hw

Sanctuary Virginia, Six Hours Later
Jonas watched as the small, slender form of the female Breed was literally dragged into the holding building with its single cell and interrogation room. The three Breeds hauling her into the cement building looked the worse for wear. Bruised faces, split lips and blood marred their savage features, and the most powerful of the three, Mercury Warrant, had a tourniquet tied high on his thigh, above the knife wound he had received. The sleeve of Rule's black uniform was sliced and wet with blood. Lawe would carry another scar on his face, low along his chin.
Harmony was dumped into the small metal chair beside a scarred wooden table, the manacles at her wrists and ankles attached to a metal ring in the floor. She was secured, confined. Dressed in light gray boxer-style underwear and a matching tank top, she showed no reaction to either the chill of the air or the bruises and scrapes that covered her shoulders and arms.
Her breathing was slow and easy, her overall demeanor calm as her oddly streaked black hair covered her face and hid her expression from him. What more would he see if he could stare into those incredible eyes? Had she only strengthened her ability to hide there as well?
Harmony had grown as a killer over the years, as a fighter. Self-control, twenty years of military training and a fierce determination to live and to exact vengeance had made her a commodity eagerly sought on the killing market.
He stared at the file that rested on the monitor shelf in front of him. It bulged with evidence of suspected kills, sightings and psych reports.
She had taken her first job no more than a year after her escape from the labs ten years before; she had become more proficient and deadly over the years. She had also become better at hiding. There were any number of people after the woman called Death. Not just because of her reputation for being the best, but because of the information she had taken the day she escaped the labs, and the information she had stolen since.
His lips quirked in amusement as respect curled within him. She had outdistanced the projections the scientists had made in regards to her ability, to become the perfect assassin.
He watched as the door to the confinement cell opened and the scientist over the Breed medical facility walked into the room, carrying the plastic medical tote that held the syringes and vials for the samples she would need.
"Harmony, my name is Ely." Elyiana Morrey's voice was soft, sympathetic. "You're not in any danger here."
There was no response.
"I need a few blood samples and a saliva swab. It won't take long and I promise it won't hurt."
Jonas had a feeling Harmony really didn't give a damn. As Merc moved in closer to protect the scientist, she stopped at Harmony's side, lifting her arm to the table.
Harmony stayed relaxed, still, as Ely tied the rubber strap around her upper arm and moved to test the veins. Jonas watched the muscles in Harmony's arm flex, then tense. The action would prevent the needle from effectively finding the veins beneath the skin. The ability Breeds had learned in the labs, to control their muscles, had been developed just for this purpose. Ely's gaze was concerned as she looked up at the camera, meeting Jonas's.
"Tell her you'll sedate her if she doesn't cooperate," Jonas ordered coldly.
Ely's gaze snapped with disapproval as his order came through the coram link she wore.
"Do it, Ely. Now is not the time to argue."
Her lips thinned.
"Harmony, I've been ordered to sedate you if you don't cooperate. Please don't make me do that."
Jonas almost grinned at Ely's compassion. Harmony would slice her throat without a thought if that were what it took to escape.
But Harmony relaxed, never betraying a flinch as the needle found her vein. Two vials later Ely pulled a cotton swab from the tote.
"Open your mouth, I need a saliva swab now." Harmony stayed still.
Jonas sighed. "Merc, pull her head back and force her mouth open."
Harmony wasn't going to make this easy for anyone.
As Merc pulled her head back, his powerful hand clamping on her jaw, Jonas saw her face. He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing on the delicate bone structure, the wide tilted eyes with their sooty lashes, the glimpse of green fiery rage in her eyes.
Ely took the swab quickly, stored it, then moved back from the table as Merc released the girl.
The blood and saliva samples were imperative. For their plan to work he had to prove the suspicion his senses had picked up, and make certain Harmony hadn't yet mated. That could really foul his plans.
The only way, at this point, to neutralize Harmony was to kill her. Killing her would not give Jonas or the Breed Ruling Cabinet the answers or the information they needed. Killing her would destroy his soul, but he knew Harmony would never trust him now. She was harder, too cautious and too aware of how easily she could be betrayed.
First, he had to weaken her, he had to find a vulnerability.
If his suspicions were correct, that vulnerability was strutting around Broken Butte, New Mexico, with all the arrogance and control of a man comfortable in the domain he had created.
At that thought, Jonas's lips curled in a satisfied smile as he rose to his feet and moved for the doorway of the office and the interrogation cell beyond. Before leaving the room,
he picked up the brush lying on the desk, tested the bristles against his palm and nodded shortly.
It had been many years since he had calmed her by brushing her hair. He wondered if she was still susceptible to what few good memories the labs had held. They had been few and far between, but despite the years they had spent apart, he was still her brother. Not just of the same species, but of the same mother.
The mother she had killed.
CHAPTER 1
Broken Butte, New Mexico Two Weeks Later
She was being watched. Harmony pulled her sporty Jeep into the parking lot of the small, rundown little bar just inside Broken Butte and considered her options.
She was scheduled to arrive at the Sheriff's Department in the morning, or else. Jonas's "or else," of course. So what the hell was she doing here when she should be going over those files tucked in her suitcase back at the hotel?
Because she was bored. Bored and restless and damned pissed at herself for allowing it to happen. The combination of emotions was depressing, and Harmony didn't do depressed well. She needed just a little fun. Just enough to maybe liven the night a bit. Nothing too heavy. A drink, maybe a good fight.
Her eyes narrowed at the entrance to the bar. With any luck, her tail would decide to make his way inside to be certain she was there. If she didn't tag him, then she was going to have to go hunting. And she just didn't have time to go hunting right now.
No, Harmony Lancaster, once known as Death, was going to have to toe the good-girl line for a six full months.
Which meant no going hunting. No unauthorized bloodshed. She grimaced at that, as she slung her tote over her shoulder and slammed the door to the Jeep closed.
Death, a good girl. Now there was an oxymoron. The very thought of it was enough to leave a sour taste in her mouth. It was one of the reasons she was making her way into this seedy little bar rather than researching her upcoming opponent: the good sheriff of Broken Butte.
Pushing her way through the old, saloon-style doors, she paused at the entrance, her gaze going over the array of cowboys staring back at her.
As she slid onto an empty bar stool, Harmony let her eyes sweep over the dancers at the far end of the room.
"What can I do for ya, honey?" She turned to the bartender's booming voice.
Tall, broad and bald, with a friendly smile, he reminded her of the bartender at her favorite biker bar in Chicago. Perhaps New Mexico wasn't as far from civilization as Jonas could possibly send her after all.
"Whiskey."
"Shot or glass?" he asked.
"Glass, no ice."
"You got it, honey." He nodded.
Picking up the drink, she turned her back to the bar and once again surveyed the room.
What the hell had convinced her that she could return to the States? No matter how important the job.
Children were her weakness. The plea had come from a former client, to help a friend locate his kidnapped daughter. A little girl no more than five, with big brown eyes and a mischievous smile. Harmony had been insane to agree. She had known Jonas was stalking her for nearly six months now. She should have never returned. Because she knew what he wanted in the end, just as she knew he more than ex-pected her to fail at this chance he had given her to escape Breed Law.
She shook her head at the thought. Her brother had aged more than he should have in the last ten years. The bitterness and cold, hard purpose in his eyes had only grown.
Like her, his French accent had totally evaporated since his escape from the labs, and his English was fluid and flawless. They had been trained to blend in, no matter where they were sent.
As she lifted her drink to her lips and ignored the frankly sexual glances she was receiving, she caught movement at the doorway from the corner of her eye. Turning her head, Harmony watched in appreciation as the thoroughly male form strode into the bar.
Now, she very much doubted this was her tail, though she wouldn't have minded in the least being his. At least six feet, three inches of broad, muscular male moved with lazy, casual grace.
He was dressed in jeans and a dark blue denim shirt that emphasized the heavily tanned contours of his face. His features were rugged, with high cheekbones, a sensually full lower lip and eyes a deep, navy blue that gleamed with suppressed amusement as he met her gaze. He was taking stock of her as carefully as she was taking stock of him. And it was evident that, as she did, he liked what he saw.
Had she ever so fully noticed a man before? Sexuality fairly screamed off this male, from the bulge in those snug jeans to the wide, muscular width of his shoulders. Shoulder-length, thick, straight black hair flowed around the arrogant features of his face and softened them just enough to make him seem approachable.
Harmony had admitted long ago she wasn't necessarily a sexual being, despite some of her more animal-like genetics. But this man, he made the feline inside her stand up and roar.
She could feel a strange receptivity flowing through her veins, peaking in her nipples and the suddenly sensitive folds of her pussy.
"Hey, Lance, buddy. 'Bout time you made it around to see us." Behind her, the bartender called out a greeting as the cowboy moved to the bar stool beside her. "Beer?"
"Beer works good, Stan," Lance answered with a slow drawl that had a shiver working up Harmony's spine.
She loved that voice. It was as smooth and dark as her whiskey.
Turning on the bar stool, Harmony met the bartender's gaze as she slid her glass forward for a refill.
"I'll get the lady's too, Stan."
Harmony nearly missed the offer, her senses suddenly infused with the scent of midnight storms and dark desert nights. The scent of the male at her side. Strong. Pure. No, this wasn't her tail, but for just a moment she could imagine him behind her, his hands shaping her rear before sliding against her, nudging her thighs apart.
"Thank you." She breathed in deeply as she turned her head, keeping her smile light, hiding the sharp canines at the side of her mouth.
Hers were smaller than most Breeds', and rarely noticed for what they were, but flashing them wasn't something she did often.
"You're welcome." The slightly crooked smile he gave her did something to the pit of her stomach. It fluttered. Hell, she had never had anything either on or in her body flutter in her entire life.
"My name's Harmony." She stuck her hand out, tilting her head to get a better look at his face.
"Lance." He nodded, extending his hand, his large, calloused palm engulfing her fingers.
The feel of his flesh against hers startled her. She could feel her hand sensitizing, her fingers tingling. Heat, unlike anything she knew, flowed from a simple handshake, from his body to hers.
Harmony's eyes widened as his narrowed, a small frown creasing his brow as he glanced at their joined hands. Did he feel it? That exchange of heat, of awareness?
"Well, that was odd enough." His smile was still lazy, but his gaze had sharpened with sensual awareness.
"Wasn't it?" Harmony cleared her throat as she brushed the long strands of her newly colored hair back from her face. She liked the soft dark russet tone of the color. It gave an added emphasis to her pale green eyes and dark brows.
The camouflage was a nice addition. Her naturally streaked hair was a dead giveaway to her Breed genetics. The mix of black, browns and golden ambers would have been instantly noticed.
"I haven't seen you around. Are you visiting relatives?" he asked.
"Not really." She shook her head as she turned back to him. "I'm just passing through."
She wished. Yet somehow she had a feeling it would not serve her purposes to allow this man to know she would be here for long.
"That's too bad." The regret shimmered in the air between them.
"Yes, it is." Harmony inhaled deeply, certain she could become addicted to his scent if she weren't extremely careful.
"So you're just here for the night?" He picked up the chilled bottle of beer as he voiced the question, his gaze darkening, his intent to seduce clear.
"Just for the night." Harmony nodded slowly.
"Alone?"
She hesitated as she met his gaze.
"I was."
She watched as he set the beer back on the bar, his eyes never leaving hers, holding her captive with a deep blue fire.
"I could be dangerous," he murmured then, his voice lowering to a near whisper as his eyes flirted with her shamelessly. "A stalker. An axe murderer. Once you left here with me, you would be in my clutches."
"Or you could be in mine," she whispered back, just as playfully.
"I would count myself lucky."
Harmony stilled the laughter rising in her throat at the outrageous comment. Laughter wasn't something she was used to, yet this man seemed to inspire it within moments of meeting him.
Ducking her head, Harmony fought to hide the smile trembling on her lips as she lifted her glass once again and took a fortifying sip of her drink.
"Second thoughts?" he asked.
Harmony lifted her head, swallowing tightly as she considered fighting the attraction. Perhaps for a second.
"I never have second thoughts," she finally assured him. "You?"
"Never." Male confidence surged through his expression. "Would you like to dance?"
"I would love to." She finished her drink before gathering her courage and laying her hand in his.
_________
Lance took the young woman's hand, once again feeling the surge of sensation that traveled from his palm to hers. He'd had no intention of coming into the bar tonight. Tomorrow's meeting with Jonas Wyatt, the head of the Bureau of Breed Affairs, would require all the patience he could muster. Which meant all the rest he could steal tonight.
Instead, the closer he had come to Stan's Last Rest, the bar at the edge of town, the more imperative the whispered warnings in the air around him had become. They hadn't screamed or moaned, and in them he hadn't heard secrets, as his grandfather often did. But he heard the demand. Just as he heard the feminine call resounding through his soul.
The moment he walked in the door he had known he was there for her. Their eyes touched and the whispering demand had eased.
Steering her to the dance floor, Lance drew her into his arms, feeling her hands settle against his shoulders as she kept just enough distance between them that the engorged length of his cock ached in disappointment.
He wanted to feel her flush against him. But not so much on the dance floor as in his bed. Naked, sweating, arching to his body as he led her to orgasm.
"Just passing through, huh?" he finally asked her as his fingers moved over her hips, growing closer to the small strip of bare flesh between her pants and her top. If he hadn't been mistaken, he had glimpsed a small belly ring when she rose from the bar stool.
"Just for the night." He watched her lips move, the soft pink curves damp and inviting.
"The night's disappearing fast." He ran his hand up her back, feeling the small tremor of her response.
He watched as she swallowed, a momentary confusion lighting the pale green of her eyes as her soft tongue flicked out to wet her lips. She wasn't nervous, but that edge of vulnerability in her gaze tore at him.
"Yes," she finally answered. "The night is disappearing fast. What should we do about that?" She wasn't playing coy or flirting. The words were a challenge, one that had the muscles of his abdomen tightening in anticipation.
"Did you come with friends?"
"I have no friends."
The odd response had him narrowing his eyes as he studied her from behind his lashes. For some reason, he had a feeling she didn't mean just in this area.
"Are you ready to leave then?" His fingertips pressed against her blouse, feeling the muscles of her back as that small tremor washed through them again.
"I'm ready." Resignation filled her tone and her expression.
Once again that strange, saddened little moan whispered past his ears as the air around them grew heavy with arousal. Hers and his. She was fighting the strength of her response to him, holding herself carefully back from him, refusing to relax in his embrace as her eyes swept quickly over the room.
Embarrassment? As though she wasn't quite certain that she wanted others to know her weakness, her arousal.
Lance waited until her gaze returned to his before speaking again.
"My place is just a few minutes from here. Are you ready to go?" he asked softly, knowing it was going to happen and damn if he wasn't looking forward to it.
He took her hand and led her from the dance floor as the music paused. "You could follow me, or I could drive you back here in the morning for your vehicle," he suggested as they stepped out of the bar.
"Could we take my Jeep?" She paused at the steps, staring into the darkness around them. "I'd hate to have it towed."
She was sure her new boss would just love having to get his deputy's vehicle out of impound if it was towed away. She'd prefer not to start this little working relationship off on the wrong foot. The next six months were going to be hard enough as it was.
"Sounds good to me." He nodded carefully as she pulled her keys from the inside of the tote she carried on her shoulder and handed them to him.
"The blue Jeep." She nodded to the wide-track, sporty Wrangler across the lot.
Keeping her hand in his, he led her across the parking lot. He unlocked the passenger-side door for her, letting her move between the door and the seat before he caught her hip with one hand and turned her to him.
He felt her tense, as though she still wasn't quite certain of what she was doing. It was obvious that leaving a bar with a stranger wasn't a commonplace occurrence for her.
"Are you sure?" He lowered his head until his lips were inches from the soft curves of hers, the scent of her wrapping around him, the smell of honeysuckle and a tint of clover infusing his senses.
"No second thoughts." Her breathing was rougher now, her lips parting as Lance allowed his hands to settle on her bare waist, to feel the incredibly soft flesh beneath them.
The temptation of those lips was too much to deny. He lowered his head as her hands fluttered against his chest, the feel of them sinking past the cloth of his shirt as he fought to rein in his desire.
Just a kiss, he promised himself as he touched her lips with his. He was the sheriff; he couldn't get caught necking in public. But one kiss surely wouldn't hurt.
Or so he thought. Until her lips parted on a soft little gasp, and her tongue touched his. The subtle taste of honeysuckle was stronger here, sweet and clean as it fueled his hunger.
Lance felt her hands slide up his chest, move to his neck, then bury themselves in his hair as a soft moan vibrated against his lips. He kissed her with soft greed, reminding himself each second that it could go no further. He could kiss her. Just a taste before the main course.
As his lips moved over hers, he found his hunger for her surging, overtaking his common sense and his control. His hands slid beneath her top, stroking the satiny flesh until they filled with the firm mounds of her breasts. And she was arching to him, her soft cry muffled by his suddenly devouring lips.
His tongue pushed against hers, twined with it, drew it to his lips and suckled it into his own mouth as she arched against him.
She tasted like hot, needy sex. Like a temptress made for lust, built for endurance and pleasure. And if he wasn't very, very careful he was going to end up fucking her right there in the parking lot.
"We're getting in trouble here." His hands slid from her breasts to her rear, gripping the snug curves and moving her against his thigh as his lips trailed over her jaw to her neck.
Lance nipped at the fragrant skin there as he felt the heated, cloth-covered curves of her pussy riding his thigh. She was panting for breath now, flushed, a soft dew of perspiration covering her skin.
"This isn't natural." Her voice was dazed, thick with need as he stroked his lips and tongue over her neck, heading for the valley of her breasts and the soft flesh he knew he would find there.
She was softer than any other woman he had ever touched. Sweeter. Hotter. And he was one second from ripping his jeans open, lifting her to the seat and fucking the hell out of her.
"I'm sure it is." Lance licked at the dampness between her breasts, tasting honeysuckle there as well. Damn, he was developing a fondness for honeysuckle. If only the taste wasn't so subtle. Then he could fill his senses with it, sate his need for it.
He flexed his fingers in the curves of her ass as he helped her ride him, swearing he could feel the damp heat of her pussy searing him through her pants and his jeans.
"You taste as sweet as summer," he growled. Her lips were at his forehead, pressing against him tentatively, causing him to pause in this frantic desperation to taste as much of her as possible, returning to him a measure of control.
Her lips touched him with feeling. He could feel it in the soft breeze that wrapped around them, the whisper of confusion and lost dreams in the air at his ear.
As though she had never willingly touched before.
CHAPTER 2
"Shhhh." Lance's soft croon whispered over Harmony's distraught senses as his head lifted from the curve of her breasts.
He lowered her shirt, the distracting touch of his hands on her breasts easing the arousal threatening to overwhelm her.
She stared up at him, dazed, as his hands pressed her hair back from her heated cheeks, before he placed a tender kiss on her lips.
"In you go," he whispered.
Moving his hands to her hips he lifted her to the seat before picking up her purse from the pavement to hand it in to her.
She had lost her only protection as he held her? Her tote held her knife and the small gun she carried when she couldn't wear her weapons. She never let it off her arm unless absolutely necessary. And she had never, ever dropped it.
She flinched as the driver's side door opened and he got in. She could smell him, an intoxicating blend of the night and the seasons merging into his scent.
"Ready?" His voice was dark, the rasp of a sexually aroused primal male ready to claim a female.
She lifted her head, inhaling deeply as her gaze met his.
"I'm ready," she whispered.
She was past ready. Her body was screaming for him now. Her senses were dazed, her mind in upheaval. She couldn't think of anything past his touch, gorging herself on him, sating the hunger raging in her flesh.
She had gone from a lifetime of never caring either way if she lay beneath a man, to being suddenly desperate to feel him covering her.
Lance started the vehicle and pulled out of the parking lot as Harmony kept her peripheral vision trained on the small mirror at the side of her door. She could see no evidence that they were being followed, but her nape prickled in awareness.
Unfortunately her survival instinct was squelched the moment Lance's hand moved from the gearshift to lift hers from her lap.
"Your hands are soft." His voice was a bit unsteady, his lust rising as he laid her hand on the gearshift, covering it with his own as he drove.
"Thank you." She had learned how to flirt within a year of her escape from the labs. She knew the word games, the social repartee that kept men at a distance. But none of it came to mind now.
All she knew was the pulse of her heartbeat in the stiffness of her nipples, in the engorged bud of her clitoris and her hungry vagina. She was so wet she could feel her own juices dampening the silk of her thong and the rasp of the swollen folds of her pussy against the ultrasoft denim she wore.
His thumb caressed over hers, the faintly calloused flesh exciting sensitive nerve endings as Harmony fought to catch her breath.
"Is this your first time to Broken Butte?" His voice was quiet in the confines of the vehicle.
Harmony shifted in her seat, swallowing tightly as she frowned at the oddly sweet taste filling her mouth. She wanted his taste. The rich earthy essence of the wind and the land against her tongue.
"Yes." She breathed in deeply, closing her eyes briefly in an effort to maintain her control.
She had never been on such an edge. She didn't feel wholly herself, and that was damned scary. She had never been out of control. She processed information quickly and her decisions were ones she knew had merit.
This hunger had no merit, it made no sense. The completely illogical clawing need was throwing her mind and her body into havoc.
She had never given her status as a female much consideration, until now. Now she could feel the weakening arousal, the pulse of melting flesh between her thighs, a hunger to submit, to be possessed.
"Have you been here long?" His thumb drew circles at the side of her hand, caressing and massaging as she turned slowly to him.
She just needed one more taste. Her breathing was heavy, labored as he flicked on the turn signal and turned off the main road onto a graveled drive. It stretched ahead of them, never ending, and the wracking desire filling her senses was finding no relief.
"I haven't been here long," she whispered in reply, her gaze centering on his lips. "Kiss me again, Lance."
His grimace was tight, pained.
"If I kiss you again, I'm not going to make it to the house before I have you beneath me."
"I don't care." She really didn't care. All that mattered was that kiss, his touch.
His hand tightened on hers briefly before he lifted her fingers and laid them back in her lap.
"We're almost at the house." His voice was as strained and tense as she felt. "Just another minute or two, sweetheart."
He shifted in his seat, obviously hoping to relieve the pressure of his jeans on his erection. She could smell his hunger wrapping around her.
Harmony closed her eyes, fighting to hold back, to wait, just a few more minutes. Her dazed senses were demanding, this strange, unknown arousal so imperative every inch of her flesh ached for his touch.
And she was on fire. She felt as though she were in the midst of a fever, flushed, so sensitive that the air inside the Jeep seemed too heavy to breathe.
"God, the look on your face." His voice was strained as the Jeep accelerated. "You're killing me here."
She opened her eyes, laying her head back on the headrest as she watched him through drowsy eyes.
"What do I look like?"
"Hungry," he whispered. "So aroused and hungry that you make me ache to see you sated."
Could she be sated?
"I want you now," she said softly. "And that terrifies me. A bit," she acknowledged with a wry smile.
Life had to mean something to you for you to fear the consequences of your actions. Her own life had never mattered much beyond fulfilling her responsibilities to others. Until now.
Living meant pleasure now. It meant his touch, his kiss, an adventure in sensation she had never imagined she would find.
"There's the house." He nodded ahead as the headlights picked up the faint outline of a single-story ranch. The sprawling design looked lazy and comfortable, the porch light bathing the front of the house in a gentle inviting glow.
Lance pulled the Jeep to a stop beside the cement walkway that led to the porch. Pulling the keys free of the ignition, he turned to his guest and watched her silently.
Her pale green eyes stared back at him from drowsily lowered lids as the flush on her cheeks and the swollen curves of her lips attested to her arousal.
He was in agony himself. His cock was like a wedge of iron in his pants, hot and throbbing in need to bury itself inside her. His tongue ached to taste her. The taste of her just might well be addictive. He was tormented with the memory of it—the subtle sweetness, the hint of heat.
"Are you ready?"
She nodded back, her expression somber as he opened his door to step out of the vehicle. But he paused. Just one taste. They were close enough to the house. He could surely keep his control long enough to taste her one more time.
He let her move ahead of him to the sidewalk, his gaze dropping to the bunch and sway of her buttocks, his hands itching to grip them, to clench and hold tight as he pounded inside her.
He grimaced at the rising lust tormenting his balls. They were as tight as his cock, tortured, aching for release. He'd thought he wanted her before that kiss, but after his lips touched hers, the hunger had only increased. Was rapidly increasing even now.
"Here we go." He let his hand rest on her hip as he opened the screen door and dug his keys from his pocket. He grunted at the pinch of the material against his erection, but managed to pull the key ring free.
He unlocked the door and stepped in, scanning the interior quickly, his senses picking up every nuance of the house as he surveyed the room.
"You have a beautiful home." She stepped into the entryway, her voice soft. The soft light overhead created a gentle halo around the silken mass of dark russet hair that fell sleekly about her face.
"Hungry?"
She shook her head no and he felt his muscles tighten further. If possible, his cock got harder.
"Drink?"
"No, thank you." Her arms hung at her sides as though relaxed, but he could feel the tension filling her.
Holding out his hand in invitation, he watched as she reached out for him without hesitation. Her slender fingers curled into his, warm. Accepting. Willing.
He couldn't help but smile down at her, loving that little light of perplexed curiosity that filled her gaze each time he did so. As though no one had ever smiled at her before.
"Bedroom?" he asked then.
She tilted her head, staring back at him as she inhaled slowly, deeply. He watched the flush deepen in her cheeks, saw the concern that darkened in her eyes.
Her tongue peeked out, swiping over her lips in the first true sign of nerves he had seen from her.
"The bedroom." Her voice was husky, vibrating with desire.
As he entered the bedroom, the automatic lights eased on, a low, dim lighting that shadowed the room and kept the intimate atmosphere he enjoyed.
He closed the door behind them, turning to her and giving her no time to voice whatever she was going to say. He wanted no objections, couldn't bear to hear her hesitation. He wanted her soft and sweet against him again, her tongue licking over his like a little cat's, the taste of her, that wild honeysuckle and clover taste overwhelming his senses as it had earlier.
His lips settled against hers as he fought to hold back his lust. His hands pulled her to him, fitting her slender curves into his taller body, his arms crossing over her back as he sipped from her lips, deep, drugging kisses that only served to further inflame the need.
She was slender beneath his hands, smaller, more delicate than she appeared. But he could feel the strength in her.
Sharp little nails pricked through his shirt as her fingers clenched against him. A tight groan escaped him as her thighs moved against his, the firm planes of her abdomen cushioning the raging length of his cock. Slanting his lips over hers, he worked his tongue into her mouth, seeking the soft slide of hers and the elixir of passion that seemed to fill her mouth.
Damn, she tasted good. Her tongue twined with his, spilling sweet honey into his senses, the taste burning through his mind like an aphrodisiac.
"Come here." His hands cupped her ass. Fully curved, firm—his fingers clenched into them as he lifted her to him, groaning as her legs curved around his hips, the soft pad of her pussy cushioning his erection.
"You're like fire." He nipped at her lips as he moved her to the bed, laying her beneath him. "So sweet and hot I could lose my mind in you."
He was losing his mind in her. His fingers moved to her shirt, fumbling, as he drew it over her head, revealing the lace of her bra, her heaving breasts, before he tossed it aside.
No woman had ever affected him like this, had ever made him burn, made every cell in his body ache and throb for her touch, her taste. She was so damned feminine, so soft and warm, yet firm and resilient, that he had to clench his teeth from howling with his need for her.
And she watched him, her hands falling to her sides, the sea green of her eyes blazing with passion and confusion.
He removed her shoes, the functional white socks. Her feet were slender, delicate, the high arch and painted little toenails so sweet he grimaced at the sight.
There was nothing like a woman—softly scented, lightly colored, with all their makeup tricks and confident resourcefulness that turned a man inside out. They were weak, yet the strongest force on the face of the earth. And this woman would quickly become his world. He felt it. Knew it with every fiber of his being.
She wore only the bare minimum of makeup, enough to enhance rather than cover up, but it was the scarlet shade of those little toenails that pushed him over the edge. She pampered those feet. Babied them. They were as soft as silk, perfectly trimmed and pedicured, and they shimmered with beauty.
He lifted one, watching her as he placed the arch against his whisker-roughened cheek, feeling the silken touch as her toes curled and surprise lit her eyes.
He turned his head, lowering it, then nipped at the curve of her big toe before licking over it with utmost gentleness.
Her eyes flared, shock and something akin to fear filling them.
"You have pretty feet." He massaged it for a moment before releasing her.
She swallowed, opened her lips to speak, then bit the lower curve as his fingers moved to her jeans. The snap and zipper released quickly. Her hips lifted as he eased the fabric over them, sliding them down her thighs, his fingers touching sweet satin flesh as the material cleared her legs.
She reached for him then, her hands shaking, a small, almost imperceptible moan on her lips.
"Not yet." He pushed her hands back to the bed. "Wait, baby. Let me touch you. If you get those hot little hands on me first, I'm going to lose control and fuck you until neither one of us has the strength to worry about foreplay. Just lie there. Just for a bit."
"I need to touch you." The words sounded torn from her, though she did as he asked, her fingers curling into fists as they lay at her head.
"And I need you to touch me," he admitted, fighting to clear the haze of lust from his mind. "Just not yet."
He moved back, his eyes going over the sight of her. The fragile lace of her bra that did nothing to hide her tight nipples. Her flat, tanned abdomen and the delicate white silk of her thong, the material damp enough to outline the soft curves of her pussy.
He breathed out. A rough exhalation at the knowledge that beneath the fragile silk lay bare flesh. Her sweet juices had dampened the fabric just enough to see that no feminine curls marred the luscious curves.
"Do you shave?" He jerked his boots off, unable to look away from the damp silk.
"No. Wax." She sounded uncomfortable.
He looked up, flashing her a grin of approval as the last boot dropped to the floor. He jerked his shirt over his head, not bothering with buttons, then tore at his belt before
jerking the snaps of his jeans apart. His dick was killing him. He was harder, hotter than he could ever remember being in his life.
"I'm going to eat that pretty pussy," he whispered as he shed jeans and underwear in one economical move. "I'm going to spread your legs and gorge myself on you. I bet that honeysuckle taste is there too. I like honeysuckle, Harmony. I like it real well."
He wrapped his fingers around his erection, his eyes returning to hers, a tight smile curving his lips at the erotic flush covering her face, her neck. Her lips were parted, shiny from the dampness of her tongue. Her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated and filled with shocked hunger.
He should be shocked himself. He had never been this damned hot, this hard for a woman in his life. He reached over to the nightstand, jerking a condom from the drawer and quickly tearing apart the wrapper. If he didn't do it now, he wouldn't have enough mind to do it later.
He extended his hand to her then, the latex circle gripped lightly between his fingers.
He couldn't make himself say the words. If he spoke, he was going to scare the hell out of her and himself with the animalistic growl in his throat.
She looked at the condom.
"I'm protected. And I'm clean," she said.
His cock jerked at the soft sound of her voice, the knowledge that he could sink into her, bare, feel her touching him, wrapping around him.
He shook his head. "No one can be sure, baby. Come on. Touch me now."
Amusement flickered in her gaze, some hidden knowledge he hoped he could remember to delve into further. Then she was rising, sitting before him, her face level with the straining length of his cock.
She took the condom from his fingers, but as his hand dropped to her shoulder, that wasn't what she covered the head of his erection with. Her tongue, blistering with heat, like rough velvet, swiped over the bulging crest.
"Harmony…" His hand moved to her hair. "Baby. This might not be a good idea." His self-control was strained to the limit.
"Hmm." She hummed around the sensitive flesh as her lips opened, her mouth sinking over him, drawing a strangled groan from his throat as his fingers tightened in her hair.
Her tongue was a lash of pleasure so erotic, so hungry, he was straining to hold back, to keep from losing control and his semen between those snug, pouty lips.
But he couldn't keep from moving against her, from watching his hard flesh slide from her lips before pushing back, sinking inside her until he knew he could go no farther. And still she stared up at him, her eyes wild with lust, her body shuddering from it. Tremors shook her fingers as they moved over the shaft of his cock, the other hand cupping his tight balls, her fingers combing through the hair that grew there.
And all he could do was watch. Watch and thrust inside her mouth, slow and easy, his teeth clenched tight as he fought to hold back the release sizzling at the base of his spine.
"Enough." He pulled back, his fingers holding tight to her head as she fought to follow him, her lips shiny, swollen from his possession of them.
"I want more," she whispered as he uncurled her fingers from the pulsing flesh. "Let me touch you, Lance. Just this once."
"Soon. Not yet, baby."
He pushed her back to the bed, followed her, and when his lips covered hers, the sweet taste of her filling his senses again, he forgot about control.
His fingers tunneled into her hair, holding her head in place as he let his lips devour her. He teased her tongue, sucked at it, slow, gentle pulls that seemed to intensify the taste he craved.
He was dying for her, craving her. He was becoming addicted.
______
Harmony fought. It was a losing battle, but still she fought to maintain enough control to be alert, to be on guard. Something wasn't right here, not quite normal. From the moment she caught sight of him tonight, she had known her fascination with him was too strong. Too intense.
But this, this lust, was insane. It clawed at her womb, dug into her pussy and sent her juices spilling from her spasming vagina. It made her clutch at him, her lips opening beneath his as he removed her bra, leaving only the thong. And that for only the length of time it took for his hands to get to her hips and tear it away.
"Fuck, you're hot." He groaned as she cried out. His fingers were sliding through the wet slit between her thighs, his thumb rubbing over her clit, circling it with devastating results as his lips moved down her neck, heading for the heaving curves of her breasts.
The pleasure was agonizing. Harmony had never known of sensations so extreme, so brutal that she couldn't focus her senses elsewhere at the same time. She had never known anything but terror that could overtake the body, the heart and the soul in one fell swoop. Until now.
Lance's hands touched her, caressed, spreading fire, creating a firestorm of bliss that burned through any other thought, any other instinct.
The need to mate became imperative. To feel his body moving over her, inside her, taking her, possessing her…
"Fuck me!" She barely held back the snarl as his lips and tongue moved to a painfully erect, highly sensitive nipple.
He chuckled, a dark sound of satisfaction as his finger moved from the slick contours of her pussy to grip her hip, holding her in place as she arched against him.
"Soon," he whispered. "Easy, baby. Let's see how hot it can get."
She couldn't imagine hotter. Couldn't imagine surviving it if her body became so much as a breath more sensitive.
"It can't get hotter," she gasped, no longer recognizing herself or her own body as his teeth raked over her nipple, drawing a ragged cry from her throat. If it became hotter, there was no way she could survive. No way to turn from him unaffected.
"Of course it can," he crooned, his voice husky, rough. He gave her nipple a gentle nip.
She stared down at him, seeing the sexual, sensual animal bending over her, and wanted to cry out at the injustice of it.
One night. Just one night.
Her hands were tangled in his hair, and she couldn't remember moving them from the bed. But she felt the coarse strands between her fingers, the warmth of it heating the sensitive pads.
"I need you now." She was shaking, trembling with that need, but she couldn't control the impulse to touch him. One hand fell from his hair to his face, her fingers moving over the hard planes and angles, tentatively smoothing over his lips.
He nipped her thumb, gripped it between his straight, white teeth as his tongue swiped over it with hungry heat.
"We could play later," she whispered breathlessly, on fire, feeling the thick length of his cock by her thigh as her pussy wept in need of it.
"We'll play later too." His fingers wrapped around her wrist, lowering it to his shoulder as his head dipped, his tongue trailing down the middle of her stomach in a rapid course to the tormented flesh between her thighs.
He glanced up at her with each kiss to her quivering belly, his eyes sparkling with warmth, laughter and hunger. A wild, vibrant hunger echoed and built within her until she could feel the flames overtaking her.
"Lance." The sound of her own cry shocked her—hoarse, edged with desperation as his head neared the soaked curves of her pussy. "I can't take it… Please…"
She was on the edge of a precipice that terrified her. She had never flown so high, never known such pleasure. Holding onto her control, shredded though it was, became imperative.
"Just a little bit more, baby. I just want a little taste. That's all… Just lay back and let it feel good. I promise to make it feel good." His wicked smile was followed by a puff of air over the violently sensitive, swollen clit.
Darkness shrouded her then. Her eyes closed, her strength drained until she could do nothing but respond. She arched to him, a shattered cry leaving her throat as his tongue moved in to torture her, to torment her quaking cunt.
"There's a good girl." He groaned as her thighs fell open farther. "Let me show you how good it can be, baby."
Good? It surpassed good. It was torture.
His tongue was a flaming lash of pleasure, working its way slowly through the narrow slit as his fingers parted the plump lips.
"So sweet and bare." He groaned. "I love your naked pussy, Harmony. I love feeling all your silky flesh, wet and hot and straining toward me."
She strained harder. His tongue licked through each fold, tickled around her clit, slid down, rimmed the spasming opening to her vagina and then began again.
Gasping, fighting to breathe, Harmony felt her hands gripping his hair, her nails digging into his scalp as she fought to hold him in one place, to find the release hovering just out of reach.
His tongue was wicked, imperious. It sought, demanded, and drew from her a pleasure that exceeded any she had heard of, let alone known. It sent lightning crashing through her system. Tidal waves of sensation clashed through her mind, causing her to jerk, to shudder, her cries to echo around her as control was lost.
When his lips moved back to her clit, a hard male finger tested the entrance to her pussy, worked in, caressed and stroked, sending spasms racing through the very heart of her womb.
"Lance…" Her scream was strangled. "For God's sake. Please…"
Another finger joined the first. His lips covered the swollen bud of her clitoris, drawing it into his mouth, his tongue flickering over it like flames of lust as she felt herself fly higher. Higher.
Sensation ripped through her. Tore through her nervous system, shredded her soul. Her orgasm slammed her, tightened her body, and sent her racing toward a heat and brilliance so extreme, so intense she lost herself within it.
Lance's hard growl filled her head as he moved to cover her then, his thighs spreading hers farther, the blunt, thick head of his cock separating the folds of her pussy.
"Look at me."
Look at him? She struggled to open her eyes, to make sense of the violent tremors surging through her. What she saw did nothing to restore her control or her equilibrium. His eyes were so blue, a deep, impossibly brilliant blue, his features taut, savagely so, his lips swollen as he stared down at her and slapped a condom into her hand.
"Now." He jerked upright, the thick, pulsing stalk of his cock angling away from his body, spearing toward her, throbbing with the same furious, desperate hunger surging through her cunt.
Her eyes moved slowly, reluctantly to her palm and the condom he had placed there.
"Put. It. On."
She blinked at the guttural sound of his voice.
"You don't need—"
"Now!" His hands gripped her thighs, his eyes blazing down at her.
She swallowed tightly, her fingers shaking, trembling as she moved to do as he ordered as quickly as possible. She needed him; her pussy burned, hurt. Her tongue throbbed. Every cell in her flamed in demand.
Her fingers were shaking so bad she could barely fit the disk over the bulging, damp head.
"I can't." It slipped, moved, slid. She couldn't make her fingers work.
"Put the damned thing on, Harmony." His body jerked, shuddered.
"Fuck it." She threw the condom, lifted her hips until the swollen head pressed against the entrance to her cunt. "Fuck me. I told you, you don't need the son of a bit—"
The invasion—it could be called nothing else, an impalement, a penetration that tore through her, stretched her and destroyed her.
Harmony heard herself screaming his name. Her legs wrapped around his plunging hips, her lips opened for his, her tongue battling his the moment they touched.
She was filled to her limit, the tearing pleasure whipping through her, overloading her senses until nothing mattered, no one mattered, the world dissolved until nothing existed but Lance. His touch. His kiss, feeling the jackhammer strokes of his cock powering inside her pussy as her tongue filled his mouth, the taste of wild honey, of spice, an aphrodisiac that heightened each sensation and sent her careening into ecstasy.
Her body jerked violently as the next orgasm ripped through her. She bucked, shuddered, fighting to scream, but only a whimper emerged as he tore his lips from hers. A strangled male cry filled the air then, followed quickly by the strangest, most terrifying sensation she had ever known.
She cried out at the feel of his semen rushing through her, seeping into the very pores of the spasming flesh, easing the flaming lust, soaking into her womb.
She felt it. Felt each heated pulse of semen fill her, change her, complete her just before her teeth sank into his shoulder and she tasted his blood. And in that moment sensed her own defeat.
CHAPTER 3
Lance was enraged. The next morning he paced his office, scowling, his body burning as his cock throbbed in his jeans and the bite at his shoulder burned in need.
Son of a bitch. A fucking Breed. He became aware of what she was the moment those sharp little teeth of hers pierced his flesh. He had seen the mark on his cousin Megan's shoulder nearly a year before. Placed there by her mate, Braden Arness.
"I can't find anyone that meets your description in the database, Lance." Braden growled in irritation.
"Now look, dammit, I know she's a Breed," Lance snapped. "She has to be in there."
"Lance, I've been searching these damned files for an hour now. She's not in here. What the hell is this about?"
Lance drew in a hard breath.
"The bitch bit me last night, Braden," he finally snarled. "I picked her up at the bar and took her home."
"You had sex with her, and she bit you?" Braden's voice was carefully bland. "What did you say her name was again?"
"Harmony. She didn't give me a last name. Russet hair, pale green eyes, about five-seven."
"Any tattoos or distinguishing marks?" Braden asked.
Lance frowned. He barely remembered a small tattoo.
"Her right shoulder, I can't be sure, but I think it was a scythe."
Silence filled the line as the air around him whispered in warning.
"Are you certain of that? A scythe."
"A red scythe, no more than an inch and a half high. I saw it just before she jerked her shirt on. By the time she turned around with the fucking gun in her hand, I forgot about it."
She had held a gun on him. A small, snub-nosed though powerful military-issue Beretta. And those babies packed a wallop, despite their size.
"Damn. That's bad." Braden's voice was suddenly deeper; the animalistic growl of his Breed heritage only showed itself in times of anger or stress.
"The Breed part or the scythe part?" Lance asked. "You have to be a bit clearer here, Braden. My mind's not exactly working at its normal speed."
And he knew why. He knew and it pissed him off. God help her if he got his hands on her again. The first thing he was going to do was spank that pretty ass for running. The second thing he would do was fuck her until she didn't have the strength to run again.
"According to my files, the Breed with that mark is one badass you don't want to mess with. We call her by her lab name, because she never chose another that we knew of. Her name is Death, Lance. She's wanted not just by the Bureau of Breed Affairs but by several government agencies as well, for questioning in the assassinations of suspected child abusers as well as suspected Council scientists. If Death mated you, cuz, then you're screwed."
The woman in his arms had been no killer. "There has to be a mistake."
"No mistake," Braden said in denial. "No other Breed would dare wear that mark. Death is a possessive bitch. She's a class A assassin with the added rating of knifemanship. Death doesn't feel, Lance. And how the hell you could have mated with her makes no sense."
Because every instance of mating heat that had occurred in the Breed society had involved emotion. To their knowledge there hadn't been a mating that hadn't been a match of not just the physical, but the psychological and emotional as well. Lance knew that from the few explanations Megan had given him in regards to her relationship with Braden.
"Then there's a mistake," Lance grated out. "Is there a description on this 'Death'?"
"Oh yeah," Braden sighed. "The description of her hair was throwing me off. Her hair is the color of a true lion's mane rather than just a similarity. Eye color pale green. Height five-seven, age twenty-five. She escaped the labs at fifteen after killing every scientist in the facility. Including her own mother."
The air began to wail at his ear.
"There's a notation here that an op went out a few weeks ago to a suspected sighting, but no update."
"Get me her file. I want the complete dossier on her, and see what else you can find out. I'm taking the day off and going looking for her myself."
"Whoa, hold up there, man," Braden protested furiously. "Didn't you hear what I just said? This woman is one of the most lethal killers in our ranks. She hunts Coyotes for fun, Lance. And she kills them. She'll take you out if she even thinks you're going to get close."
"According to you, the mating heat goes both ways, right?" Lance reminded him.
"As far as I know. According to all the reports the Bureau has listed of mated pairs, it's always a two-way street."
"Then she's likely in no better shape than I am," Lance pointed out.
Braden sighed. "If the mating went both ways, she's likely in worse shape," he growled. "If, Lance. That's a hell of a supposition though. From what I'm seeing on the database here, this woman has no soul. You could just be swimming in hell by yourself."
"Not hardly." Lance raked his fingers through his hair, grimacing at the memory of her face, her eyes, before she left. "It has her too, Braden. I'd bet my life on it."
"Which is exactly what you are betting." Braden breathed out roughly. "Give me an hour. Wait there on me and I'll go out with you. You'll need backup on this one, Lance, and I
don't want Megan anywhere near her. She still hasn't recovered from the search we did for her."
"What search?" Lance clenched his teeth at that information.
"After leaving Sanctuary last year, our first mission was to locate Death. We thought we were getting close, then she just disappeared."
"Where is Megan?" She would tell him. She wouldn't hide information she knew he would need.
"Megan flew back to Sanctuary this morning to pick up one of the new girls we're training here at the ranch. She won't be back till morning."
Now, wasn't that just perfect timing?
Lance stared out into the park, watching as the breeze swayed in the trees, the low psychic moan he heard whispering around him, a warning and plea.
"I'm heading out in an hour," he finally said and sighed roughly. "Get over here if you're going with me. I don't have all day."
Because if he didn't get Harmony beneath him again, he was going to explode with the lust ripping through him.
"I'm getting everything together now. I'll see you in an hour." The line disconnected as Lance jerked the phone link from his ear and tossed it to his desk.
Just what the fuck he needed, he scowled. H. R. Alonzo, one of the most virulent opponents of the Breeds, was already protesting city hall over the Breeds training at Megan's ranch, and members of the Blood Purity Society were streaming in. Journalists were camped out at the hotels, and the situation was rapidly escalating from a headache to a problem.
He sure as hell didn't need this added complication. And the moment he got his hands on Harmony again, he intended to make his displeasure known. In a variety ways. All of them guaranteed to make her come.
______
Harmony was barely ready when Jonas and the Breed lawyer arrived at her hotel room late that morning. She hadn't slept, and makeup wasn't covering the results of that well. And she was in pain. Physical, aching pain from the arousal building within her.
Since when did a lack of screwing actually hurt?
Dressed in the soft black cotton uniform of a Breed Enforcer, she adjusted her utility belt at her hips and made certain her gun was comfortably holstered. Her knife was strapped to her opposite thigh, and tucked into her right ankle boot was a secondary dagger. The clothes were driving her crazy though.
The rasp of the material against her flesh was an irritation she wondered if she would survive. And she was hot. She felt as though she were burning alive from the inside out.
Her womb sizzled with need; her pussy was so wet she had given up attempting to stem the slick juices that kept her prepared for penetration, and just thanked God that it wasn't seeping through her clothing.
When she opened the door to Jonas, she avoided his eyes and stepped into the hall, slamming the door behind her. At his side, J. R. "Jess" Warden, the Bureau's attorney, watched her with a glimmer of surprise in her eyes.
"Let's get it the hell over with," she snapped as she started down the hall. "Have you informed your sheriff yet of who he's being saddled with?"
"Did you sleep well last night, Harmony?" His voice was taunting as he finally began walking to her, his nostrils flaring as her eyes narrowed on him.
The bastard. He knew. Whatever was wrong with her he could smell it.
"I slept fine, Jonas," she purred menacingly as she glanced at Jess, then back to him. "And you?"
His lips quirked, though the smug confidence was held firmly in place.
"I slept quite well." He moved slowly ahead of her. "You seem agitated this morning. Is something wrong?"
She was tempted to snarl, but restrained the urge. "Just your normal Breed psychosis," she retorted disdainfully, repeating the psychologist's profile Jonas had ordered before she left for Broken Butte.
As though her fondness for shedding blood had anything to do with her genetics. The lives she had taken after escape never weighed on her conscience. The monsters she had taken out were a disease. The world was better off with them dead.
No, it was the lives she had taken before her escape that haunted her nightmares. It was those that left her gasping for breath, a plea on her lips as she fought to escape the horrors that visited her. Harmony wasn't still alive because she loved life. Nor was she still here for vengeance. She lived because she knew hell awaited her after death.
Entering the elevator behind Jonas, Harmony turned to face the doors, ignoring the looks her brother cast her. Jonas Wyatt, they called him. She had called him Alpha One. The leader of the small contingent of Lion Breeds at the French Labs wherein they had been created.
Even though he had been younger than several of the other Breeds there, his strength and natural dominance had assured his steady rise within the ranks. He had been created as a breeder for a few specially created females, a last attempt to see if they could create the soldier they were searching for through other means. Instead, Jonas had grown to excel in areas the head scientist, Madame LaRue, had never expected.
Deceptive, powerful, completely logical and coldhearted, Jonas had taken control of the other males from the time he reached his maturity. He manipulated them, maneuvered them and always managed to get the best out of them.
Harmony stared up at the ceiling patiently.
"Sheriff Jacobs will be your representative," Jonas informed her as the doors opened and they stepped out into the lobby, the attorney trailing behind them. "You'll live in his home, under his guidance for the time you'll be here. He'll report to the Bureau once a
week on your progress. He's a fairly responsible individual. I'm certain I won't have to worry about him."
Harmony kept her pace steady as she moved along with him, tempering her opinion on his orders.
She had no idea what Jonas's game was, or how he hoped to accomplish his goals by sticking her in this little tourist trap, but she was certain she would figure it out. One thing she did know, she was not about to turn over the one thing she suspected he was after: the information she had hidden on the first Leo, the first Breed created and still living— information she had stolen when she escaped the labs.
"Are you listening to me, Harmony?" he finally asked as they stepped into the sunlit courtyard at the entrance to the hotel and he slid his dark glasses over his eyes.
"I heard you, Jonas." She smiled back coolly, reminding herself, forcefully, that she couldn't kill him. Well, she could. It would be a fight, but technically, it could be arranged. But she was fairly certain that doing so wasn't in her best interests at the moment.
He smiled, flashing his dominant canines threateningly. Drama just seemed to go hand in hand with the Breeds these days. She remembered a time when they kept their opinions to themselves and just killed. Rather like she did. The threatening thing just seemed useless to her.
"I think you're going to like Sheriff Jacobs." He finally nodded to the courthouse and Sheriff's Department on the other side of the small park they were crossing the street to. "Several of the Breed females consider him quite handsome."
Harmony barely suppressed her shudder, or the whimper that yearned to pass her lips as she kept pace with him. Walking was torturous. Agonizing. The swollen folds of her pussy rasped against her silk panties as the engorged bud of her clitoris demanded relief.
She had attempted masturbation. To her own peril. It had only increased the arousal rather than diminishing it.
As they crossed the park, Harmony fought to tamp down her growing agitation. Jonas kept a steady pace, even as his voice droned on. The do's and don'ts of how to act and react as a sheriff's deputy. As though she knew nothing but killing.
"Here we are." They stepped onto the walkway that led to the entrance of the Sheriff's Department. The building was one story, with tall, wide windows and an Old West charm she appreciated.
The door swung open as Jonas stepped aside and allowed her to enter ahead of him. She cast him a suspicious look at the move, only to receive a mocking smile in return.
"Straight ahead." He nodded to the hallway on the other side of the reception area as he lifted his hand to the desk sergeant. "His office is at the end of the hall."
Harmony drew in a deep breath as she prayed for patience, only to flinch and jerk from Jonas's reach as his hand moved to her back.
"Okay?" He lifted his brows as his silvery eyes gleamed with amusement.
No, that wasn't okay, she thought, suddenly feeling the beginnings of fear settling in the pit of her stomach. Something was horribly wrong. The feel of his hand, even with her clothing as a buffer, had nearly made her physically ill. Even now, her flesh turned clammy as a cold burn began to build beneath the skin.
"Let's get this over with." A tremor raced down her spine as she moved for the hallway.
Jonas was up to something and she knew it. She could feel the warning tightening in her stomach, the sense of danger settling around her shoulders as they neared the end of the hallway.
Then his scent hit her. Midnight and storms. The earth, fresh and primal, pulling at her, reminding forcibly of the agonizing need building inside her.
Her steps slowed.
"Keep moving, Harmony." Jonas's voice was commanding, brooking no refusal as she felt every nerve ending in her body perking up in awareness.
Lance.
"What's his name?" she whispered, drawing steadily closer to the door, aware that there was no escape.
Getting past Jonas would be impossible.
She stopped several feet from the door, the smell of the man inside igniting her lust to a flaming height. She could almost feel his touch as the air grew heavy around her. His hands, broad and calloused, his lips, firm and heated.
"Lance."
His answer had her closing her eyes as sure knowledge rose inside her. She turned slowly, staring up at Jonas as he met her gaze coolly.
"What have you done to me?" she whispered, knowing, certain that somehow Jonas knew what was happening to her and why.
The blood tests, the saliva tests, the psychological profiles—they had been done for a reason. For this. She knew it. She hadn't survived in the world for the past ten years in her vocation and not learned when to trust her own instincts.
"Let's just say I've hedged my bets," he remarked as he reached around her and knocked imperiously on the door. "You can thank me later."
Harmony turned as the door swung open and the scent of pure, hard male lust swamped her. She felt her knees weaken and her womb clenched painfully as she stared up into surprised, then suspicious midnight blue eyes.
Lance's gaze tore from hers to stare behind her, the scowl deepening at his brow as anger lit his features.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he snapped at Jonas a second before gripping Harmony's arm and pulling her into the room.
At any other time, the fact that someone attempted to slam the door in Jonas's face would have been funny. She could have even respected the attempt if she wasn't about to orgasm from the feel of his hand wrapping around her arm.
As Jonas stepped into the room, she jerked away from Lance, only to turn and face yet another daunting figure.
Braden Arness. Husband to the empath, Megan Arness. They had tracked her to France last year and nearly caught up with her.
She stepped back, her hand going to the gun strapped to her thigh as she moved far enough back to keep all three men in her line of sight.
This wasn't a good thing.
"You. Stay put and get your hand off that damned gun." Lance pointed his finger at her furiously, the raw dominance in his voice causing her eyes to widen.
"And you can get the hell out of my office." He swung around as Jonas closed the door behind him. "You and the shark attorney of yours. I had enough of your games last year, Jonas."
Jess Warden smiled, the curve of her lips holding rueful amusement, as though his words were more a compliment than an insult. But her eyes stayed on Lance. Soft gray eyes that held a glimmer of interest and lust. Hell, Harmony could smell the other female's lust and it just pissed her off.
"If I leave, Harmony goes with me." Jonas shrugged easily as he tucked his hands into his slacks and rocked back on his heels.
Harmony's hand clenched around the butt of her gun. She knew that voice, just as she knew how dangerous Jonas could be when he used it.
God, he was such a manipulator. Even Harmony realized that the emotions and lust flaring through Lance were a dangerous combination right now. Whatever the hell was going on, it had sent so much testosterone racing through his body that she could smell it—a dark, masculine, high-combustible scent.
"Back off, Jonas," she growled, the hair at her nape lifting as his gaze swung back to her.
She could hear the furious little growls rising in her throat. She had no idea what was causing them or where they were coming from. All she knew was that despite the threat Jonas represented to her personally, she would not allow him to strike against Lance.
She was aware of Braden's careful, cautious stance as he watched her, but she kept her eyes on Jonas. The other enforcer might try to stop her, but not before she did some damage. Enough damage perhaps to take his mind from Lance.
"Do you really want to go back to Sanctuary, Harmony?" Jess asked her then, her voice cool as she stared between Jonas and Harmony.
Harmony stared at Jonas with cold aggression, ignoring the other woman's terse tone.
"He won't take me back." She shook her head firmly. "Not now. He hasn't milked this little exercise for everything it's worth yet."
Jonas chuckled, his expression partly approving, partly calculating as he turned back to Lance.
"She learned well, despite her time away from the labs killing petty criminals. Too bad she didn't stick to the just killing the Council soldiers and Coyotes sent after her. She might have managed to keep me from coming after her."
Yeah. Right. She really believed that one.
Lance didn't speak, but Harmony had a feeling he was all the more dangerous for it. She could feel it, like an ominous whisper on the air around her.
Braden spoke up then. "Jonas, you're pushing boundaries again. I'm going to assume this is Death." He nodded to Harmony. "Lance was pretty certain about the tattoo she carried on her shoulder and there's no doubt she's the little cat that bit him."
Jonas glanced back at her and lifted his brow mockingly.
"I should have known she wouldn't follow orders and go directly to her hotel room until I could get here." He shrugged negligently as he turned back to Lance.
Jess stepped forward at that point. "We had the papers faxed through last night. Your superiors in Santa Fe approved your representation of a Breed Enforcer within your department. As you know…"
"She stays with me. I'll sign the papers later. Now get the hell out of my office."
Harmony tensed at the low, primal vibration in Lance's voice.
Jonas's smile was a dare as Jess stared back at Lance in surprise. "Perhaps I should take her with me."
"Lance, stop!" Before Lance could move, Harmony jumped between the two men. Ecstatic pleasure surged through her body as her hands gripped the hard muscles of Lance's upper arms and she pushed back at him, attempting to keep him from tearing into Jonas, as he obviously intended.
"Get out of my way." The scent of his fury seethed in the air around him, despite the gentleness of his hands as he gripped her arms.
"This is not the way," she snarled up at him, fighting to stand between him and Jonas as he fought to set her aside. "Let it go. He's amused and playing with you. He's trying to antagonize you. Let it go."
"First I'll deal with him, then I'll get to you." His blue eyes flamed as he stared down at her.
"Lance, you're going about this the wrong way," Braden drawled. "Come on, man, you remember how confrontational Megan was last year. Stop and think."
"And how should he handle it, Braden?" Jonas queried then. "Have you forgotten so quickly you're an employee of the Bureau?"
"I haven't forgotten anything, Jonas." Braden's amusement was very palpable and very real. "But I also know who your boss is. Let's not go there, okay?"
Jonas's eyes narrowed a second before his lips tilted with mocking approval.
"You're learning." He nodded abruptly to Braden as Lance placed her back flush against his chest, while his hands gripped her arms firmly.
"Get the hell out of here." She could barely speak for the need whipping through her.
"Not yet," Lance said. "You're forgetting something here."
"And that is?" Jonas tilted his head curiously.
"The hormonal treatments," he snapped. "I know what's going on here, Jonas. Don't try to screw me around."
Jonas's eyes narrowed on Braden. "It's illegal to give out that information, Braden."
Braden shrugged. "I didn't say a word. Maybe the wind told him."
The wind?
Jonas's lips thinned in irritation before he brought his gaze back to Lance. "I didn't completely expect this," he lied smoothly. Harmony knew he was lying. "I'll have to contact Sanctuary and get Ely to make time to fly in. It could be a few days."
"You son of a bitch. You're going to let her suffer through it." Sheer, amazed fury colored Lance's voice as Harmony fought to understand exactly what they were talking about. "You know what will happen."
"I think she'll make a lovely mother," Jonas crooned as he turned the doorknob and opened the door. "Maybe it will tame her down a bit. If she's lucky. Are you ready, Jess?"
"We need the papers…" Jess protested again.
"He can fax them to my office." He held the door open for her and the attorney did as she was told, but Harmony had a feeling she wasn't nearly as submissive as she was letting on.
Before anyone could respond further, the door closed behind them and Harmony turned to Lance slowly. She hadn't missed Jonas's parting shot in any way. Though it made no sense. A female Breed could not conceive. It was proven.
Hell, they had tried for years in the labs with no success. But then again, she had never heard of the strange sexual heat attacking her either.
"What's he talking about?" She felt dazed, off balance. She wanted nothing more than to crawl up his body and beg him to take her, but the sudden fear, that Jonas may have found the perfect revenge against her, held her grounded. "Breed females can't conceive."
"Under the right circumstances, they can." Lance grimaced.
"What circumstances?" She could feel an edge of panic beginning to build within her now. As though the emotions churning wildly inside her weren't enough. This was one worry she didn't need.
He turned back to her slowly, crossing his arms over his chest and watching her with heated, barely restrained lust.
"Mating heat. We mated last night, Harmony. We didn't just fuck. If it continues without the hormonal therapy the Breeds have produced, then you'll conceive. And most likely rather quickly. Now, what makes me think Jonas knew that?"
CHAPTER 4
The blood tests and saliva swabs—that was the only way to know. Harmony stared back at Lance in shock before slowly turning to Braden.
"This can't be true." She stared back at him, desperate for his agreement.
Braden sighed roughly. "It's true. I'm betting the glands beneath your tongue are swollen even now, and hot. Within twenty-four hours the arousal will be so intense it'll become physically painful. The womb begins to convulse, spasming as the hormones attack it, and your nerve endings become so sensitized that a female can literally feel the air around them. Megan describes it as PMS times a thousand. The only thing that eases it is male semen. A mate's semen. Any other male's touch is extremely painful. So much so that it's unbearable."
He wasn't lying. Harmony could smell a lie as easily as she could smell Lance's lust.
She moved unsteadily to a nearby chair before sitting down heavily and pushing her fingers through her hair in frustration.
"There's a cure?" She stared up at Braden for the answer. "This hormonal therapy stuff."
He shook his head slowly. "There's no cure. The hormonal therapy merely eases the worst of the symptoms and prevents conception."
She turned back to Lance.
"I can't conceive." The thought of it was horrifying. No child of hers would ever survive those who sought to take her, to kill her. "You don't know who I am, Lance. You don't know what I am." Fear rushed through her mind, tore through her soul.
She felt the emotion, so unknown until now, explode inside her being until she knew nothing but the horrifying realization of what would happen to any child of hers.
"Jonas. He has to stop this." She jumped to her feet, stumbling before she managed to right herself and rush for the door.
"Harmony, wait. You can't go after him." Lance grabbed her around the waist, pulling her to a stop as she struggled against him, rough growls falling from her lips. "Harmony, dammit. He's gone. You know he's gone."
"No!" she screamed, striking back at him as she tore loose from him. "No. He can't be gone. He has to fix this."
He stared back at her, his gaze rife with pain as his chest rose and fell with his breaths. She was breaking apart inside. She could feel it. In all her life she had never known a pain so intense, so blinding as the one whipping through her mind now. A child. She couldn't have a child, because she could never keep it safe.
"You don't know what I am, Lance." Shudders whipped through her body as she stared back at him in horror.
She would be damned. Jonas had finally found a way to destroy her. Slowly. Painfully. She should have killed him when she had the chance ten years before.
He was her brother. Her blood brother. They shared the mother she had killed. And now he would see her child destroyed. A child she was never meant to have.
"I can't do this," she whispered miserably. "Let me go, Lance. I'll leave. I don't care what he does…"
"He'll have her killed, Lance."
"Shut up!" She turned on Braden, instantly noticing that he had placed himself against the door. No escape there.
"If you destroy yourself, you destroy your mate, Harmony," Braden snapped, his golden eyes narrowed on her. "I saw your need to stand between him and Jonas. You feared for him. You were determined to protect him. Run from him and you'll condemn him to the same agony you'll suffer as well. You're not in this alone."
"I am always alone," she snarled back at him. "They call me Death for a reason…"
"And if you've already conceived?" Lance asked quietly then. "Would you deny me the right to help protect my child? And trust me, Harmony, I can and will protect both my mate and my child."
He honestly believed he could. Harmony felt the hard sob that clenched her chest as hopelessness filled her.
"No force on this earth can protect a child of mine," she sneered. "You don't understand. You don't know the lives I've taken, the blood I've spilled or the monsters that would attack. There's no way to save either of us now."
Lance watched the pain-ridden features staring up at him. Fear filled the eyes of a woman whose file stated she knew no fear. No, it wasn't fear, it was complete terror, and it was destroying his soul.
The air was heavy with her pain, wailing at his ear like a distant scream rife with torment. Harmony was tormented. He could see it in her expression, in her tears. In her confusion as she wiped at the dampness.
The need to protect her, to reassure her, rose inside him like a tidal wave. It was more than just a need; it was an impulse, an instinctive response to the pain tearing her apart.
The thought of a child, and a woman that completed him, couldn't distress him. And protecting that woman and child would be his main focus.
"Braden, can you contact Ely without Jonas knowing?" Lance kept his eyes on Harmony as he spoke.
"That would be easy enough," Braden answered.
"Get her out here for the tests Harmony needs. I want that hormone therapy. Get her out here fast."
"Jonas's scientist?" Harmony's question had his gaze swinging back to her.
"She's the Breeds' scientist," Lance corrected her. "She heads the department working on the mating phenomena."
"She took the blood and saliva samples while I was at Sanctuary…"
"You haven't been at Sanctuary," Braden growled. "I pulled your file this morning, Harmony. Jonas would have had to log you in."
Lance watched as the bitter mockery twisted her lips.
"That's a nice little underground cell system you have below the main detention building," she said softly, sarcasm thickening the slight French accent that he hadn't noticed the night before. "I was there for two weeks, Braden, while your Ely poked and prodded at me. I was slipped out at night and put on a heli-jet to Carlsbad. Check with your precious Ely and see if she can tell the truth any better than Jonas can."
Lance stared back at Braden, seeing the surprise as Harmony described the cells.
"Shit. He's going to get himself killed at this rate." Braden swiped his fingers through his unbound hair as he stared back at both of them in acknowledgment. "I'll contact Ely the moment I get to the house. I want a completely secured line for this one. Jonas is no doubt tapping yours, as well as your home line. So watch that. Check the house and this office for bugs while you're at it."
"That was done when I first came in," Lance snapped. "I take nothing for granted in this office, Braden."
Braden nodded firmly, his gaze touching on Harmony in compassion as she wrapped her arms across her chest and paced to the window across the room.
"You're his sister," Braden finally announced. "The same one who killed his mother. Why is he giving you a chance to redeem yourself?"
Lance watched as she turned, her body tense with the obvious results of the unnatural arousal tearing her apart.
"You'll have to ask him that one." Her teeth bared in anger. "According to Jonas, he would give any other Breed this same chance." Her lips twisted into a sneer. "The redemption offer was a trick. He knew this would happen, somehow; he knew the
reaction that would result from being with Lance. He knew and he used it. He found the perfect way to destroy me."
Braden cursed as Lance felt a killing rage echo inside him. God help Jonas if he got hold of him anytime soon.
"Can we lodge a complaint with the Breed Ruling Cabinet?" He turned to Braden again. "They could leash him."
"You do that and you reveal Death's whereabouts to whatever spy is still spilling secrets at Sanctuary." He sighed. "It poses more of a danger than a solution at this point. Until the heat dulls, she's at her weakest, Lance. If another male touches her, he'll debilitate her. Right now, Death is as vulnerable as any babe. The hormonal shifts and changes tear down the defenses, physical and mental. She wouldn't survive it."
"I won't let this happen!" The rage and fear in her voice sliced through his soul.
Lance swung around, rushing to her as he watched her crumple. The mating heat was building in her, her expression distorted with pain as her hand clenched at her stomach and her face paled.
He caught her in his arms, burying his face in her hair, crooning to her, lifting her against his chest as he turned back to Braden.
"Contact Ely," he snapped hoarsely. "Now."
Braden nodded and left the office. The door slammed behind him, clicked and locked, sealing them safely within the office.
"Sit." Lance deposited her in the chair as he strode to his desk and hit the intercom link.
"Lenny, I'm not available until I inform you otherwise," he snapped into the desk sergeant's link. "Do you understand?"
"I figured," he grunted. "I saw that damned Jonas striding out of here grinning like a polecat. I got your back, Sheriff. No one will bother you."
It was no secret that after one of Jonas's surprise visits, Lance normally disappeared for hours to fortify his patience.
Disengaging the link, he turned back to Harmony. She was pacing now, her head lowered, auburn hair covering her face as she fought the obvious effects of the mating heat.
It was killing him too. His balls were drawn up so damned tight he swore they were going to implode. His cock was like living steel behind the fly of his jeans and pressing painfully into the zipper.
Dealing with this was going to be impossible until the more pressing physical needs were taken care of. Namely, bending her over and fucking her past her tears and her hunger, until they could both stand to breathe without the agony of need torturing them.
God help them both if she let out one of those animalistic little roars when she came, though. If she did, the entire department would know he was spending on-duty hours screwing the hell out of the little cat.
"Harmony, we'll find a way to fix this." He breathed out roughly as he moved toward her. "Until then, baby, before we can leave this office, we have to take care of this arousal. It's killing both of us."
Her head whipped up, her expression blank with shock.
"No." She shook her head emphatically. "We can't take that risk, Lance. You know we can't."
Her hand pressed against her lower stomach as she breathed in roughly.
"We don't have a choice," he bit out. "I can't think for the remembered taste of your kiss. It's killing me. You might have the control to withstand it, but I don't."
She shook her head again as he moved to the utility cabinet at the side of the room. Opening the doors, he pulled a clean ball gag from its cellophane wrapper and turned back to her.
Her eyes widened as they dropped to the device, and he grinned wickedly.
"A little present from one of my depraved cousins. She thought I should keep them here in case I wanted to play on the job."
He liked the little frown that creased her brow, the glimmer of jealousy in her eyes. Yeah, he liked that a lot. He stepped into the bathroom beside the cabinet and quickly cleaned the rubber device before drying it and moving back into the room.
"You are crazy if you think I'm going to let you gag me," she snapped.
"Would you rather my men hear you screaming?" He arched his brow curiously. "I don't care, but you will have to work here once we have a handle on this, baby."
"No."
"I could cuff you too." He pulled the old-fashioned metal cuffs from the cabinet and jangled them at her.
Her breath caught, her hand pressing tighter to her stomach.
"Oh, you like the idea of that, don't you, baby?" he crooned, as her gaze became hotter, hungrier…
Oh yeah, he could grow to like this mating shit. He had a feeling Harmony would have never let herself go enough to allow him this much control over her otherwise. He had read her file; he had seen the weapon she had built herself into. The weapon that was quickly eroding beneath the needs of the woman.
"There, little cat." He moved behind her, slowly pulling one wrist to the small of her back before capturing the other and snapping the cuffs on them.
She flinched at the sound, jerking in his embrace as a little whimper left her throat.
"You know what this gag is going to do?" He bent close to her ear as he moved her toward the dark bathroom. "It's going to trap all that sweet aphrodisiac spilling from your tongue inside your mouth. It's going to flow into your system like lava and make you hotter than hell."
He pulled her to a stop at the small sink.
"This is not a good idea," she whispered roughly as she stared up at him. "Don't do this, Lance. I can't fight you. It's not fair when I can't fight back."
"But, baby, it's not a battle." He lowered his head until his lips could touch hers. "Come on now, give me that sweet taste. Make me as crazy as you are."
Harmony tried to fight, to resist. But how do you resist what you can't understand? A weakness for one man that made no sense. She tried to assure herself it was this mating heat stuff he and Braden had explained earlier. But a part of her knew better. She knew that even without the heat, fighting against him would have been a battle she might not have won.
So when his lips touched hers, her senses flamed and her will crumbled. Her lips parted to the incredible gentleness of his touch, the stroke of his tongue, the sips he took of her kiss. The small, shorter kisses had her reaching for him, needing more as her fists clenched behind her back.
Why had she been so insane to let him cuff her? She needed to touch him.
"Easy," he whispered against her lips as she strained to get closer. "It's okay, baby. I'm going to have all your sweet kiss in just a minute."
Another sip of her lips, his settling against hers, his tongue licking over her lips until hers followed. Then he had her. Before she guessed his intent, he drew her tongue to his mouth, his lips closing on it as he kissed her deeper, harder, suckling the sweet taste of the hormone from its tiny glands.
The pleasure was indescribable. Harmony rubbed against him, fighting to ease the ache in her nipples, in the saturated folds of her pussy. She was on fire and burning hotter by the second.
"God, the taste of you," he whispered. "Come here, let's gag those sweet cries of yours. I'm a damned possessive man. Those little screams are for my ears only."
He slipped the small rubber ball into place before securing the ends. She was cuffed and gagged, helpless before him. Death had never been helpless. But it wasn't Death standing before him, she realized. It was Harmony. The woman who had never been a woman.
"Oh, that's pretty." His smile was tight, hard as his hands lifted the snug shirt from her pants and over her breasts. "But, baby, this is a work of art."
The front clasp of her lacy bra was loosened, the cups peeled back to reveal the tight tips of her breasts. The cry that tore from her throat as his lips covered a sensitive peak would have alerted the building to what was going on. The gag effectively silenced her, but nothing could halt the incredible pleasure that ripped through her.
Lips and teeth tugged at a tender peak before his tongue curled over it and he drew it into the hot depths of his mouth. Firm, heated draws sent her racing toward an edge that would have been terrifying if she'd had enough of her senses left to consider it.
Her eyes closed as she struggled to keep her legs beneath her, to bear the agonizing pleasure tearing through her. It was so good. It was past good.
She tried to cry out his name, to beg for more as he took his time, moving from nipple to nipple as his hands cupped her breasts, plumped them, massaging the swollen curves. The rasp of his tongue over the violently sensitive tips sent searing arcs of sensation tearing into her already tortured womb as she arched closer, searching for relief.
Lance's leg slipped between her thighs, the hard denim-covered muscle pressing tight against her pussy as he began to move her on him.
Her strangled cries were animalistic, desperate.
"Such pretty, tight little nipples." He kissed each in turn before tugging at the soft material of her pants. The comfortable band at her waist lowered, sliding beneath the wide black belt strapped on her hips.
He didn't bother to release the utility belt, or her weapon. He left them on her as he worked the waist of her pants beneath them until he bared her thighs. Harmony stared up at him in surprise as he straightened and began to loosen his pants.
"I've been so hard since you left last night I could drive spikes in railroad ties," he growled as he freed the raging length of his erection, pushing his jeans and briefs below his thighs. "All I could think about was fucking you, Harmony. Tying you to my bed and making you scream for me. Making you beg for me."
She whimpered as he turned her, one arm wrapping around her waist to brace her as he moved behind her, nudging her feet wider. Harmony stared into the mirror, watching him through the dim light that fell from the office. His cock tucked against the desperately wet folds between her thighs before he paused.
Heat seared her, the feel of the heavy crest parting the juice-laden folds and sending sizzling arcs of sensation racing from her vagina to her engorged clit.
"I remember how tight you were." He grimaced, his expression growing heavier with lust. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his lips swollen, sensually full. "So tight I wondered if I would die of the pleasure before I could ever come."
His hips shifted, the thick crest parting her, working inside her, stretching tender tissue to its furthest limits as she screamed behind the gag.
"There, baby," he crooned, his free hand hooking into the leather belt that still cinched her hips. "There I am. Let's see how much you can take. Can you take me, little cat?"
Harmony went to her tiptoes as he began stroking inside her, pulling back, pushing in deeper, impaling her inch by straining inch on the thick cock burrowing inside her.
It was agony. It was more pleasure than she could bear. She bucked backward, fighting for more, relishing the pleasure-pain screaming through her nerve endings. The slick juices of her response eased his way, but nothing could ease the extreme snug depths of her vagina. Little used, rarely aroused, her flesh was now making up for the years it had gone without Lance's touch.
"More, baby." He slid in deeper. "God, your pussy is so sweet. So wet and tight. I could fuck you like this forever, Harmony."
He pulled back, the hard length of his erection nearly sliding free of her before he paused.
"Look at me, baby. Open your eyes."
She struggled to force her eyes open. He was a weakness. She had sworn she would never allow herself to be weak, but had Coyotes attacked in that moment they would have to just kill her, because she didn't have the will to tear herself from Lance.
"I want to see you when I take you. I want to see how much you love it, since I can't hear it. Do you like this, baby?"
One hard, fast thrust sent him to the very depths of her. Searing, white-hot ecstasy tore through her as she felt her flesh struggle to stretch, to accommodate the length and width penetrating it. Darkness washed over her gaze, though her eyes remained open, directed at the mirror, fighting to focus.
"Hell yeah, baby. Move your hips just like that."
She was moving her hips? She was. She could feel it now, writhing against him in tight little circles that stroked him inside her and caused her pussy to ripple in pleasure.
"There, baby, suck at my cock just like that. Keep that up and I'm going to give you exactly what you need to cool those fires until I get you to my bed."
He moved then, a slow retreat and return, thrusting inside her, stroking violently sensitive nerve endings and throwing her deeper into the quicksilver arcs of pleasure tearing through her.
Harmony was losing herself. She could feel it happening, the layers of defenses she had built between herself and the world were crumbling beneath his possession. Nothing in the world mattered but this. This man, his touch, his hunger, his cock filling her until she was certain she could take no more.
Then she took more.
He fucked her like a man taking possession, a claiming. One hand held to her belt, pulling her back on his hard length, driving inside her deeper, harder, with each stroke as she began to tighten.
"Yeah, baby, tighten like that. Work my cock with that sweet pussy. There you go, sweetheart." His voice was heavy, dazed, the pleasure infusing it, as it infused the shattered cries that escaped her gag.
The hard, steady rhythm began to quicken then. Behind her, Lance's breathing grew ragged, heavy, filling the room with the scent of power and lust as he began to take her with hard, driving strokes. He thrust inside her, holding her firm by her own belt as she felt the world dissolving around her.
She was trembling. Shaking. She couldn't make her legs hold steady, she couldn't fight the vortex swirling within her. Emotion. Sensation. They clashed and burned in her mind and in her body, and she was lost within it.
When her orgasm hit, it destroyed her. She felt her legs weaken, her back arching violently as she strained to scream past the burning, tearing pleasure. It rushed through her like violent forks of lightning, detonating in her womb, convulsing her body as she felt Lance tense behind her.
A second later, he bent over her, his teeth clenching on her shoulder, biting her as she had bitten him, as the first pulse of semen began to fill her greedy vagina. Hard, desperate pulses of heated warmth that shot to the entrance of her womb, burned with agonizing pleasure and threw her into another desperate, mind-numbing release.
She was sensation only. Shuddering in his arms, twisting in his grasp, with the spasms that threw her higher, then exploded in a white-hot haze of ecstasy.
Harmony was lost. Death didn't exist. There was only this. This blinding pleasure and the pure sensation, emotion and desperation that whipped through her soul. A distant part of her recognized that the fallen shields, the defenses she had relied on all her life, lay as dust. And Harmony, past and present, collapsed weakly against the arm holding her steady, and gave herself to what nature had intended all along. To her mate.
CHAPTER 5
Harmony was unable to even fix her own clothes. Lance helped her dress, his touch gentle after he released the cuffs and the gag from her mouth.
She avoided his eyes, keeping her head down as tremors shook her body. This wasn't the woman they called Death. The woman who trembled beneath his touch wasn't the killer portrayed in the file Braden had given him.
Lance carried her to the office couch, then fixed his clothes, strode to his desk and picked up the link. Attaching it to his ear, he clicked the inner office link and waited for Lenny to pick up.
"Blanchard." Lenny's voice was quiet as he answered the summons.
"Lenny, I'm slipping out the back entrance and heading home. I'll be there if anything important comes up."
"Gotcha, Sheriff. Everything's pretty quiet for now," Lenny answered. "But Alonzo's been stomping around town again, trying to stir up trouble."
Lance grimaced. H. R. Alonzo had been a thorn in his side since the day Megan had opened her home as a halfway house for the Breeds selected for the National Law Enforcement Induction.
The six men and women were spending the next year at Megan's home, learning tactical maneuvers and command situations from several members of the family who worked in law enforcement. There were a lot of them.
"Keep an eye on him and let me know if the situation begins to heat up."
Lance turned as Harmony lay across the couch, her eyes closing. Her face was drawn and pale, exhaustion marking her features as she curled into herself.
"I gotcha, Sheriff. We'll see ya in the morning," Lenny drawled. "And I don't blame you, dealing with that Wyatt dude would wear me out too."
Lance grimaced. Jonas was well known in Broken Butte by now. And not well liked.
"I'm out then. Keep me updated." Lance severed the link before breathing out wearily and smothering his own yawn.
He hadn't slept a wink last night after Harmony left. Hell, he had been in the office before daybreak searching for information on her. He strode across the room and knelt by the couch, gently brushed back the hair that had fallen across her face.
"I have to leave," she whispered, her eyes struggling to open as he stared down at her.
His little cat was thrown off balance, shaken. The mating had thrown her into a reality she was ill equipped to deal with.
"Come on, let's take you home and get you to bed, baby." He helped her sit up, before lifting her to her feet. "You won't have much rest before it builds again."
He wrapped his arm around her waist as he led her from the office to the back door.
Sliding the electronic key through its slot, he waited for the click of the lock before opening the door and moving quickly from the exit.
His Raider was parked in front of the door, so getting her into the passenger seat was accomplished without a problem. She slumped into the comfortable seat, her eyes drowsy, her body nearly boneless.
Lance allowed a grin to quirk at his lips as he buckled her in, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
"Go ahead and nap, baby, I'll wake you when we get home."
He brushed the hair back from her face, his fingers lingering against the incredibly soft skin of her cheek as she stared up at him. Exhaustion marked her face, glazed her eyes. How long had it been since she had slept?
"I have someone trailing me," she whispered.
He frowned down at her before scanning the parking lot, knowing instantly what she was talking about.
"Have you identified him?"
She shook her head slowly. "I'm weak," she said then, distress filling her eyes. "I can't be weak, Lance."
"It's okay, baby, I've got your back. You rest, I'll keep an eye out for your tail."
She shook her head, drugged with the exhaustion overtaking her.
"I can't be weak," her voice slurred. "I can't be…"
Between one second and the next she was asleep. Lance sighed as he closed her door gently before loping to the driver's side. After closing his door, he set the radio to link into Lenny's line.
"Lenny, I'm setting security protocols on the way to the house," he told the sergeant as he activated the energized shields around the vehicle. "Track GPS and see if I have a tail on the way."
"You got problems, Sheriff?" Lenny's voice was concerned.
"I don't know yet. See if you can detect anything suspicious from the public GPS and let me know."
GPS protocols were required on all vehicles, though they could be disconnected legally in many areas. He didn't have high hopes of Lenny catching anything, but it was worth taking the chance.
"I got you, Sheriff," Lenny answered. "I'll let you know if we catch anything."
He pulled out of the parking lot, hitting the main street as he headed home. Lance cracked open his window, and for the first time in his life, he deliberately opened his mind to the whispers flowing on the wind.
A world of secrets, of pain, happiness and fears could be heard in the winds, his grandfather had once told him. If he listened close, then the wind would bring him what he needed, but only if he was willing to hear what it had to say.
He had never been willing before. Lance had fought the secrets of the wind, and his place as its chosen child. He had believed he could live without it, and perhaps he could, but he knew that saving Harmony was more important than his reluctance to follow something as unseen as the air around him.
As he drove, he let the wind blow around him, curling around his body, and Harmony's, before he detected the whisper at his ear. There were no words, there was the whisper of her cry, but he had heard that before. Behind the cry, though, was the secret he searched for, the whisper of deceit. And the warning.
He was being watched. Lenny hadn't reported on the GPS, which meant control wasn't picking up the tail, but the winds whispered the knowledge.
He grimaced at the illusive whispers. There were no answers, and that was the part that had driven his reluctance over the years. There were no answers, no proof, nothing to hold on to to give him what he needed to solve the problems he faced.
He was a sheriff. He dealt in facts, in proof. A whisper of danger, or a ragged cry that only he could hear, and a strong intuition weren't enough to arrest a man. They weren't enough reason to pull the trigger.
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 soul-deep 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."
"And when it's no longer enough?" he asked sharply.
"Then I'll take it up with Jonas." She shrugged again. "But I do have to leave now. I don't want to give him reason to order more tests on her, with another scientist. It's best that he never learn of my deception here."
"Braden will take you back to his place." He nodded rather than questioning her further. "Jonas is having the heli-jet dispatched there."
"Lance, I couldn't strengthen the hormone as I could have if she were at the labs. She needs a more precise adjustment that can't be accomplished as long as Jonas is playing his game. What I gave her will help; she won't be completely helpless against the arousal, but it will still be severe. I'm sorry about that."
"You took care of the most pressing problem." He sighed. "She won't conceive. I won't have that choice taken away from her."
"And I agree with you, obviously." She shook her head wearily. "I'll be leaving now. Make certain she gets plenty of fluids, but no caffeine. And rest. Right now, she needs that more than anything."
God, could he handle another of those deep sleeps? She had cried as she dreamed. Streams of tears as she begged Alpha One, Jonas, to help her. To save her. Pleaded with him for forgiveness.
Twenty-four hours she had slept. Torn between silent tears and nightmare battles, Harmony had faced demons that Lance had been unable to fight for her. He had only been able to hold her, to croon to her. At times, it had seemed to ease her a bit; at others it had seemed to only frighten her further.
As Ely left the house, Lance moved to his bedroom and strode quickly to the small safe hidden in the back of his closet. There, he removed the small electronic bug detector Braden had brought in that morning.
Twenty minutes later he found two of the listening devices in his bedroom and three more throughout the house. As he stared at the small devices, he shook his head in resignation. For all her help, Ely had obviously been there for her own reasons as well,
perhaps even Jonas's. He stored them in the safe along with the detector, snapped it closed and moved for the bathroom.
"Harmony?" He knocked on the door before easing it open.
She was sprawled back in the large tub, hair wrapped in a towel, a blissful expression on her face as the water frothed around her.
"Comfortable?" He smiled as her eyes peeked open.
"Go away and I might let you live," she retorted drowsily.
"I have some homemade soup on the stove. It will be ready when you're done." He paused. "When will you be done?"
She rolled her eyes. "When you see me coming into the kitchen. Now go away. I need to recuperate." She closed her eyes again and settled back into the tub.
"And here I thought cats didn't like water," he commented, failing to hold back his amusement.
"This cat does. Now go away." She didn't bother even to glance at him.
Lance chuckled before moving from the bathroom and heading back to the kitchen. When she managed to recuperate, he was certain he'd have the wildcat back. For now though, while she was weak, he'd press his own advantage.
He had very little time left in which to make Harmony Lancaster, aka Death, fall in love.
_______
What had she done?
Harmony sat up in the water after Lance left, lifting her knees until she could rest her forehead against them, and fought for control.
She had slept for twenty-four hours, so deep that she hadn't even known she had been examined. There was no doubt in her mind that she had dreamed. But what had she dreamed?
She closed her eyes and swallowed back the bile threatening to rise in her throat. She knew what she did when she slept so deeply, when the exhaustion finally overtook her and her body overrode her control. She cried and she begged. Fear filled her voice and horror whispered past her lips. She knew, because before she had always awakened to the sound of it, to the memory of the nightmares that haunted her.
She only prayed that she hadn't given her secrets away.
God, she was going to have to find a way out of this. There had to be a way to defeat this need, to still the hunger that ate at her and escape this situation. Nothing good could come of it. Only death could result. Her death.
But to leave, she had to walk away from Lance. She lifted her head then, her eyes still closed, and breathed in the scent of him. His home was infused with the smell of him. Strong and male, filled with a powerful sense of warmth she hadn't known she needed.
But as she sat there in his bathtub, the heated water swirling around her, she realized that was what had drawn her to him that first night. That sense of warmth, of his body heat flowing from his hand into hers, swirling inside her soul and creating a bond that made no sense.
She couldn't do this. She blinked back her tears, realizing that the shields she had used to keep herself hard, to keep her emotions cold and unfeeling, were gone. She was vulnerable now, and she had no idea how to fix it. Hell, she didn't even know how it had happened.
The man had no idea what she was. He couldn't. If he did, he would have reviled her, just as Jonas so obviously did.
Six months. She sighed wearily as she leaned back and stared up at the ceiling, a frown pulling at her brow. She just had to make it six months, that was all. By then, this heat
stuff, whatever it was, would surely dissipate. She could find a way to control it, to walk away as she needed to.
Ely said she had given her the hormonal treatment to prevent conception, and she hadn't been lying about that. Harmony could smell a lie a mile away. She could read it, even in Jonas; the doctor hadn't been deceiving her.
Okay. She straightened her shoulders. Six months. She could do this. She would be free then. Free of Jonas and of Lance.
She ignored the prick of regret at the thought of ever being free of Lance. It wasn't emotion, she assured herself; it was the thought of losing something she had never had and always wondered about. The warmth. The pleasure in touch. That was what she would miss.
Not the man. Never the man.
She flipped off the jets, pulled the plug to drain the water from the tub and stood carefully. She was still weak, but it would go away soon. The inactivity and lack of food had caused it, not anything serious.
Pulling the towel from her head, she shook her hair out, then moved to the counter and the overnight bag sitting there. Ely's voice had held some disdain when she spoke of the lotions inside. Lotion, hair products, makeup, oils and the tools needed to keep every inch of her body clean, soft and gently scented.
Not like it had been that first year of her escape. Her skin dry and flaky, the filth of the labs lingering on her, drawing in every Coyote sent to look for her. Tracking her had been easy then. Hungry, living on raw nerves and what scraps of food she could steal, Death had been close to succumbing to her own curse.
Not anymore.
An hour later, she shook her dry hair around her shoulders, feeling the thick, silken strands caress her satin-soft skin. It shimmered with life as the subtle morning dew scent of her lotions blended with the scent Lance had left on her body.
She was no longer the scrawny, dirty animal who had been yanked from the gutters and dragged into the world of the living. She was Death when she killed. A dark shadow of vengeance, unstoppable in its resolve. As a woman, she was Harmony. Serene. Calm. And she would survive this.
Maybe.