Chapter 80 Losing Control
I woke screaming.
The nightmare didn’t fade,it clung to me like smoke, thick and choking. I was back in the lab, a child again, strapped to a cold metal table. My wrists and ankles burned from the restraints, my small body shaking from fear. The air was heavy with chemicals and the coppery scent of blood. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, harsh and unrelenting, reflecting off the stainless steel walls.
I could hear it all, the screaming. Not just mine, but the others. Children. Omegas. Werewolves. Some half-shifted, some human. Their cries tore through me, each one a blade slicing into my chest. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. My legs felt like lead. My arms were pinned. My tiny heart slammed against my ribcage like a drum of panic.
Then my father appeared. Younger, sharper, colder than I remembered him. His eyes held no warmth, only fascination and… pride. Pride in the chaos. He crouched beside me, his hands on the restraints, and his voice was clinical, calm. “Pain accelerates the mutation,” he said. “The maternal line must be broken first.”
I screamed again, louder, the sound ripping through the corridors of my mind. My mother’s face flickered in the corner of my vision, horrified, helpless but I couldn’t reach her. I tried to move, tried to call out, but the restraints and the panic and the terror of a child trapped kept me silent in a scream.
The screams around me were endless. A woman cried out, a child wailed, and yet, above it all, my father’s voice drilled into me. “You are my greatest creation.” I wanted to throw up. I wanted to run. I wanted to claw my way through the walls, through the steel, through the world itself. But I was small, powerless, trapped.
And then… I felt it. The coil under my skin, tight and waiting, as it had always been. My beast. My body remembered what my mind tried to bury. I didn’t think about it, I just reacted.
I bolted upright in my bed, gasping, disoriented. My claws extended instinctively, my nails digging deep into the floorboards. My eyes, golden and glowing, reflected the dim light of my room. Every muscle in my body tensed, ready to spring, every nerve firing. My beast had awoken before I had.
A guard’s shadow moved outside my door. Footsteps soft, hesitant. He didn’t expect this. He couldn’t know what he was stepping into. My body knew. I could smell his fear. The smell of his blood. I could feel the tension in his stance, the faint tremor in his pulse. It was as clear to me as the air I was breathing.
I growled before I even realized it. Low, guttural, feral. My claws clicked against the floor as I advanced on the door, trembling with adrenaline. My mind screamed at me to stop. It’s a human. You’re not supposed to, but the beast didn’t care. Instinct demanded I defend myself, strike first, survive.
The door opened just a fraction, and he froze. The moment stretched. My claws flexed, sharp as daggers. My body moved almost on its own, and I lunged. Faster than thought, faster than fear, my hand shot through the opening, rending the air with claws that would have torn him apart.
He jumped back, startled, nearly falling over. I skidded to a stop, just short of the threshold. My breathing was ragged, my chest heaving. My heart thundered. The beast under my skin roared silently, satisfied, but my human side recoiled in horror at what I’d almost done.
“I—I’m fine!” I rasped, my voice trembling. It sounded foreign even to me, more beast than girl. “Everything’s fine!”
The guard didn’t respond. He didn’t move. He just stared, wide-eyed, frozen by the display of what I could do. And I hated myself for it. Hated the fear in his eyes, hated the claws, hated the power that didn’t need permission.
I sank to the floor, knees drawn to my chest, my glowing eyes dimming as I struggled to regain control. My hands shook uncontrollably. The memory of the lab, of the screams, of the cold metal, of my father’s voice praising horrors, pressed down on me like a weight.
I pressed my face into my knees, tried to breathe, tried to ground myself. You are Lyra. You are not the monster your father created. You are not the experiment.
But even as I whispered it, even as I tried to claim control, the heat beneath my skin didn’t dissipate. The beast was still coiled, still ready, still remembering the lessons my mind had tried to hide. Survival. Protection. Killing. All instincts I had learned before I even knew I was learning.
I glanced at the door. The guard’s shadow had not moved. I knew he was waiting for orders, for assurance, for something. I wanted to apologize, to tell him I was sorry, that I wouldn’t hurt him. But I didn’t have the words. I didn’t have control. All I had was the raw, feral awareness of what I could do.
Slowly, trembling, I allowed my claws to retract, felt the glow in my eyes fade back to their normal green-gold. My hands shook violently, still slick with sweat. My muscles still tensed. I wanted to be human, wanted to be Lyra again, wanted to escape the memory and the instincts that clung to me.
I pressed my palms to the floor, trying to anchor myself. The nightmare lingered at the edges of my mind, the screams, the terror, the sterile smell of the lab, my father’s cold voice. And the fear in the guard’s eyes was more painful than any bite or wound. I realized, with a crushing weight, that I could no longer ignore what lived inside me.
The beast wasn’t going anywhere. It had always been here. Waiting. Watching. Learning. And I knew, deep down, I had to learn to tame it.
This. This was the moment I understood. My body already knew how to fight. My mind had to catch up.
I took a shaky breath and forced myself to rise, claws retracted, shaking but alive. My heart still raced, my adrenaline still thrummed, but I could feel the awareness settle over me, quiet but insistent. I could fight. I could survive. I could protect.
No one would define me again.
Not my father. Not the Council. Not the nightmares.
Not anyone.