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, ass**le," 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 c**k was already painfully erect, but the sexy tone of her voice had it jerking in his jeans, impossibly harder and ready to f**k.
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?"