"While children are dying."
"While you're alive to put as many of them as possible behind bars," he yelled back at her. "For God's sake, what good are you going to do a single child if you're dead?"
"I save as many as I can." She shook her head desperately.
"Bullshit!" He released her as quickly as he had grabbed her. "You know yourself that this isn't working, Harmony. It's destroying you."
"I don't know what else to do," she cried out furiously. "I can't stand it, Lance. I can't stand to see the pain in the eyes of children who have been abused. I can't stand knowing I was created and used to kill even one of the people who could have saved them."
She slapped her hand to her mouth, turning away from him as comprehension flooded his expression.
"The kills you made as a child," he said behind her. "You're still trying to make up for them, aren't you?"
Her chest was so tight with pain she could barely breathe. A hard chill wracked her body and she could feel the cold icing in her soul.
"The assassinations I performed as a child, each victim fought for children and their rights," she whispered, shaking her head at the futility of even remembering. "Each one of them. They were exemplary parents, and they fought for the children who had no parents worthy of the name."
"And you think this is how they would want you to repay the fight they took on?" His arms came around her, as though he knew the dark, cold places that tormented her. "If you knew anything of their lives, then you know it's not."
Harmony fought to control her breathing, to control the dampness that flooded her eyes. She was tired, strung out from exhaustion and arousal and emotions that just didn't make sense to her anymore.
"They died for their beliefs," she whispered. "They suspected the Council was creating us. Information had been smuggled from the labs several times and it was brought to their attention. Before they could save any of us, they were killed. I killed them." She tried to jerk away from him, tried to put distance between herself and the man weakening her from the inside out.
"You were lied to and you were used," he whispered at her ear. "You know that as well as I do. Just as you know that you were killing yourself from the inside out over the blood you were shedding before Jonas caught you. If you hadn't been, he would have never found you."
"That's not true…"
"It is true, baby." He held onto her firmly. "That's why you've gone along with this game he's playing. Keeping whatever it is that he wants hidden and trying to atone for the deaths. You know as well as I do, that you'd had enough."
Had she? Had she somehow let Jonas capture her?
"What do you have, Harmony, that Jonas wants? What is making him so desperate that he'll sacrifice you for it?"
Harmony knew exactly what Jonas was after, what she could never let him have: the information she had stolen from the labs the day she escaped. The last remaining proof that as of ten years ago, the first Feline Breed, created nearly a century before, still lived.
"Jonas wants revenge." It was partially the truth. "Revenge for his mother's death."
"Jonas is a smart man." He let her go slowly, allowing her to turn and face him once again. "And he's smart enough to know the truth by now. He can read as well as I can, and the reports from the other labs and scientists on Dr. LaRue were pretty conclusive. Now, one more time, what does Jonas want from you?"
She stared around the dimly lit entryway, the shadowed living room and kitchen as she swallowed tightly.
"I can't tell you," she whispered almost soundlessly.
He sighed deeply as he shook his head. "I'm too tired for this, Harmony. When you're ready to talk, let me know. But do us both a favor and do it while I can help you." It had never been her way to confide to anyone. Even Dane, the man who had saved her countless times over, and had been her first lover, didn't know the truth. Harmony stepped into the shower, adjusted the spray then leaned her forehead against the shower wall, barely feeling the heat of the water as it beat over her skin. But she felt her tears as the silent sobs shook her body with brutal intensity.
Jonas would see her dead before it was over. No matter what Lance believed, Jonas did blame her for their mother's death. Madame LaRue had been a monster. Within the papers Harmony had hidden were the orders to kill each Breed in the labs rather than risk their discovery. It was the reason she had killed Madame as well as the five scientists under her, before escaping.
The proof she held would have vindicated her, but the cost was too high. She couldn't betray others to save herself. If she did, then she was no better than those who had created her.
The injustice of it had never really slapped her until now. Something about this mating with Lance had changed her. Or perhaps awakened her. She wasn't certain which. The longer she spent with him, the weaker she became, the more she needed him. As she wrapped her arms around her chest, fighting to hold back her sobs, she realized that for the first time in her life, there was something she couldn't make herself walk away from, and it was very likely to get them both killed. And that terrified her. Lance deserved more; he deserved better than a woman whose hands were forever stained by the blood of innocent deaths.
"Harmony."
She gasped as Lance's voice washed over her, then his arms surrounded her. She pushed against his hard, na**d chest, fighting to pull herself together, to escape long enough to find her strength again.
"You're killing me," he whispered at her ear. "I hear your cries even when you aren't shedding the tears. But the pain that echoes from your tears is breaking my heart." ________
Lance stared into her shocked eyes as she lifted her head. Brilliant neon green, awash with her tears, shadowed with the pain destroying her. Destroying him. The air around him was heavy with her need, physical as well as emotional, and pulled at him as nothing else could.
Clasping her head between his hands, he ran his thumbs over her cheeks.
"I can't stop." She jerked as another sob tore through her. "Oh God, Lance, what's wrong with me? I don't cry. Death doesn't cry."
"Death died ten years ago," he whispered as he lowered his lips to hers. "Don't you know that, baby? She's gone. There's just Harmony now."