Harmony's Way

CHAPTER 17

Harmony wasn’t certain what awakened her. But for the first time since she had come to Lance’s home, he slept deeply as she rose, showered and dressed. Dawn was high; streaks of pinks, golds and fiery reds lit up the sky as it eased over the horizon and called to her.

She could feel it pulling at her. The morass of emotions that filled her made her skin itch, made her legs long to run. The walls pressed in on her, and the air around her felt as though it were suffocating her.

And she couldn’t stop thinking about Jaime Mason.

As she moved silently through the bedroom, dressed in jeans and a tank top, she stared back at Lance on the bed. She didn’t want to wake him up. He made her want so many things, made her want to think of herself rather than the mission she had given herself years before. He made her want to hide in that big bed and forget that the world outside the house existed.

Unfortunately, it did exist, and the need to run, to clear her head, was overriding. Pushing in the code to the security system, she opened the window in the bedroom she had first slept in and slid into the shadows that bordered the house.

She was reasonably certain she wasn’t being watched. The gun at one thigh and the knife sheathed to the other afforded her a measure of confidence in protecting herself though.

Having reactivated the security system by pressing the device mounted beside the inside frame, Harmony closed the window with plenty of time to spare before the system detected it. She lingered until the metallic lock clicked in place, then began moving.

She knew Dane and Ryan. They would be watching from the pines above the house that would afford a clear view of the land surrounding it. Slipping past them might not be easy, but she had done it before, and she was confident she could do it again.

And she could smell the Breed watching the house. Despite his attempt to stay upwind, his scent drifted to her.

Smiling triumphantly, she slipped from the area, finally sliding along the ragged hills and shallow arroyos until she reached the open spaces beyond.

She breathed in roughly as the sun peaked further over the horizon, casting the valley and narrow canyon beyond in a multitude of colors.

The land wasn’t desert, nor was it really grassland. It was a mix, blending together with pockets of colorful desert flower bursts and shading trees that created a wonderland.

Smiling, she settled her utility belt about her hips. A small water bottle was anchored behind her back, a utility pack on the other side. Her weapons rested comfortably on her body and she was ready to run.

Harmony ran until the blood was singing in her veins and her legs had gone from burning and weak at the exertion to powerful and sure-footed. The rough terrain and shallow gullies were a challenge. This was land she didn’t know, and running across it wouldn’t have always been considered the brightest move. Not the way Harmony ran. Full tilt, the wind whipping over her body, filling her pores and energizing her.

She could feel the sun kissing her. The cool, early morning air still lingered, yet the promise of heat filled the land. And she loved it.

Running was the one pleasure she had always fought to allow herself. Being confined made her nervous, ill. She hated the walls closing in on her, and craved the wide open spaces. And she found that here. Civilization hadn’t encroached far enough to take away the sense of aloneness, the merging of spirit and land.

Finally, the exertion took its toll though, and Harmony knew she would have to stop, rest. She wouldn’t have much longer before she had to head back. Lance would be furious when he found her gone, despite the note she’d left. But she needed this. She needed to focus, to clear her mind, to accept the unacceptable.

She couldn’t kill Mason. Even as Death, that wouldn’t have been acceptable. Death didn’t strike until first blood had been shed. But Death had never allowed herself to become involved as Harmony had.

Panting, she slowed her run until she was pacing, cooling off and letting the blood settle naturally in her veins. She inhaled deeply, lifting her face to the cooling breeze and feeling the sweat that poured from her body.

The memory of Jonas rose in her mind. How he would come to her the moment he arrived from a mission, as though he knew the pain that wracked her body. He would move her from the thin cot in the cells and take her to the comfortable private room he had been assigned. And there, he would ease her onto the cool, soft sheets. He would brush her hair. Sometimes, she thought, he might have crooned lullabies.

“Fuck this!” She snarled at the memories. Those days were gone. The girl she had been. The brother he had been.

“Such language from such pretty lips. Would you speak in front of a child in such a way?”

Pivoting to a crouch, her weapon clearing its holster, she stared back at the old man watching her from the shade of a cottonwood several feet away.

Great. She was so damned messed up now that old men could creep up on her. Then her eyes narrowed.

“You’re Lance’s grandfather,” she stated, sliding the gun slowly into its holster as she kept a wary eye on him. “Why are you here?”

“Because you are.” His smile flashed with an edge of male charm that reminded her of Lance.

“Fine.” She shrugged, still watching him closely. “Now what do you want?”

“Perhaps to get to know my new grandchild.” He walked toward her slowly, his bowed legs carrying him to an outcropping of boulders that sat beside a grassy knoll.

He waved his hand over the rocks. A hiss, a scurrying in the brush around it, and a second later a disgruntled rattler slithered from the rocks.

Harmony stepped back, watching the serpent make its way to a narrow ditch, then between the rocks farther below in a shallow arroyo.

“Cool trick.” She lifted her brow as though impressed.

Joseph Redwolf grunted. “That is nothing. All creatures of the earth have such abilities. They have only to learn how to use them. Come, sit with me.” He patted the wide rock with gnarled fingers.

“I don’t know, you remind me too much of Lance. That could be dangerous to my mental state.” She crossed her arms over her breasts, seeing the pleased smile that creased his weathered face.

“Ahh, you are a charmer.” He shook his finger chidingly at her. “And think to turn an old man’s head with flattery.”

“I have a feeling flattery is the last thing that would turn your head.” A reluctant smile edged at her lips. “Did you know I would be here?”

She stepped over, easing down on the rock as she pulled the water bottle from her utility belt. She remembered her first impression of him and knew he was like Lance. Only stronger. This was a man the earth listened to as well as spoke to.

“I knew. The winds whispered your name and led me here. So I came.”

She uncapped her water and handed it to him. When he waved it away, she tilted it back and took a long, refreshing drink.

“So, why would the winds lead you to me?”

“Ahh, the winds sometimes keep a few secrets.” He sighed. “I merely follow their guidance.”

Somehow, she doubted that.

“You are uncertain of my grandson still?” he asked her then.

Harmony braced her elbows on her knees as she stared at the ground.

“I’m not uncertain of him.” She shrugged, uncomfortable. She didn’t talk to others easily. Lance was an exception. But she couldn’t not talk to his grandfather. She had a feeling he wouldn’t let her ignore him anyway.

“Perhaps you are uncertain of yourself,” he said softly.

She lifted her head, staring into the distance with a frown.

“Perhaps,” she finally admitted softly. “No matter how much I want what he offers, Death is still there.”

“And Death bears great guilt and much responsibility.”

She nodded at the statement, not even bothering to question how he knew the difference between Death and Harmony.

“My grandson, he is a good man,” he said. “I have watched him grow, watched a boy’s laughter turn to a man’s amusement. I have watched him fall to his knees, force himself up again, and watched him walk proud. He is a man more accepting and understanding than most.”

“Death soils him,” she whispered. “She brings danger and blood. He’ll never be safe.”

His laughter shouldn’t have shocked her. She stared back at him in disbelief as he reached out, waved his hand, and the breeze in front of them began to churn the dust and dirt, growing larger, picking up more and more until it rose more than twelve feet above them and screamed with power.

Just as quickly, it eased, steadily diminishing until the dark cloud settled back to the ground and the dirt scattered at their feet.

“The earth protects those who seek her embrace.” His voice deepened with warning. “My grandson and what is his will always know its protection. No matter which land they step upon or which side their enemies think to attack. She will always protect him, and cherish what is his. The earth gave you to his embrace, and only the earth can tear you away from it.”

She turned, staring back at him as his words sank inside her mind, her soul.

“Why would it choose me?” she whispered. “Every part of me is stained with blood.”

He snorted. “You did the land a favor in the lives you have taken. But the time for that is now at an end. Return to my grandson, and as you do, decide once and for all. Are you Harmony or are you Death? For the two can no longer entwine and survive. Make your choice now, woman, before you destroy not just yourself, but the man who would give you life.”

Make her choice. If she chose Lance, then Death would be gone forever and so would vengeance. And so would the safety of the young women and children she protected. It was a choice she feared could end up destroying her.

Jonas slipped through the silent house, eyes narrowed, his senses alert as he sought for signs of something other than death.

His eyes narrowed on the figure lying in the center of the bedroom floor. Tommy Mason’s throat had been cut, a near perfect imitation of a Death Caress, the signature slice attributed to the serial vigilante who had struck across the United States and Europe over the past ten years.

There were a few slight anomalies to the cut. Depth, the angle of the cut, the width of the blade used. But not enough that anything other than a Breed could identify. Only someone much too familiar with Death’s training would notice the anomalies.

“Where’s the wife and kid?” he spoke into the comm link quietly.

“Still locked in the basement. They’re alive.”

He knelt beside the corpse, studying the body. Mason hadn’t been dead long. An hour maybe. Jonas glanced at his watch. It was barely eight in the morning.

“I can’t smell anything unusual anywhere else in the house,” Merc reported over the link. “Nothing but fear and filth.”

Jonas rubbed his hand over his jaw. Someone was definitely framing Harmony, and they expected him to tie the noose around her neck.

Sanctuary’s spy, he thought, shaking his head. Only a select number of people had known about Death’s presence in the cells below the detention building. He was narrowing the suspects down, but he would have preferred to do so in a different way.

“Someone to report she went running, then someone to come in and make the kill,” he murmured over the link. “Time of death will coincide with her absence from Lance’s home and make the case for her guilt.”

“Only one group that would go to that extreme,” Rule stated as he stepped into the bedroom. “Alonzo must know who she is.”

Jonas’s lips thinned. She wasn’t the same girl she had been ten years ago. She had filled out, firmed up; her features had evened out. But if someone had known what to look for, they would have seen the resemblance. Alonzo could have only known that Harmony was here if the spy at Sanctuary had warned him. Son of a bitch, when was the bastard spilling their secrets going to mess up enough to get caught?

He should have killed Alonzo himself. If he hadn’t attained such popularity, such notice over the past years, then Jonas would have. Unfortunately, his death would have only brought suspicion on the Breed community.

“Courtesy of our friendly Sanctuary spy,” Jonas murmured as he straightened. “At least they left the wife and kid alive.”

“Death would never hurt them.” Rule shrugged. “What do we do now?”

Jonas rubbed at the back of his neck wearily. “We use it.”

“Hell, Jonas.” Rule’s voice was filled with disbelief. “You can’t call Breed Law on her over this. She didn’t do it.”

“Dammit, Rule!” he snapped. “Do you really think I’m going to see my sister dead for someone else’s crime? Hell, I wouldn’t pull Breed Law for her crimes, why do it over this?”

“You haven’t exactly been brotherly,” Rule pointed out. “Why didn’t you just ask her to cooperate?”

“Because she would never give him up, whether she trusted me or not. Harmony is nothing if not loyal. The only chance I have of catching him is pushing her until one of them makes a mistake.”

“You want that shadow of hers damned bad,” Rule pointed out.

“Not bad enough to sacrifice the only good thing that ever came out of those fucking labs,” he snarled before inhaling roughly and gathering his control in both hands. “He’s the first Leo. He and his mate have what we need. The answers to the aging process. We have to figure out what the hell is going on before proof of it hits the press. I want him bad, Rule, but not bad enough to actually endanger her life with Breed Law. He and his scientist mate hold the answers to the mating heat and the aging, and I want those damned answers.”

The discovery of the slim evidence they had attained that the first Leo was indeed still alive, nearly a century after his birth, and still in peak physical condition, had been a fluke.

After Harmony had ignored his messages to meet with him years before, Jonas had begun tracking her. Two years ago, he had nearly caught up with her after Council Coyotes had captured her. He had been only hours late. Harmony had already been rescued.

But her rescuer had left something behind. A bloodied scrap of a shirt. Only one Breed carried the specific imprint of the DNA that the blood contained. The first Leo. The very first Breed ever created. In essence, the father of them all.

Nearly a century before, the first Leo had supposedly died in a fiery helicopter crash while escaping with his scientist mate from the South American lab he was created within.

Where the mate was, Jonas couldn’t guess. But he knew where Harmony was, Leo wouldn’t be far behind. Unfortunately, the spy operating within Sanctuary was aware of Harmony as well, and now he was betting Alonzo knew.

“Let’s get the hell out of here.” Jonas turned, careful to make certain he left no evidence of his steps. “Make an anonymous call to the Sheriff’s Department in an hour or so and report the wife’s and the child’s cries. Then we’ll fly back in.”

“Lance will kill you if you try to take Harmony,” Rule warned him as they stepped from the room.

“Lance will fight for her.” Jonas grimaced. “But he knows the stakes. And so will she. She’ll give me her shadow, and no one will ever know Harmony was here. I’ll make sure of that myself.”

There were a lot of lengths he would go to in ensuring the survival of the Breeds, but he wouldn’t sacrifice his sister, or the child she would eventually conceive. She was the last ounce of gentleness left within his life. And he would make certain it stayed that way.