"Why?" Confusion, disbelief and a sense of frustrated anger filled her. "Why would you do this, Dane?"
"Because you mattered, luv," he whispered, his accent thickening. "You mattered to me, as well as to those you don't even know. You're vital to us, not because of what you are, or what you thought was hidden, but because of the heart and the soul of the young warrior you were. You mattered to us."
"No…" She shook her head fiercely.
"You needed to believe yourself to be alone, so we let you think you were alone. You needed to know you were a weakness to no one and that no one weakened you, so I let you believe I was rescuing you in exchange for a job only you could do." His smile was mocking. "You always knew better, Harm. If you hadn't, you would have given Jonas what he wanted. You would have betrayed me."
"How did you know?" She touched the hidden device.
"No, I can't monitor your voice or your actions." His grin was a bit amused. "I have other sources, sweetheart, within Sanctuary. I knew what Jonas wanted. I was quite curious how far he would go. Though I always knew I could trust you."
She clenched her fingers in the jacket, staring back at him miserably.
"You knew all along." She shook her head at the revelation. "Why didn't you tell me?" Wide shoulders shrugged again. "What was the point? You were confused enough. Mating, falling in love, facing the danger you brought to your man. I wanted you happy, Harmony." His smile was rueful. "I would have preferred it had you fallen in love with me. But your happiness was all that truly mattered."
She'd had friends. A man who cared for her; she couldn't accept the love part right now. He and Ryan had risked their lives more times than she could count on both hands, for her. And she had never realized, even worse, she had never wanted what they had to offer.
"I'm sorry." She met his gaze fully, regret filling her. "You deserved better, even for a friend."
"No, sweetheart, you deserved more." He shook his head at her statement. "You were like a wounded lioness, fighting to survive. I merely helped you where I could. I did no more."
"You're wrong," she whispered. "It was so much more." She rose to her feet then, knowing she didn't have much longer. As soon as Jonas learned she had disappeared, he would be searching for Dane again.
"Jonas thinks you're the first Leo and he's determined to capture you," she told him then. "Be careful of him, Dane. Even in the labs, Jonas was frighteningly adept at getting what he wanted. He's only grown stronger and more determined." Dane smiled at that. "I'm not the first Leo, Harm. But should I ever run across him, I'll be certain to pass the message along."
He straightened, staring down at her, his emerald eyes brilliant even in the darkness.
"You're a Breed," she whispered then. "I think I've always…" He laid his finger across her lips. "Go in peace, little lioness. And should you need me…" His hand slid to the small tracker hidden beneath her hair. "I'll always be close." She watched as he turned then and moved toward the vehicles parked at the edge of the grass.
"Give Jonas my regards," he called back as he disappeared into the shadows. "And tell him we will meet again."
It sounded like a warning.
Harmony rushed back to Lance's hospital room then, slipping past the nurse on watch and sliding into the room to hide in the shadows as she had the night before. If they caught her, they always ran her off. And she always returned.
The curtains were still partially closed across the wide windows that looked out onto the nurses' station, allowing her to slide into the chair next to the bed. Harmony let her fingertips touch his, aware of the tubes and wires that led from his body to the machines next to the bed. She needed that contact. Needed to feel his warmth, to share her own.
She laid her head at the end of the mattress and sighed deeply. She couldn't believe he was alive. That he was breathing, that the surgeons were certain he would recover, with few complications. The miracle of it still managed to weaken her knees and bring tears to her eyes.
"Harmony…" The fragile thread of sound had her eyes jerking open as she lifted her head and stared up at him.
His eyes were slitted open, the dark blue color clear and lucid as he stared back at her.
"Lance. Oh God… Lance." She lifted her hand, touched his brow, his cheek, his lips.
"Are you thirsty? In pain… ?"
"Shhh…" That thread of sound. A gentle croon that eased her as nothing else could have.
"You're going to be fine… The doctors…"
"Shhh," he whispered again.
She frowned down at him.
"I love you," he whispered, his voice a bit slurred and weak. His hand moved then, his fingers lifting to reach out to her, to touch her abdomen. The warmth speared into her, spread through her."It's a son."
Her breath caught at his words.
"I love you, Lance Jacobs," she whispered then. "And the minute you're well, I'm going to kick your ass for what you did."
"Shhh… Kiss me, baby. Let me feel you. Let me know I lived…" She leaned down and let her lips touch his. Brief though it was, a tentative caress, it was an affirmation of life.
"I love you…" she whispered, her lips feathering over his, her gaze locked with his.
"Always."
And he smiled. "Always."
EPILOGUE
Three Months Later
Washington, D.C.
Jonas twisted his hips, slamming them against his partner, feeling the hot, tight clasp of her pussy around his aching erection, the slick, liquid heat that surrounded him, and calculating her rise to orgasm.
Her hands slicked over his back, sharp little nails piercing his flesh as long blond hair wrapped around them like damp strands of silk.
Bracing his knees on the bed between her spread thighs, he pumped into her, eyes narrowed as he watched her pleasure-filled face and held back his own release. Ladies first. It wasn't so much a motto as part of his sexual training. The scientists had wondered if pleasure and sexual release would overcome the genetic encoding that prevented female Breed conception. It hadn't, but Jonas had excelled so quickly in bringing that pleasure that he had become the lab's resident stud.
He was used to seduce wives, daughters and buttoned-down professionals associated with the targets the Council sought. Women talked to their lovers, especially women experiencing the full flush of their first experience with a man who knew all the intricate paths to completion, such as Jonas did.
As he stroked inside the tempting little lawyer, finding all the delicate little nerve-ridden areas within her soft pussy, his hands caressed and petted. His lips stroked over sweatdampened flesh, nipping, licking, kissing over sensitive skin. His pleasure came from hers, as odd as that should have been. Here, the only pain was the agony of need, of hunger that began to fill the air with her rising moans. Her hands gripped his biceps now, her hips lifting against him, pushing his cock farther inside her as he felt the warning ripples of release stroke over his dick.
Her gasping cries were rising in crescendo as he felt the rippling waves of sensation begin to pulse in his balls. He could have come thirty minutes before. Instead, he had kept moving, sliding inside the rich, hot depths of her cunt as she shuddered beneath him.
She was insensate with pleasure. Her eyes were glazed with it, her body flushed with it and soaked with sweat. Her head twisted on the sheets a second before her breath caught, her body jerking helplessly beneath his as her pussy sucked at his cock before tightening further and letting go the sweet, fiery moisture of release. Jonas gave in to his own pleasure then, one hand gripping her hip as he began to shaft her furiously, fucking into her with furious strokes until his release whipped through him. He held inside her, his semen spurting into the tight channel as he gritted his teeth and pumped against her, determined to wring each ounce of pleasure from the experience. It was rare for him to feel anything beyond the driving need to ensure Breed security. At least here, he could immerse himself in warmth, allow it to touch him, if only for a brief time.
As the final pulses of release rippled through his cock, he knew it wasn't enough though. The restlessness that haunted his working hours was beginning to drift into these hours of pleasure as well. A vague dissatisfaction he had never known before while copulating. And it was starting to piss him off.
Inhaling deeply as the final shudders of release vibrated through his muscles, Jonas eased back from Jess's hold on him, sliding from the silken depths of her pussy as he ran a hand over the spiky length of his hair. He needed a haircut.
He was aware of her eyes opening as he moved from the bed and headed for the bathroom to wash up. She would be a few more moments before she rose behind him.
"You know, one of these days, you're going to find a woman you can't get up and walk away from," she murmured long minutes later, as he padded back from the bathroom, refreshed by a quick shower.
He grunted at the observation as he began to dress. He had work to do, and playing lovers' games wasn't on his agenda. He had a spy to find, and he was now one step closer to trapping her.
Propping the pillows behind her back, Jess stared back at him from intelligent gray eyes, an amused smile on her kiss-swollen lips.
"We need to move on the case pending against the Breed found beaten to death last week," Jess commented as he pulled on his socks before picking up his slacks. "I want those supremacists under Breed Law rather than international law. I'm sure the Ruling Cabinet can find a way to make them regret the errors of their ways."
"I disagree." He speared her with a dark look. "Let the justice system have them and oversee the case against them. The press will have a field day with it. A Breed videotaped attempting not to hurt its captors, to merely escape, and being beaten nearly to death for his efforts. It will engender sympathy and compassion as well as outrage. Kill them, and the Breeds will be seen as no better than those striking against them." A frown flitted across her face. "We have a right to justice," she said stiffly. "The same group raped and murdered that young female Breed the month before and you know it. We can't let this continue."
"Once they're free, I'll take care of them." He pulled the silk shirt over his shoulders and buttoned it before tucking it into his pants. "Such people disappear all the time. For now, it's better to let the humans believe they are policing themselves." It helped that one of Alonzo's lieutenants had been found dead at the scene of Harmony and Lance's attack. Pinning the blame for the sheriff's near murder on the supremacist group had gone a long way to fracturing much of their power.
A bit of careful maneuvering and Jonas had laid in the groundwork for the demise of the assassin known as Death as well. He had laid it right at the feet of the supremacist lieutenant Harmony had killed.
To Jonas, that was justice. Harmony was now safe in Broken Butte with her mate, and those who suspected her as Death could no longer speak to betray her.
"These games of yours are going to get someone killed," Jess finally said and sighed as he finished dressing.
His smile was tight, cold. "Most likely," he agreed. "Blood supremacists and those damned purist groups if I have my way about it. The world would be better off without them."
"And so they say about the Breeds." She shook her head as she rose from her bed. "I'll make certain the case goes to trial, but you have twelve jurors who may well let them off." It wasn't unknown. Convicting the supremacists was never easy.
"Making them disappear is easy enough." The fact that they would get off didn't bother him nearly as much as the fear that it wouldn't go to trial.