She flew with him. Brilliant explosions of light and ecstasy tore through her as she felt him jerk against her. Her pu**y clenched tight on him, holding him deep, convulsing around the hard length of his spurting c**k as she screamed out her pleasure. There. Ecstasy. Rapture. And a merging. She felt a part of him merge with her, deep inside her very spirit, and in that moment, she knew freedom wouldn't come in leaving Lance. Leaving Lance would destroy her.
CHAPTER I5
"I wanted to save Jonas. She was going to kill him."
Drowsy, immeasurably sad, Harmony spoke into the predawn light that filtered through the crack in the dark curtains of the room.
Lance held her close against his chest, his chin resting against her head, his arms wrapped around her, pressing her back against his chest and abdomen.
"Who was going to kill him, Harmony?"
"Jonas," she whispered after a long pause. "Madame LaRue gave birth to him. She cuddled him as a babe and as a toddler. He was given the best of everything the labs could provide, but he was kind. He would brush my hair when he returned from a mission. LaRue always ordered my tests while he was gone. She didn't want him to know the extent of her cruelty. He believed the other scientists controlled her, forced her to the acts she committed in the name of science."
He would brush her hair. It sounded simple, a small enough gesture, but Lance heard the reverence in her voice when she said it. "When Jonas captured me last month, his scientist Elyiana had to take blood and swabs. I hate that. I hate the needles poking into me. He came to my cell a while later. He still had the brush he used when I was at the labs. And he brushed my hair."
Her voice was thick with emotion, and Lance had to blink to force back the rush of moisture as he let her talk. The tone of her voice, reflective, husky, tore at his soul.
"Madame LaRue was going to kill him." Her hands tightened on his arms. "All but a few of us were ordered to die. The other Breeds in that room, the ones I killed, they had been betraying Jonas for months as he planned an escape for all of us. Even Madame." A small shudder raced through her body. "He was her personal experiment, and he could never see it. I was her child as well, but only Jonas knew peace within those labs. Only he knew gentleness. And I wanted to preserve the kindness I saw in him. The memory of a mother. Such memories are precious, aren't they?"
"You wanted to protect him," he whispered. "Because you loved him." Her breath caught as a silent sob shook her body.
"Within weeks, his personal guards, two Coyotes known for their viciousness, found me. He had sent them. Their final words to me were the message he sent. Rogues die. The last words he said as I ran from the room where I had killed his mother." Lance swallowed tightly. God help him, he wanted nothing more than to tear Jonas apart. The bastard had no idea what he had done to the child who had risked her life for him.
"You have proof of what she was," he said then. He knew she did. "Why didn't you give it to him?"
She was silent for long moments. "There was so little that we had to hold onto." She inhaled roughly, her voice rasping on her tears. "We knew we were creations of man, rather than of God. That we were created to kill. But Jonas, he had a mother. He had gentle touches and soft words. He had something to dim the hatred and the pain, the brutality of our lives. And giving him the information wouldn't change anything." She trembled again, her breathing jerky as she pressed tighter against him, and he felt her hunger for all the things she had mentioned. She had fought to protect Jonas's vision of a mother that was a monster because she had hungered so desperately for the illusion herself.
"I couldn't let her kill him," she whispered raggedly. "He brushed my hair…" He had given her the one bit of warmth and gentleness in a dark, horrific world. Lance pulled her closer to him, tucking her in as tight as possible as he buried his face against her hair.
"And now, there's you," she whispered tearfully. "Honorable. Patient. What do I do, Lance, if you die because of me? If the monsters find you and destroy the life that burns so pure inside you?"
And what would he do without her?
"I'm a child of the earth," he told her softly, feeling her still against him. "The winds call to me, the very air around me whispers the secrets of others at my ear. It warns me of danger and it protects me when others would have seen me fall. It led me to that bar the night I met you. As I sat outside, wondering what the hell I was doing there, it whispered your name."
She turned to him slowly, staring up at him with tortured pale green eyes as he lifted himself on an elbow. He wanted to surround her. He wanted to wrap himself around her in such a way that she would never be alone again.
"You have something Jonas wants," he told her then. "I hear the knowledge of it each time I see Jonas, each time you mention his name. A secret or secrets that go far beyond the mother you share."
Lance watched as her face paled and fear filled her eyes.
"Jonas doesn't want revenge, Harmony. The only reason he's still alive is the fact that there's no true malice in him when he's around you. But he does want whatever you're hiding from him. And he wants it bad enough that he'll use you, or me, to get it." She shook her head slowly as he watched her expression. It went from fear to confusion, her eyes shadowing as she frowned back at him.
"He can't know what I have," she said. "No one knew but the scientists in that office, and I killed them."
"Knew what, Harmony?"
"That the first Breed created still lives." Her voice lowered until it was no more than a breath of sound.
_________
Unknown secrets. What came before and still is. The words whispered at his ear, breathed across his mind.
"There's more." Lance ran his hand comfortingly down her arm as she trembled beneath him again. "But considering it's Jonas, only God knows what he wants."
"And if we can't afford to wait to learn what he's after?" Lance felt her fear then.
"Alonzo knew me as Death, when I was younger. If he recognizes me now, my cover is blown. If that happens, every Coyote still alive and working with the Council will be after me. The price on my head is very high."
God, could it get much worse?
"What was he doing there? How was he involved?" Lance asked.