"You were lied to and you were used," he whispered at her ear. "You know that as well as I do. Just as you know that you were killing yourself from the inside out over the blood you were shedding before Jonas caught you. If you hadn't been, he would have never found you."
"That's not true…"
"It is true, baby." He held onto her firmly. "That's why you've gone along with this game he's playing. Keeping whatever it is that he wants hidden and trying to atone for the deaths. You know as well as I do, that you'd had enough."
Had she? Had she somehow let Jonas capture her?
"What do you have, Harmony, that Jonas wants? What is making him so desperate that he'll sacrifice you for it?"
Harmony knew exactly what Jonas was after, what she could never let him have: the information she had stolen from the labs the day she escaped. The last remaining proof that as of ten years ago, the first Feline Breed, created nearly a century before, still lived.
"Jonas wants revenge." It was partially the truth. "Revenge for his mother's death."
"Jonas is a smart man." He let her go slowly, allowing her to turn and face him once again. "And he's smart enough to know the truth by now. He can read as well as I can, and the reports from the other labs and scientists on Dr. LaRue were pretty conclusive. Now, one more time, what does Jonas want from you?"
She stared around the dimly lit entryway, the shadowed living room and kitchen as she swallowed tightly.
"I can't tell you," she whispered almost soundlessly.
He sighed deeply as he shook his head. "I'm too tired for this, Harmony. When you're ready to talk, let me know. But do us both a favor and do it while I can help you." It had never been her way to confide to anyone. Even Dane, the man who had saved her countless times over, and had been her first lover, didn't know the truth. Harmony stepped into the shower, adjusted the spray then leaned her forehead against the shower wall, barely feeling the heat of the water as it beat over her skin. But she felt her tears as the silent sobs shook her body with brutal intensity.
Jonas would see her dead before it was over. No matter what Lance believed, Jonas did blame her for their mother's death. Madame LaRue had been a monster. Within the papers Harmony had hidden were the orders to kill each Breed in the labs rather than risk their discovery. It was the reason she had killed Madame as well as the five scientists under her, before escaping.
The proof she held would have vindicated her, but the cost was too high. She couldn't betray others to save herself. If she did, then she was no better than those who had created her.
The injustice of it had never really slapped her until now. Something about this mating with Lance had changed her. Or perhaps awakened her. She wasn't certain which. The longer she spent with him, the weaker she became, the more she needed him. As she wrapped her arms around her chest, fighting to hold back her sobs, she realized that for the first time in her life, there was something she couldn't make herself walk away from, and it was very likely to get them both killed. And that terrified her. Lance deserved more; he deserved better than a woman whose hands were forever stained by the blood of innocent deaths.
"Harmony."
She gasped as Lance's voice washed over her, then his arms surrounded her. She pushed against his hard, na**d chest, fighting to pull herself together, to escape long enough to find her strength again.
"You're killing me," he whispered at her ear. "I hear your cries even when you aren't shedding the tears. But the pain that echoes from your tears is breaking my heart." ________
Lance stared into her shocked eyes as she lifted her head. Brilliant neon green, awash with her tears, shadowed with the pain destroying her. Destroying him. The air around him was heavy with her need, physical as well as emotional, and pulled at him as nothing else could.
Clasping her head between his hands, he ran his thumbs over her cheeks.
"I can't stop." She jerked as another sob tore through her. "Oh God, Lance, what's wrong with me? I don't cry. Death doesn't cry."
"Death died ten years ago," he whispered as he lowered his lips to hers. "Don't you know that, baby? She's gone. There's just Harmony now."
He wondered if she even understood why she had chosen the name she had. Harmony. Peace. A blending of what she was and what she needed to be. The part of her that fought to make sense of her world and to fit into it.
"My sweet little kitten," he whispered, brushing his lips over hers as he held her tearfilled gaze. "You keep trying to run from this and you keep hiding. Those scientists may have created your body, but the earth gave you life. A perfect, beautiful soul created for me alone. Just as I was created for you. We're children of this earth, Harmony. You can't escape that, any more than I can. Not any longer."
He knew that running from the gift he had to hear the whispers in the wind wasn't going to work. Her life and her future were going to depend on his ability to protect her. Not so much physically as the protection of her heart, her soul. There was too much coming together inside his mind, too many coincidences adding up and he knew the coming days would mean her life, or her death.
The wind whispered of the danger to her. He heard her name in its sighs, the keening cry of her destruction, and felt the caress of danger at the back of his neck. And the knowledge that her soul had been bonded to his for a reason. She was the other part of him. The heart he had searched for for so many years.
"I'm an abomination," she whispered tearfully. "A killer." He lifted his head, smoothing his thumb over her lips.
"You're my mate. My soul. Am I a killer, Harmony? Would the earth give me a killer for my mate?"
His lips took hers again, feeling her soften against him, tasting the heat and seductive taste of her hunger.
Her fingers slid slowly into his hair, tangling into the strands until they pulled at his scalp with a burning bite.
Lance bit at her lips in retaliation, only to take her frustrated growl into his mouth as he deepened the kiss and pressed her against the shower wall. His hands slid into the damp strands of her hair, holding her close, tugging at her scalp as she pulled at his. The effect was instantaneous.