"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 f**k. 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 se**n. A mate's se**n. 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.