Rachel was set on her feet, but she found Jonas's arm still around her, his warmth surrounding her as Sherra, Callan's Pride sister and the woman who'd married Kane Tyler, and head of computer security, handed Amber to her.
Her baby.
Rachel buried her face against her little girl's neck, tears filling her eyes as her fear began to ease marginally.
"Rachel. I have to go."
Jonas was releasing her. His warmth was easing away.
"No. Not yet." She turned, clutching Amber to her. "Wait. Jonas . . ." She knew he wouldn't listen. She knew he couldn't listen.
Staring up into his eyes, she saw the torn loyalties. His need to stay with his mate, his need to save his people.
Swallowing tightly, she forced a smile to her face. "You have to go."
"I have to go." His hand lifted, his fingertips running across her lips. "I'll be back for you."
Fear was a desperate, agonized entity growing inside her. She didn't want to lose him. She'd fought with him for months, ached for him for just as long. She couldn't lose him until she knew where this was going.
"Hurry back," she whispered through numb lips as she fought to hold back the plea that he not leave at all.
"I'll hurry," he promised.
His head bent, his lips feathered over her cheek, and then, he truly was gone.
Minutes later, Jonas raced from the estate, dressed in black mission clothes rather than the tuxedo he had arrived in. Surrounded by Alpha Team One, which included Lawe, Rule and Mordecai, he ran for the waiting Raider.
There was no report on Harmony, Leo, Callan, Kane or the team sent in to cover them. They could be deliberately ignoring the calls, or, worst-case scenario, captured or killed.
He prayed, for the world's sake, that the latter was only a personal fear. There were enough Breeds banded together now that it would take more resources than America had to force them back into the labs, or to kill them.
The gunfire had stopped from the mountain above, the Breeds Leo had sent into the wilderness having finally succeeded in taking out the last of the sharpshooters firing on the house. It wasn't the men in the mountains he was worried about. It was his sister.
Harmony.
Her mate had nearly given his life for her once before; now, he had nearly given it for another, the son of a bitch. Jonas was definitely going to have to have a long talk with him about the proper way to take care of himself. That, or assign a damned detail to keep his ass out of trouble.
His sister Harmony, once known as the Breed assassin Death, didn't need more heartache in her life. She needed time to laugh, to love, to heal from the horror she had been trained within. A horror Jonas had unknowingly contributed to. And a chance to raise her infant son and watch him laugh, live, love and grow. A chance for more children, a life for herself that didn't include blood.
Death had been forced to die, and Harmony Lancaster had found a place in life, and in love, in the arms of her mate. Jonas intended to keep it that way.
"Move out!" he yelled to Lawe as they jumped into the Raider.
Immediately the vehicle was thrown into gear and raced for the compound's wide gates, which swung open at their impending departure.
The Raider was within sight of the gates when another came barreling in. Tires screamed as the brakes were applied, the vehicle shuddering to a stop as Lawe cursed and twisted the wheel to keep from running headlong into the other Raider.
Harmony.
Jumping from the open side of the vehicle, Jonas stepped toward her, only to come to a hard stop when she, Dane Vanderale, Rye DeSalvo and one of Leo's African Breeds, Burke, jumped out to meet him.
Harmony reached in and a second later, tossed a wounded human male to the ground.
The man's knee was shattered. It looked as though it had taken a bullet from the antiquated sniper rifle Harmony still had a habit of carrying. The same rifle slung over her back now.
Blood congealed at his neck from a shallow knife wound, and if Jonas wasn't mistaken, a portion of hair had been scalped from his head.
That matching bloodied portion was stuck in the belt Harmony wore.
"He shot Lance." Harmony glared at him with raging, brilliant green eyes. "Enact Breed Law against me until hell freezes over, you bastard. Anyone that touches what's mine will suffer." She kicked the wounded man as she cast him a scathing glance. "Then they'll die."
Jonas halted in front of her. The pain that raged in her eyes and twisted her expression was one of the hardest things he had ever faced. He also saw the fear that her brother would find a way to enforce his threat to have her charged with Breed Law for the deaths he was certain she had left on the mountain.
"Are there any others living?" he asked her. He knew from the reports that had come through that a four-man team had attempted to capture David Lyons.
Harmony sneered, her green eyes glowing with fire. "They met Death."
Stepping forward, he held his sister's gaze, feeling that shattered part of his heart that had let her go so long ago ache with a fiery pain.
So delicate. She had always been too tiny, too easily broken.
"I would never enact Breed Law on you," he stated softly. "No matter your actions, I would protect you, Harmony, as I have always tried to protect you."
Surprise glittered amid the stark grief in her eyes.
"Liar." The look cleared out a second later, and he couldn't blame her for her distrust.
Jonas shook his head slowly. "Death is gone, little sister. Harmony Lancaster is a mate who deserves the blood she sheds." He reached out, ignored her flinch and rubbed a long strand of dark auburn hair between his fingertips. "I wouldn't have then--and I will not now--see the sister I have always loved suffer. I swear that, Harmony, on the lives I fight to save every day. I swear that to you."
He sensed it then. That grief inside her became an animal, fighting, clawing for release.
Her face crumpled and tears filled her eyes. "They shot him," she whispered, speaking of her mate. "Again, Jonas. They shot him again, and I might lose him . . ."
He had her in his arms. Despite the vague discomfort, he held her against his chest and did what he had never done before. He bent and kissed her gently on the crown of her head before laying his cheek against it while she sobbed in his arms.
Perhaps something had melted inside him as well. Never before had he known the words to say, or how to unlock the emotions he had always kept hidden inside his soul.