Heart of a Lion by Lacey Thorn
Chapter Two
Mitch watched Quinn walk away and fought the urge to follow her and scoop her up into his arms again. She drew him like no one else. Her outward fragility belied the hard core he knew held her tightly stitched together. He wanted to know her. Mentally, physically, and emotionally. She kept so much locked inside her, and that leash of hers was taking a visible toll, but he was damned if he knew what more he could do to show her that he was someone she could count on.
He jumped in the Jeep waiting for him and found it hard to pay attention as his men spoke around him. For a moment earlier, he’d have sworn Quinn had growled. Not a soft feminine growl or anything even remotely human sounding. She’d sounded like a damn lion, as if she’d attack if pushed too far. The sound had cut off so quickly, he’d almost questioned if he’d really heard it. Hell, he had questioned it, but he knew what he knew. Something was going on with Quinn. Something she wasn’t sharing with anyone.
“Boss.”
He snapped to attention. From the faces watching him, they must have called for him more than once.
“We’re here,” Rogers said, nodding to the farmhouse they’d parked in front of.
Mitch nodded and hopped out, taking the steps two at a time as he headed toward the front door. He wasn’t surprised when Jonah met him. They’d been friends since they’d been naïve boys joining the military with visions of changing the world.
“Swear to God,” Jonah groused as they headed through the hidden tunnel to the room where Tony kept Talbot. “We should just kill the bastard and be done with it.”
Mitch didn’t need any guesses as to the bastard in question.
“Is he worse?”
“Who the fuck knows? Batshit crazy one minute then sprouting medical jargon that has Tony perking up and taking notes the next. Experiments and what he’s accomplished. Then…” Jonah paused as he glanced toward Mitch.
“What?”
“Half an hour ago he started talking about how Quinn is his greatest accomplishment. How we’d helped finish everything he’d started. How she and her child are the future. When Tony pressed him, the mad doctor started laughing. For the last five minutes, he’s been repeating one thing over and over again.”
Before Mitch could launch another question, they were at the two way mirrors where he could see and hear Talbot.
“She’ll come for me. You won’t stop her.”
Talbot sat naked in the cage where Tony kept him when they weren’t trying to work answers out of him. His shoulders were stooped, his head bent forward so he could fit inside the small space.
“She’ll come for me. You won’t stop her.”
Eerie fucking laughter echoed in the room. The doctor definitely wasn’t operating at full capacity anymore. Though why was a question Tony still couldn’t answer.
“Maybe, it’s time to lose the cage,” Mitch suggested as he entered the room.
His gaze bounced to where Tony stood, watching Talbot with a hard expression. His arms were crossed over his chest, feet shoulder’s width apart, his frame vibrating with tightly leashed tension that seemed close to exploding. Mitch didn’t want any of his team in the way when that happened. He didn’t want to lose any of them because Tony couldn’t hold his shit together.
“Do you know how many men and women I’ve freed from the cages hunters locked them inside because they were thought to be shifters? How many children?”
Tony’s voice shook from rage, his face dark and savage as his temper came to life in a way Mitch hadn’t seen in a long time.
“Spaces much smaller than the cage he’s been allowed. We could stake him to the wall. That’s a favorite of yours, isn’t it, Talbot? Put the shifter on the wall and see how many hits they can take before they break. Literally. Broken fingers. Broken ribs. Maybe a shattered kneecap. I mean, who really cares, right? They’re animals. They’ll heal. Children cut open so you can see how they’re organs respond to certain stimuli. Grown men drugged and pitted against one another until someone dies. Young women splayed out as a prize in a sick, twisted game where no one has a choice. And other things. Experiments the doctor likes to conduct away from too many eyes.”
The word doctor was a sneer.
“Did you know he once chopped body parts off his captives to see if they could grow replacements? Hands. Feet. Breasts. Anything that took his fancy.”
Talbot laughed. “Can’t grow a penis back. No, no, no. Not a foot or a leg or an arm. Not a head. No, no, no.”
“He stays in the fucking cage,” Tony snarled.
Mitch had witnessed many things during the rescues they’d helped facilitate. He’d seen his fair share of seriously injured shifters. In some cases, dead shifters. He’d even seen humans subjected to the same. Either because they’d been suspected of being a shifter, had been mated to a shifter, or tried to help a shifter in one way or another. Hunters were cruel bastards. Hell, they’d brutally killed Mitch’s sister, Misty, and left her as a warning while they took her mate, Walt, and vivisected him just to see how much he could take before his body gave out. Then they’d thrown his body out with the trash. Just thinking about it had Mitch in a killing mood.
He and Misty had been close. Mitch hadn’t known everything about Walt when his sister had met the other man and fallen in love. He’d known there was something different about Walt but never suspected he’d been a wolf as well as a man. His sister had loved her mate deeply. Mated.
He hadn’t understood the scope of the word in the beginning. Now, after years of living and working among shifters, Mitch understood what it meant to them to find a mate. He envied them that in some ways. To know beyond the shadow of a doubt they were meant for one another? To form a bond nothing could break? He wanted that. Quinn came to his mind. He wanted to be her mate. Stupid for a human male, but in his head anyway, he considered it. Thinking of her reminded him of what Jonah had shared on their walk in.
“What’s this about Quinn?” Mitch asked and wasn’t surprised when Talbot began again.
“She’ll come for me. You won’t stop her.”
“Why’s that?” Mitched asked, crossing to squat in front of the cage.
Tony didn’t say a word, but Mitch doubted his gaze missed anything. Tony probably saw and noted things the rest of them wouldn’t even catch on to. That was Tony. His gaze soaked in every nuance and never let it go. He could recall things with perfect clarity long after others would have forgotten. Mitch had heard others refer to it as Tony having eidetic memory. The man forgot nothing.
“What makes you think she’s going to come for you?” Mitch asked when Talbot didn’t reply.
“I’m Frankenstein.” He cackled.
“You’re definitely a monster,” Mitch agreed.
“Quinn’s the monster,” Tony said softly.
Mitch stood and faced Tony with a snarl, but the other man was staring at Talbot.
“Tony’s right,” Jensen Holloway, one of the two bear shifters currently in residence, offered with a shrug. “Frankenstein was the doctor. He created the monster, the ‘Adam of his labors’,” Jensen quoted.
“Careful, Victor, or you’ll end up as your namesake. Killed by your own creation,” Tony warned.
“She’ll come for me. You won’t stop her.”
A whisper this time, repeated over and over until Mitch wanted to reach through the bars and choke off the words. Was Talbot seriously calling Quinn a monster? And what was Tony up to?
“His first name’s Victor?” Adam, the second bear shifter staying with them, asked as if that were the most important question.
“Named after a true monster, weren’t you?” Tony replied, speaking to the doctor. “What will I find if I take a look at Quinn? What secrets are hiding there?”
Talbot grew silent for a moment then took up repeating his favored words again. Hell, it was driving Mitch a little mad listening to it.
“What would I find if I cut her open?” Tony asked softly.
It took all Mitch had to bite back the desire to challenge Tony over his statement, but he knew what Tony was doing. Talbot didn’t disappoint.
“You won’t touch her,” he screamed through the bars, spittle flying. “She won’t let you touch her or the baby. Too late. It’s too late. I started it. You finished it.” His pupils were blown when he looked up at them. “She’ll come for me. You won’t stop her.”
“I hope she does come for you,” Tony agreed. “Worst case scenario, I get to watch her gut you the way she did one of your little solider boys, who came to rescue you. Best case scenario, I get to gut her while you watch from your little cage, helpless to protect your greatest accomplishment.”
Mitch feared he’d break his jaw with how tightly his teeth clenched together. His hands shook with the need to do bodily harm to Tony.
Talbot watched Tony, almost mirroring the calculation in his gaze. The two appeared eerily similar in that moment. Talbot looked ready to say something. Ready to share whatever it was Tony tried to drag out of him, and the whole room went still and silent as they waited. Instead, Talbot repeated the words that were starting to drive Mitch a little crazy himself.
“She’ll come for me. You won’t stop her.”
Tony jerked away from the wall and left the room without a backward glance. Mitch followed on his heels. When they were in the hallway, away from Talbot’s gaze, Mitch caught Tony on the chin with a hard punch that knocked the other man back into the hall. Tony’s gaze flashed fire. Mitch held his arms wide.
“Take your shot if you want. You deserved that, and you know it.”
“I’m trying to pull his chain. Not yours.”
“Well, you managed both,” Mitch snapped. “She deserves better than that. Hell, I was ready to ask for your help with her, but damned if I want you anywhere near her at the moment.”
“Bullshit,” Tony snapped. “You know I won’t actually hurt her. I merely want to see why she means so much to him. He had her for years. Years to do whatever he wanted.”
“Do you really need to know?” Mitch wasn’t sure he did.
“She does. She needs to know what he did to her, so he can stop controlling her.”
“What makes you think he’s controlling her?”
“Her silence. Why keep all that inside?”
Tony answered before Mitch could voice his thought.
“Fear. Talbot’s made her afraid. Of what, I’m not sure, but if I had to venture a guess, I’d say it has something to do with the baby’s she’s carrying.”
“She’s very protective of her baby,” Mitch agreed. She was always holding her abdomen, guarding it. “If I can talk her into it, will you take a look at her?”
Tony lifted one brow. “I’ve been told none too nicely to keep my hands off. By her father. Something about her already being put through enough by one madman. She doesn’t need another.”
“He loves her. He’s trying to protect her.”
“And you understand that.” Tony’s voice was soft, keeping the words between the two of them as Jonah stepped out to join them.
“Still chattering away like a magpie,” Jonah told them as his gaze went back and forth between the two of them. “Might want some ice for that jaw, Sandman. Mitch packs a hell of a punch.”
“Bring her to me,” Tony ordered, gaze never wavering from Mitch’s.
He nodded, clenching his jaw as he tried and failed to hold his tongue. “If you hurt her in any way, I’ll end you.”
“That’s how it is?” Tony asked.
“That’s how it is,” Mitch agreed, knowing what he’d just admitted.
“Are you going to tell her?” Tony asked softly.
“When the time is right. I won’t keep secrets from her. She deserves complete honesty. I won’t give her any less than that.”
“Well, fuck,” Jonah said. “We’re all screwed then.”
“Telling her doesn’t mean everyone will know,” Mitch assured his friend. “I’d say she’s as good at keeping secrets as any of us are.”
“Maybe, it’s time Tah and the others do know,” Tony countered.
“Can’t imagine the alpha of this pride liking the fact you’ve made your own fucking super solider serum that keeps us human while giving us a punch of shifter abilities,” Jonah replied, obviously unhappy at the thought of things being brought to light.
“That super serum saved one of their shifters,” Tony reminded them, referring to Daniel Erikson and the shot Tony had given the other man to counter the drugs hunters had shot into Daniel during a fight in Illinois. At the time, the shifters had asked Tony if he’d ever used it, and he’d told them no. Truth and lie. He’d never used it on a shifter. He’d used it on humans. It had done something unexpected in the shifter.
“Turned him primal, too,” Mitch reminded.
“But he’s alive,” Tony reiterated with a shrug.
“Are you sure your name’s not Victor, too?” Jonah asked, and Mitch barked a laugh.
“Don’t ever compare me to him,” Tony warned Jonah before turning to lead them through the hidden corridor and back toward the main floor of the house. “Bring her to me. I’ll find the answers she needs.”
“I’ll do my best,” Mitch promised.
He thought about the growl again. He’d been protecting Quinn since the moment he’d seen her shaking in fear while staring at the helicopter that would carry her back to her home. She’d broken his heart while she’d sat in his lap and silently cried while he’d held her. Then she’d amazed him that first night when she’d asked him to stay with her. She continued to amaze him with her strength. And as much as it galled him, Tony was right. Quinn deserved answers to the questions she wasn’t asking. Or at least, wasn’t asking aloud.
Why did Talbot call her his greatest creation? What had he started, and how did they finish it? What the hell was going on?
The alarm sounded as he left the passageway and stepped into the hallway. He hit the front door at a full run, Jonah and Tony both hot on his heels. Someone had breached one of the perimeters and triggered the alarms again.
Despite the threat to the pride as a whole, Mitch’s only thought was of Quinn and the danger she was in. He had to get to her before whatever trouble was on their doorstep found her first this time.