He had learned that years before in Chicago, deployed with the highly advanced SWAT
team. His scope centered on a suspect, he had ignored the demand that he pull the trigger. He had fought the winds whispering at his ear, tugging at his trigger finger. Seconds later, a mother and her unborn child had died. A casualty to a bastard terrorist determined to take out as many innocents as possible.
And now the winds were at his ear again, a subtle scream of horror, pain and warning. And in those winds he heard Harmony's name.
Glancing over at her, he sighed heavily. She was slumped against the door, boneless, nearly unconscious with exhaustion. That depth of weariness wasn't caused by the heat alone. She had been running on nerves and sheer will alone for too long. Did she ever sleep?
He heard the answer in the wind. She ran, she fought, and even in sleep she was on guard. Until now.
She was weak, she had whispered. Unable to fight, and she was scared by that weakness.
As he drove to the edge of town and headed for home, Lance knew that protecting Harmony would mean more than just protecting her from whatever danger now followed them. It would mean protecting her from herself. Because Harmony would try to run. Once she awoke, once the heat had settled down, fear would tear her from him, no matter her desire to stay.
Was this the reason Jonas had brought her to him?
Lance frowned at the thought, wondering how the hell the other man could have known there would be a chance of this happening.
He felt the wind curl around his arm then, a whispery stroke that reminded him of the blood and saliva samples the Breed scientist, Elyiana, had taken from him the year before, after Braden had worked on the force. According to her and Jonas, it was required by any law enforcement official working closely with the Breeds. It was a ruse. He sensed it, heard the whispered affirmation at his ear. Jonas had been planning this for a while, but why?
There were no answers there. There was only the cry, shattered, broken, a wail of souldeep agony that caused his heart to clench, and his spirit to ache. It was Harmony's pain.
CHAPTER 6
"She was better off sleeping through it…"
"Exhaustion. She hasn't slept in two weeks that I know of…"
"Goddammit, no one sleeps twenty-four hours…"
The voices slid through Harmony's consciousness as she felt a cold burn building in certain parts of her body. Her thighs. Arms. Along her neck. Her tongue. Which was odd as hell.
It felt as though an icy fire were building beneath the flesh in those areas. It was drawing her slowly from the heavy sleep she was encased in, forcing her to reality despite the obvious reluctance of her body to awaken.
But it was becoming irritating. That cold burn. Irritating enough that she frowned and forced her eyes to open.
Her gaze focused on the Breed scientist Elyiana Morrey, and Lance. Lance looked haggard. Ely, curious.
She stared around Lance's bedroom.
"It's about damned time you woke up," Lance snapped. "Don't you have to use the bathroom or something?"
The incongruous question had her blinking up at him.
"Why am I here?" She turned her gaze to the scientist. "Why are you here?" Ely's lips twitched.
"I'm here because Jonas ordered me not to be." The smug satisfaction in her expression brought a frown to Harmony's face.
"Why are you here?" she asked again.
"She's here to begin the hormonal treatments you need to keep from conceiving," Lance finally answered for the doctor. "She stayed when you hadn't woken up through her examination."
Harmony's fingers curled in the blanket at her side.
"You examined me while I slept?" And she hadn't known it? Hadn't sensed it?
She swallowed tightly as she stared up at Lance. He was watching her with tormented eyes, his expression heavy with worry.
"It was easier for you that way," Ely answered. "The examinations are very painful after the mating heat begins. This way, you didn't suffer."
"I would have been fine." She couldn't remember any dreams. She looked at Lance again, but she couldn't tell from his expression if she had spoken in her sleep or not.
"Either way, the tests are completed." Ely shrugged. "You seem to be in fine shape other than a bit of anemia that you're still suffering from. You haven't been taking the vitamins I gave you, have you?"
"Sure I have." Yeah. Right.
Ely snorted. "I found the bottle in your bag, Harmony. They've been untouched. But no worries, the hormonal therapy will set that to rights."
She moved to the black bag sitting open on the dresser across the room. "One of these a day for this first month. The mating hormones are showing up in high concentrations in your blood and fluids." She lifted the vial of pills where Harmony could see them before moving back to the bed. "You've been on injections for the past twenty-four hours, which probably explains why the heat allowed you to sleep. These will prevent conception and allow you to function through the more debilitating symptoms. Though hiding from another Breed will still be impossible."
Harmony watched as the doctor set the vial of pills beside the bed.
"What is the mating heat?" she asked then. "Why is it doing this?" Ely glanced at Lance, as though needing his permission to reply.
"He didn't ask you." Harmony tried to insert strength into her voice, but she felt as strong as a wet noodle at the moment.
Ely's lips twitched. "You remind me of Jonas when you use that tone. And that's not a compliment."
"It wasn't taken as one," Harmony growled. "Answer me."
"It's a bonding." Ely tucked her hands into the pockets of her white lab jacket as she stared down at her. "Nature's way of ensuring that you stay with the male she chose for you. From what we've been able to figure out, it's an emotional and pheromone-based reaction. We're still working on it." She shrugged again as a regretful smile curved her lips. "There is no cure, and no way to escape it."
So Harmony had heard."I need to get up." She was naked beneath the blankets.
She glanced back at Lance as he moved across the room and picked up her silk robe.
"I picked up your clothes at the hotel. And your weapons." He turned back to her with a frown. "Do you know that half of what you carry is illegal?" She stared back at him silently.
Lance breathed out heavily. "Here's your robe. Are you strong enough to get up on your own?"
She took the silk from his hand.
"Leave." She didn't bother to voice it as a request.
His gaze narrowed on her.
"Ely stays," he ordered as he headed for the door. "I'll see about getting dinner together."
Harmony flipped the blankets from her nude body and swung her legs over the side of the bed before struggling into her robe.
"You touched me with your hands?" she asked the doctor coldly.
"I was gloved." Ely crossed her arms on her chest as she stared down at her.
"Find better gloves," Harmony snapped. "My skin is burning where you touched me."
"Burning?"
"A cold, deep burn. Thighs, arm, neck and tongue."
"No one has ever mentioned a burn. Pain, but no burn."
"It happened when Jonas touched my back after the first night with Lance as well. It's highly uncomfortable."
"Which means painful as hell," Ely grunted. "You're one of the most willful Breeds I've ever met. Do you ever feel pain, Harmony?"
"Not if I can help it. I need a shower. Where's my overnight bag?"
"You mean the lotion boutique?" Ely laughed. "Lance couldn't pronounce half the names on those bottles. Quite a collection you have there."
"Where is it?" She wasn't in the mood to talk.
Ely sighed heavily as she moved to the closet and pulled the large overnight bag from the depths of it.
"You can talk to me, Harmony. I'm not your enemy."
"Anyone not a friend is an enemy." Harmony stared directly into her eyes. "And I have no friends."
"Well, that puts me in my place." Ely carried the bag to the bathroom, sitting it on a counter before turning and reentering the bedroom. "There you go. Can you walk to the bathroom?"
"I can walk." Or she would die trying.
She was weak. Terrifyingly weak. Her legs shook as they took her weight, but they held her up. For the moment, that was all that mattered.
"Harmony, I have to leave tonight," Ely announced as Harmony made her way across the floor.
"Good-bye." What the hell did the woman want her to say? The doctor had helped hold her captive for two weeks and had helped take enough blood to refill another human body.
"You can't run from him, Harmony," Ely retorted as Harmony reached the doorway. "The hormonal treatments only work if you're having sex regularly with your mate. If you leave, the mistake could be fatal."
Harmony lowered her head, staring down at her feet as she gritted her teeth furiously.
"Jonas knew what he was doing, didn't he?" she whispered. "This was planned."
"I can't verify that." Ely's voice chilled, assuring Harmony that Jonas had indeed known exactly what he was doing.
"This is a dangerous game you're letting him draw you into, Doctor." She turned her head, staring back at the other woman bitterly. "I won't be the only one to die if this turns out the wrong way, I promise you that."
"Who will avenge you, Harmony?" Ely asked her. "The same people who have pulled your ass out of the fire before. I read Jonas's file on you, and it's vastly different from the one in the Breed database."
"As I said, you don't want to get caught up in this." Harmony smiled tightly. "If he hadn't played his little game, if he had left it with merely attempting to reincorporate me into the Breed society, we would have all been safe. But this…" She waved her hand down her body. "This just changed the stakes. If I'm taken out, trust me, Jonas won't escape unscathed. And neither will you."
______
"How is she doing?" Lance asked Ely as he stood over the pot he had poured the chicken soup into, letting it come to a slow simmer as his aunt had instructed. She walked slowly into the room, her hands tucked into the pockets of her lab jacket, her shoulders hunched.
"She's frightened, but hiding it well." She shrugged, her expression concerned. "She has a few symptoms no others have mentioned. A cold burn where I touched her while examining her, but other than that and being a bit weak, she seems fine." Lance nodded before turning back to the soup, watching as the slow curl of steam began to build at the top of it.
"Jonas called again," he said. "He says he needs you back at the labs."
"I'm surprised he waited this long." Her expression was wry as she stared back at him.
"At this point, I've done all I can for your mate. She won't conceive, and I was expressly forbidden to add that particular hormone to her treatments. For some reason, he believes conception will ensure she stays with you."
"You disagree?" He watched her narrowly.
"My only purpose is her survival—period. Your first priority is her protection and the bonding building between the two of you," she informed him harshly. "Listen to me, Lance, if she runs, for whatever reason, then she's lost to you forever. She'll go on the Breed registry as a rogue. Kill on sight. We can't allow that."
"And why do you care?" Lance watched the young doctor, saw the compassion in her eyes, but he sensed something else. She wasn't completely selfless in her desire to help Harmony.
"Because Jonas is so determined to have his own way." She smiled mockingly. "At this point, that's enough for me."