, who’d lost a sister at Quinn’s expense.

  Our sisters went through her mind, and she knew she’d have to adjust to that, as well. She wasn’t alone in her head anymore. It was something she’d have to adapt to, but she had no doubt it would make her stronger. She also understood she’d formed a bond with Amia and Kenzie that she’d cherish for the rest of her life.

  “Why don’t you two head upstairs for a bit?” Tony suggested. “Rest while I put some plans in motion. We’ll head toward New Mexico as soon as I get preparations made.”

  Mitch nodded, keeping his gaze on her. For some reason, she remembered Jess telling her she should go mate her mate, and suddenly, she needed that. Needed to claim Mitch with more than words.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” she whispered.

  She needed to hold her son first. Then she needed to hold Mitch. It was past time she told him exactly how she felt. Time to figure out how a not quite human, not quite shifter, mated their mate.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Mitch watched Quinn step from the shower. Her body was perfection with its scars and mixture of soft curves and firm muscle. Her hair was gathered on top of her head, but strands had escaped to curl around her face and down her chest. She was gorgeous. Even more, she was strong. Resilient. That was the word he’d use for her. The woman took everything that was thrown at her and kept going.