The heli-jet lifted off, powerful jets kicking in and holding Rachel back in her seat as it turned and headed the short distance to Sanctuary.
"Diana's group is moving out with time to spare," Jackal called out. "Hell, Jonas, you need to recruit her."
"She would kill us all," Jonas muttered as the heli-jet streaked through the sky. "Contact Sanctuary; we're flying in. I want Alpha Team One ready to move."
"Alpha Team One assembled and ready," Jackal called back. "We have sporadic fire on the estate house. Vanderale Team Two has taken to the mountains. We have two prisoners, six enemy causalities, two Breed causalities and nearly three dozen wounded."
Rachel wrapped her arms around her stomach as information was reported. So many hurt or dead. In the years since the revelation of the Breeds' existence, they hadn't known a moment's peace or true safety.
Breathing in roughly, she tentatively laid her hand on Jonas's hard thigh. Tension held his body tight, invading every cell as he watched the screen of the small communication and information device an Enforcer had handed him.
Entering the secure code, Rachel watched as the black screen flickered, cleared, then showed the image of the Breed known as the Leo.
Gold eyes flamed with fury as he stared back. The two men had some uncannily similar features. It was rumored he was Jonas's father as well.
She didn't doubt it. Both men were arrogant and calculating enough to be fully related.
"Status," Jonas snapped.
"All secure," Leo snarled, strong, sharp incisors flashing at the sides of his mouth. "We still have a few of the bastards to pull in. The main strike escaped, though they left empty-handed."
"How is Lance?" Rachel could hear the concern, as well as the promise of retribution, in his voice.
Leo looked aside for a moment, his jaw clenching, before turning back. "Elizabeth and Ely have him. They're confident he's going to pull through, but he's unconscious now."
"Harmony?" Jonas's voice thickened with concern.
Leo's lips tightened in fury as his eyes blazed. "She's gone after them, Jonas. I couldn't stop her."
Rachel looked into Jonas's face and saw, for just a second, pure, naked fear and pain.
"I'll bring her home," he stated with chilling force. "My ETA is in five."
"Bring her home," Leo affirmed. "But if you'd left her the hell alone, we wouldn't be worried about her, now would we?"
"No, we'd be mourning her."
Jonas didn't give the other man a chance to respond. The communication device flipped off before his hand clenched around it with enough force that the veins bulged in his hands.
"Harmony's fine." Rachel wanted to console him, wanted to ease the worry, though she knew that wasn't entirely possible.
His head jerked to her. "Harmony will bathe that mountain in blood if I don't rein her in," Jonas snorted. "We need at least one of those bastards left alive. She'll skin them all. She makes your sister look like the tooth fairy."
Rachel frowned. "My sister isn't that bad."
Jonas merely snorted again.
"If Harmony is that dangerous, then she'll be fine," she reassured him again, watching the clenching of his jaw as he fought to rein in whatever emotions were tearing him apart.
"I nearly lost her once." He turned back to her, their gazes meeting, locking as she read the worry in his. "She was on a fast track to suicide, and as much as Leo's family cared for her, they couldn't have stopped it."
"But you did?" She hadn't known this. Merinus had told her very little about Jonas's sister.
His smile was tight but victorious. "When I met her mate, there was a calm about him, a streak of pure peace that seemed to surround him. The second I looked into his eyes I felt my sister's salvation in him, though I swear to God I don't know how. When his cousin mated one of my Enforcers, I was able to use the blood and saliva samples we require for anyone working with Breeds, from him. They matched what I had acquired of Harmony's from the labs we were bred in. I gave her peace, and this makes twice someone has attempted to steal it from her."
Which meant someone was going to pay for it.
"Brandenmore?" she asked. "You think he's behind this?"
"I know he is," Jonas grunted as his hand lifted to rub at hers where it lay on his thigh. The motion was almost unconscious, as though he was doing it by instinct rather than by design. "There's something he's after--something that has to do with the mating phenomenon."
"The information regarding the halt in aging?" She knew what it was. She had known, once she had thought about it, why Merinus and Kane hadn't aged over the years when the rest of their family had.
"Sometimes you're too damned smart." He sighed, but there was a hint of approval in his tone, as well as his gaze.
Sometimes he was entirely too approachable, Rachel could have retorted. Such as now, when he was reaching out to her, amid the danger and the strife of his life. He was still making room for her, finding a reason, and a chance, to be gentle.
He wasn't hiding from her. He wasn't manipulating her. And she knew Jonas well enough to know when he was doing exactly that.
"Sanctuary in sight," Jackal called out. "Prepare to disembark, Director. We have live fire still coming in. Duck and run."
The heli-jet swooped down, its engines powering down, vibrating through the cabin as it set down as close to the estate house as possible.
The door swung open. Rachel found herself held tight to Jonas's side, her feet off the ground as he jumped from the craft, raced across the short distance and toward the opened double doors, which led to the large underground lab network beneath the estate house.
Live fire burst around them from the mountainside. Jonas was shouting orders as Seth and Dawn raced behind them, completely surrounded by a formation of Breeds.
"We're in. We're in," Jonas called out as steel and cement surrounded them.
Jonas still held her tight against him, racing down the hallway and up a short flight of stairs before careening through a maze of tunnels until he reached the door he was searching for.
The door swung open as Merinus stepped out.
"In here." She was wild-eyed, her face streaked with tears. "Callan, Kane and Leo raced out of here minutes ago, after Harmony. A report came in that she was surrounded and Lance's uncles were unable to get to her. Elizabeth and Ely are with Lance but he's not awakened yet and communications can't contact any of them."