Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
She was seconds away from bolting.
Lion was painfully aware of that as he nodded at Voodoo and Indigo, who had come down as soon as he called. The couple headed into the bedroom where Ariella was once again fast asleep, and he could see from the look on Kate’s face that she wasn't comfortable with this arrangement at all.
Of course, he understood that, given his past with her, and what had happened when she arrived, she didn't trust a single one of them.
Maybe she was okay with—or at least accepting of—letting him wander the grounds with their daughter, at least they had a past that was more good than bad, but she didn't have anything at all to fall back on when it came to the others.
Didn't matter that none of them would ever hurt a child.
Or that Voodoo in particular had always been a healer and never enjoyed hurting anyone.
It was going to take time, but they didn't have time.
Mrs. Gardner was still out there, still a potential threat, and Ariella wasn't going to get any better until they found out if he was a match and she got her bone marrow transplant. Maybe not even then.
“How about you put on your coat and some shoes, and I take you outside to the same spot I showed Ariella,” Lion suggested, nodding to the coat and boots he’d told her to grab before they left the bedroom, which Kate was still holding clutched tightly in her hands.
“You want me to go outside and leave her?” she asked incredulously.
“You're not leaving her,” he said gently. “You're trusting her to family.”
“They’re not my family,” she immediately shot back.
“They are.” Although he contradicted her, he tried to do it softly, knowing why she didn't think it, but it was true nonetheless.
While he would never stop loving or caring about his parents and his little sister, he’d had to leave all of them behind after the experimental drug program turned into a disaster.
In their place, he’d built a new family.
This family, Steel, Dragon, Blade, Voodoo, and Thunder.
Now that family had grown to include Rose, Cassandra, Whitney, Indigo, and Maya.
These people would move heaven and earth for his girls.
All he had to do was find a way to convince Kate of that fact.
“They’re my family, and you and Ariella are mine, which makes you both family too.”
“We’re not yours.” Kate huffed, but at least she set the shoes down and shoved her feet into them, which he considered to be a win.
When she straightened, Lion took a leap of faith, backing his girl up against the wall, making her gasp.
Fear danced in her blue eyes, but there was something else there too.
Anger of course, but also arousal. Despite the fact that she hated him, and he had no doubt that she did, her body still craved his as badly as his craved hers.
Lifting a hand, he swept it down her hair, and then feathered his fingertips across her neck, letting them rest above where her pulse was fluttering wildly in the hollow of her neck.
The tip of her tongue darted out to brush across her bottom lip, and he groaned, taking a step closer, blocking her in, letting his much larger body press against hers.
“You have no idea what you do to me, do you, Katie-Bear?”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, but there was no heat to her words.
“Think whatever you want, but make no mistake about it, you’re mine, you’ve always been mine, and you’ll always be mine.” Before he could talk himself out of hit, Lion leaned down to whisper his lips across hers.
Then he straightened, took her coat from her hands, turned her around and eased her arms into it, then grabbed her hand and began to lead her through the house.
She came somewhat reluctantly, but they were doing this.
It was time he explained himself, begged for forgiveness, and prayed that by some miracle they might come out the other side together again.
Or at the very least, with an understanding that the past couldn’t be changed, but that didn't mean he didn't wish it could be with every breath he took.
The silence was tense but not necessarily uncomfortable as they headed out into the night.
Dawn hadn't yet come, but he knew the way to his rock without needing the light to see.
Even if he hadn't been there a thousand times over the last six years they’d lived there, his enhanced ability meant he could see basically as well in the dark as he could in the light.
“Pretty,” Kate said softly when they reached the tiny clearing. “It’s like a fairy ring. I can see why you like this spot.”
“It reminds me of you,” he told her as he guided her down to sit on the rock and then took a seat beside her.
The rock was really only big enough for one person, so with both of them squeezed onto it they were touching from hip to knee.
The feel of her body against his gave him the courage to tell her everything without holding back.
Kate was only the second person he’d shared this space with, the first being Ariella, although Monique Kerr, the fiancée of Charlie teams Jax Holloway, had found it herself while she was staying there, and he’d let her seek from it the same comfort it gave him.
“You can't be saying things like that, Leo. We’re not together anymore,” Kate said with a sad sigh.
“I understand that what I'm going to tell you might not change anything, but I'm hoping at least you’ll get why I felt like I had to do what I did.”
“You mean calling me a whore who trapped you with a baby? Someone who was too stupid and immature to be a good mother?” she asked, and pain dripped from every one of her words.
Pain that flayed his heart open because it showed him exactly what he’d left behind when he turned his back and walked away that day.
“I was scared.”
“I was scared too, Leo. I was eighteen and we’d just gotten engaged.
A baby was a lot, but I was more excited than scared because I was having that baby with you.
The man I’d loved since I was eight. I knew you hadn't loved me as long, but I’d thought that once we got together, you’d fallen in love with me. It killed me to know that wasn't true.”
A single tear glittered in the thin moonlight as it trailed its way down Kate’s pale cheek, and with a growl he snatched her up, hauling her onto his lap, then catching that lone tear with his lips.
“I loved you, Katie-Bear. Then and now. I wanted to be the best husband I could be to you, so when I heard about an experimental drug program trial being touted around the various special forces, I didn't hesitate to sign up.”
“Experimental drug program?”
“It was supposed to give the recipients enhancements that would make them better in the field. An enhanced ability to heal, an enhanced ability to withstand temperature extremes, an enhanced ability to function better without sleep for longer periods of time.”
“Sounds like a wonder drug.”
“At the time, I thought so too. Then I found out better. I wanted to tell you about it, but we had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. I’d be able to tell you after we were married, which I always intended to do.
Unfortunately, there was a lot about the program I didn't understand, a lot I should have looked into before I signed up.”
“You took it? This drug?”
“Yeah, I did. And it did everything it was supposed to do. Unfortunately, it did a lot more than that, though.”
“What else did it do?” Kate was watching him with interest now, her palms resting against his chest, the heat of them thawing out the heart he had tried so hard not to use since he lost her.
“It messed with our heads. It hindered our ability to connect with all emotions other than anger. It dulled our consciences, it filled us with this rage that felt all-consuming, and suicidal thoughts that were hard to ignore. It turned us into monsters,” he told her honestly.
For the last decade, that was what he and his team had believed themselves to be.
It was what Dr. Gardner had always called them, justifying why he had to keep them locked in a cage, using the behavior of all the other test subjects, who either killed one another in fits of fury or took their own lives, as proof.
“Are you telling me you ended things with me because you thought you were a monster?”
“Not thought, Katie-Bear, back then I was a monster. I could feel the changes happening in me. I could feel the rage, it was like a beast prowling around inside my head, determined to find a way out. I was terrified I wouldn't be strong enough to keep it under control indefinitely. If I couldn’t, then you would be the one to get hurt. Then you told me you were pregnant, and that fear grew exponentially. A tiny, helpless newborn would be in my care. All I could see were my own hands ripping it apart if I lost control. That’s why I walked away.
Not because I didn't love you, not because I didn't love our baby, but because I was terrified of hurting you.
Walking away was the worst thing I've ever had to do. Hurting you like that was like injecting poison into my veins, it’s slowly been killing me from the inside out for the last decade.
But I'd rather hurt you that way, rather you hate me, than kill you and our baby with my own two hands.”
March 15th
4:22 A.M.
“You would never kill me and Ariella,” Kate said, the objection automatic, and yet she believed that was true. Leo wasn't the kind of man who ripped apart women and babies with his hands.
A sad sigh tumbled from his lips, and he leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers. “Yeah, Katie-Bear, I might have.”
“I don’t believe that. I can't.”