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"I'm on it. Beginning radio silence. " She flipped the mic up, leaving only the receiver active as she made her way to the back of the house.
Passing the back door, she moved instead to the window at the far end of the house. It was securely locked, but the small metal lock was easily turned when she slid her knife beneath the frame and began prying upward.
Within minutes she was sliding the window open and moving into the house. She could hear him now. His voice was slurred, enraged as he cursed from the front bedroom.
"Harmony, one of the neighbors who came up has reported that Mason keeps a knife on him. A switchblade. " Lance spoke in her ear. "He's a mean gutter fighter, so be careful. "
So the bad boy liked to play with knives. Well, so did she.
She slid the window closed before looking around carefully. She had come into the boy's room; his scent was all over it. There were few toys, only a small bed and dresser, a few scattered shirts. Inhaling at the bleakness that attested to what his life must be like, she moved toward the doorway, listening to Tommy Mason scream at his wife.
"You stupid whore. I warned you what would happen if you tried to leave. Didn't I warn you?"
She could hear a woman sobbing, but she couldn't hear the child.
She found the little boy in the living room, huddled into a corner, his hands covering his ears as he rocked himself back and forward. Tears marred his dirt-streaked face and his eyes were clenched closed.
Moving in close, she simultaneously laid her hand over his lips and crooned a soft
"Easy, sweetie" at his ear.
His eyes flared open.
"Shhh," she whispered again, her touch gentle as she ran it quickly over his fragile, shaking body. "Are you hurt?"
He shook his head no, but his eyes were wild, frantic as his mother cried out his name from the other room.
"I have to yell if anyone comes," his voice trembled as he fought to speak. "He'll hurt her again. I have to scream. "
She set her fingers against his lips.
"Trust me. "
He shook his head desperately, tears pouring from wild blue eyes as his body jerked with silent sobs.
"Have you ever seen a Breed?"
He almost stilled, his eyes widening. Most children were fascinated by the subject of Breeds. They wrote letters to the Sanctuary, and a few times, Harmony knew, Tanner Reynolds, the Breed liaison, had enchanted children at several schools. They were the newest version of superheroes to the little minds.
Lifting her lip, she showed him the canines, a bit small perhaps, but definitely impressive. He blinked back at her in shock.
"I bet if you stay very, very quiet, I can make sure your momma is fine. And I'll make sure he never comes back. Can you be quiet for just a few more minutes and give me the chance?"
A silent sob rattled his little body. He was obviously malnourished, terrified. "Very good," she crooned at his ear once again. "Now be very, very quiet. Okay?" He nodded desperately.
Harmony flipped the mic down, activating the link.
"The child is safe. To your left as you enter, huddled into the corner. I'm going for the mother. "
"Easy, Harmony," Lance warned, his voice worried. "Keep the link active. " She flipped it up. The wire was a distraction she didn't need.
Pressing her finger to her lips as she gave the boy one last look, she moved back to the doorway. She waited until she was certain the boy wouldn't see her before she slid the K-bar from the sheath at her side and moved back to the hallway. The bedroom door was open, the room lit by the flashing lights from the cruisers outside.
"Sons of bitches. They had no right interfering in my business. " The sound of a hand meeting flesh was followed by a woman's broken cry. "This is all your fault, you whinyassed bitch. " Moving on her stomach, Harmony began to inch her way through the entrance, staying low and silent as Tommy Mason screamed at his wife. Her feet had cleared the doorway when the wide, hulky excuse of a man pulled a switchblade from his pants and flipped it open.
He gripped his wife's long hair in one hand and lifted the knife with the other. And Harmony knew her time had run out. Rolling quickly, she came to her feet, her knife slicing through the hair he gripped as she slung the woman to the floor.
"What the hell?" He surged back, his gaze first surprised, then narrowing with fury on Harmony. "You're one dead whore. "
Harmony sighed dramatically. "So I've heard. "
He had to come out of the house alive, she reminded herself as she rammed the flat of her hand against his nose, pulling back just in time to temper her blow. As he flew backward, she caught his wrist, wrenched the knife from his grip then twisted until he fell to his knees. A hard knee to the small of his back and he was on the floor as she snapped the restraints around his wrists.
"It's like this, asshole," she hissed at his ear. "You're under arrest. " Then she gripped his hair, pulled his head back and slammed it into the floor. The first time, he managed to groan and buck furiously. The second time he slumped beneath her, his large body going boneless.
It was almost too easy. The adrenaline surging through her body hadn't been given the fight it needed. It pulsed and hammered through her veins as an icy burn began to build beneath her flesh.
Jumping from the fallen man's back, she shook her hands then rubbed at her thighs. Geez. What the hell was up with this?
"Harmony, dammit, answer me," Lance snapped into the link as she realized she had been hearing his voice for several seconds.
She inhaled slowly, her gaze going around the room before finding the wary form of the young woman stumbling through the door.
"Harmony… Now, dammit. " His voice was rough, and sent lust coursing through her. Flipping the mic down, she crooned into the link. "I have a present for you, baby. Want to come collect?"
Yep, it was lust.
CHAPTER 13
The moment her voice crooned over the comm link, Lance felt the response surge through his body. His cock was already painfully erect, but the sexy tone of her voice had it jerking in his jeans, impossibly harder and ready to fuck.
Damn her. She picked a hell of a time to turn into a sex kitten.
"Okay, Steven, let's move in. She has him. "
He was aware of Steven's quick, surprised look as they headed into the house, with the paramedics coming in behind them.
Lance waved them to the corner where the mother, Liza, was cradling her young son. She was bloody, beaten, but appeared conscious.
Moving quickly, he and the two State Police officers moved into the bedroom, guns drawn, before pulling up to a quick stop.
Tommy Mason was spewing vulgarity as Harmony sat on her haunches listening to him, her head tilted, a mocking smile on her face as she ran her thumb slowly down the edge of her blade.
"You think you're so smart," Mason spat. "You freak. You're nothing but a nasty damned animal and you'll get yours. "
Harmony lifted her head to Lance. "He's just full of information," she drawled. "All kinds of supremacist rhetoric. You have some fine folks in your fair town, Sheriff Jacobs. " She moved aside as the officers gripped Mason's arms and picked him up from the floor. Harmony slid the knife deftly into its sheath and stared back at him expectantly.
"I'm hungry," she stated. "Didn't I see a fast-food joint earlier? Think we could detour before we have to take care of all that nasty paperwork?"
He watched her closely. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, her voice huskier than normal.
"Are you okay?" He moved to her, his gaze going over her carefully. "Did he manage to cut you?"
She gave an unladylike snort. "Please. " She waved the question away. "He was such an amateur. People should learn how to use knives before attempting to play with them. " She reached behind her and pulled the switchblade, encased in an evidence bag, from her belt. "Here you go. I didn't even get any of my nasty littl
e paw prints on it. " He took the bag carefully, allowing his fingers to brush hers, feeling the unnatural cold of her fingertips.
"Let's go get those statements taken care of," he said and sighed. "Steven and his men will take care of Mason. "
"Are they going to lock him up?" She moved ahead of him as they left the bedroom and headed for the front door.
"They'll lock him up. He'll be lucky if he sees the outside of a cell in the next twenty years. Shooting at the State Police is a heavy crime. "
Lance had seen the officer carefully lifting a pistol from the bedroom floor and putting it in an evidence bag as his partner read Mason his rights.
"They'll lock him up for shooting at a police officer but not for beating the hell out of his wife?" Harmony shook her head as they moved outside. "The world is a sick, sick place, Lance. "
"We do our best, Harmony. "
"And when your personal best isn't good enough?" she asked as they reached the Raider.
As she turned to him, Lance saw the shadows that filled her amazing green eyes. They were pure, brilliant, with no specks of darker color. Almost mesmerizing.
"When my personal best hasn't been good enough, I keep fighting," he sighed as he leaned against the door, trapping her between him and the interior of the vehicle. "I come out here every time the neighbors call. I try to help Liza as best I can. Until she lets go of her fear enough to help me put him behind bars, then there's nothing I can do. "
"And the little boy?"
"I do my best, Harmony. " He knew the question she was asking, the warning behind it.
"I uphold the law, baby. I don't make it. "
She inhaled slowly. "I'm not cut out for this job. Maybe Lenny will trade places with me. " They both knew that wasn't possible. The papers she had signed had been clearly written. Harmony had to work patrol, not a desk.
"You have to take satisfaction from the good you can accomplish," he whispered, reaching out to touch her pale cheek. "When you see the arrest turn into a conviction, when you know you've done your job well enough to stop the leaks in the system. The good outweighs the bad, Harmony. "
"If he gets free again, he'll kill them both," she told him. "He told that boy to scream if anyone came in. And he almost screamed. He'll make that child pay. And when he does, I'll go hunting. "
And there was Death. He heard the transformation in her voice, watched as she stared back at him ruthlessly.
"Will you let Jonas win that easily?" he asked. "How many other children could you help by living, Harmony?"
"What will it matter if I've failed one of the few who gave me his trust?" she asked him then. "Don't let that bastard escape your law, Lance, or he may well find Death's justice. "
Then she reached up, laying both hands against his chest as a breath shuddered from her. And he felt it then. The heat in his body building, reaching out to her as the winds whispered of pain at his ear.
Reaching up, he covered the backs of her hands with his own, standing silently as she let her head lean forward to rest against his chest as well. Other eyes watched them, and Lance knew it. As the ambulance pulled from the drive, the other officers moved slowly to their vehicles, glancing back at them curiously. And Mason. Lance could feel his gaze boring into his back, stripping through him as hatred pressed against him. Tommy Mason was going to be a problem. Lance could feel it.
"Sorry. " Harmony straightened with an abrupt movement, pulling her hands from his chest and straightening her shoulders as she stared up at him defiantly. His hands still held hers. Turning them over, he looked down at her reddened skin and knew that the mating heat was taking its toll.
She had touched another man. The hormonal forces inside her didn't differentiate between touches. It was showing her, warning her, that no other male's touch would do.