I’d stopped him then, and I’d stop him now. Stop him every fucking day until the day I died if that’s what I had to do to keep my mate safe.
The mating cuffs helped me. But my beast? I wasn’t sure even the lure of our mate was enough to control him.
He’d been feral since our time as a Hive captive. They’d broken him, shattered his mind. His reason. Turned him into a rampaging monster. Done experiments that forced my transformation into my beast, then refused to allow me return to my natural form. They locked me inside my own mind so they could control him. I’d spent weeks at a time as the beast while the Hive Integration Units ran their experiments.
After the ReCon team found me, Coalition doctors kept me sedated and locked in ReGen pods for nearly a month, trying to reach me, pull my consciousness back to the surface. Allow me to regain control of my own mind. My body. My beast.
The beast who’d become a monster, who operated on pure instinct. Who’d been hurt and tortured and abused until he became a wild animal.
I’d fought my way back to the surface and never released him again.
Which was why I’d kept him contained these last years. Fought him, fought mating fever, fought the Hive implants and the ever present fear that if I ever allowed him to surface again, I’d be lost forever.
“Is your wife making you sleep on the couch?”
I looked down to see Ava—leader of the ‘vagina’ chant—staring up at me with concern on her adorable little face. “No. Why do you ask?”
“You look sad.”
As the humans would say…from the mouths of babes. “I do?”
“Yeah, Mr. Smith. You look really sad.” Olivia, Ava’s best friend, walked up to me and took my hand with complete trust. “Are you gonna cry?”
“No. I’m not going to cry.”
“Why would Mr. Smith cry?” Oh, good gods. Now sweet little Elizabeth joined the first two girls, her eyes round with concern. “Are you hurt? Do you need a bandage?” She dug around in her pants pocket, sighed in frustration, and finally produced a wadded up, wrinkled piece of dirt-smeared paper. “It’s got Power Rangers on it. My mom gets me the Power Rangers ones because I’m gonna be the Red Ranger when I get big.”
Ava rolled her eyes. “You can’t be the Red Ranger. You’re a girl.”
“Yeah. You gotta be the pink one,” Chloe agreed.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes with maximum dramatic flair. “Pink is ugly. I can, too, be the red one.”
What in the name of the gods was a Power Ranger?
I didn’t have to wonder long as Elizabeth peeled back the paper to reveal a sticky bandage with the image of a television character printed on one side. The other side was adhesive with a small, white square in the center. Elizabeth grabbed my opposite hand and pulled me toward her. With raised brows, she inspected the back of my hand and carefully selected a spot for her bandage.
With intense care and concentration, she placed the bandage, then bent over to place a tiny kiss over my imaginary wound.
“There. Feel better now?”
Oddly enough, I did. “Yes. Thank you.”
Her happy smile made even the beast settle. I glanced at the clock on the wall, the pull to be with my mate stronger than ever. I wanted to fuck her right now, plant a beautiful, innocent daughter in her womb.
Twelve more minutes.
“Liar!” Connor’s shout silenced the room. He stood in one corner with several boys, their heads together. Brody was among them.
“It’s true!” Brody shouted back. The rest of the children stopped what they were doing to listen.
“No, it’s not. No way.” Tyson put his hands on his hips and glared at my son. “That’s illegal.”
“No, it’s not.” Brody stood now, facing them both. “They were bad guys. It’s not illegal to kill bad guys.”
Fuck. What was Brody telling them? He knew he was to keep his true identity a secret at all costs.
With an awkward but gentle pat on Elizabeth’s shoulder, I left the circle of girls and made my way to where Brody and Connor now stood nose to nose in direct challenge. “What is going on here?”
