"It will go away."
"It's not going to go away," he barked as he jerked back from her just as quickly as he had grabbed her.
"Then I'll have to," she whispered, aching with the needs tearing her apart. "Don't you understand, Lance? Of everyone in my life, you're the only really good thing that has touched it. You're asking me to take a chance on letting what I am destroy you. I can't do that. I can't stay here. I can never stay here. Death is hunted, Lance, by Council soldiers and law enforcement officials alike. And whether you want to admit it or not, I will be found eventually."
He stilled.
"I thought you were a fighter," he said quietly. "The kid who shot her way out of hell and took out the monsters intent on destroying her was a fighter. What she grew into is something else entirely. That kid knew how to live. What happened to her when she grew up, Harmony?"
"She learned that only death matters," she told him sadly. "Because that's where it all ends, Lance. Everything I touch ends in death."
"How could it?" he snapped. "Because you keep running, Harmony. Maybe if you stopped running, just for a little while, you would find something worth fighting for. It takes more guts to stand and fight than it does to hide and kill. Try it out once, baby, you might find it worth your time." His gaze raked over her again. "Or maybe that's your problem. You don't have to fear what you don't have to face. Do you?"
"That's not true." She shook her head wildly.
He wasn't right. He couldn't be right. She wasn't scared of anything, anyone. She was Death.
"It is true, Harmony. Have fun killing yourself with sit-ups while you try to deny it. Personally, I had a much more pleasurable cure in mind. But you just do it your way. For now."
"What do you mean by that?" Her eyes narrowed on him suspiciously as she fought the feeling that Lance's patience was quickly running out.
"Exactly what I said. Try doing push-ups. They seem to help more." His smile was tight as he walked out of the room. The threat lingered behind him though. As did the clawing, heated need.
Dropping to the floor, she started the push-ups.
CHAPTER 12
Lance replaced the decrepit Raider with his own the next evening. Unfortunately, he came with it. To add insult to injury, he changed the schedule as well.
"If I'm going to stay up all damned night long, then I might as well be working," he had snapped that morning when he informed her of the change.
As the call came in on a disturbance and fight at one of the more popular bars, she almost rubbed her hands in glee. She sat forward, straining against the seat belt as Lance raced toward the establishment.
She hadn't had a good fight in months. Unfortunately, as the adrenaline began to race through her veins, the heat building in her body increased. The arousal was almost a narcotic in her blood as her skin sensitized and her nerve endings began to throb. She was throwing off the seat belt and jerking the door open before the Raider had come to a complete stop. Ignoring Lance as he called out her name, she headed for the bar and the fight inside.
"Oh, no you don't." He caught her arm, pulling her to a surprised stop as she stared up at him in shock.
"What?"
"Take their statements!" He pointed imperiously toward the small crowd outside. "Now."
"But the fight…" Oh God, she really needed to expend energy. She could feel the need cramping her stomach, building in her veins.
"Statements," he snarled, the look in his eyes causing her to hesitate. "Now." She snarled furiously, flashing her canines as the sound rumbled from her throat. Gripping her hand, he slapped his notebook into it.
"Now." That tone was primal, such a completely alpha sound that she was taken aback for a moment. "Right now."
She took the statements, fuming at the injustice of it as he and the other deputies began clearing the bar.
"That was so not fair," she snapped as he strode from the bar an hour later, a bruise forming at his temple as he dragged a raw-boned cowboy by his shirt collar to a waiting patrol car. "I could have helped."
He grunted rudely.
"You wouldn't have a black eye if you had let me help," she retorted, her fist clenched around his mangled notebook. "I can't believe you did this." She couldn't believe she had blindly obeyed him like some submissive wimp that didn't know how to fight back. She had never ever obeyed a man in her life. Why the hell was she starting now?
"Your attitude is starting to severely suck, Sheriff," she informed him, trying not to look too deeply into the fact that she had figuratively tucked her tail and obeyed.
"Did you get those statements?"
"Every last one," she responded with false sweetness, glaring back at him as he met her gaze without the first sign of apology. "You should have let me in there."
"Why?" he barked as he turned and led the way to the Raider. "So you could expend some of that energy raging through your body? I don't think so. Get in the Raider." He jerked her door open as she stalked past him.
"That is just the most idiotic thing I've heard come out of your mouth," she snapped after he had slammed her door closed and was striding around to his own side. "I'm not a pet you can place in the corner and tell to sit."
"That's a dog." He twisted the key in the ignition before pushing the Raider into gear.
"Everyone knows cats don't train worth shit."
Indignation snapped inside her.
"I am not a cat," she hissed.
Shit. She hated that sound.
She hated the smirk that crossed his lips as well.
"Do you think this is going to get me in your bed?" She turned on him mockingly, her lip lifting in a sneer. "I don't hardly think so, lover. You'll have to provide a little bit more excitement than taking fucking statements to get me that riled." Lance merely grunted in response. And she just hated it when he did that. As Harmony opened her mouth to blast him, Dispatch called in with a domestic disturbance. At once Lance stilled, going icy with fury as he answered the call.
"What is it?" She could feel the anger coursing around him.
"Tommy Mason." He bit the name out. "The last time we were called to the house, he had nearly beaten his wife to death. She swore he hadn't touched her. He's managed to get around every fucking family violence law on the books."
Harmony breathed in slowly.
"Maybe I'm the wrong one to take on this call," she finally said. "I don't do well in these situations, Lance."
Things like this were what had gotten her into her present situation. The injustice of the monsters of the world literally getting away with torture and murder. Seeing the shellshocked eyes of young victims, or the broken, lifeless bodies of young women. Justice didn't always make the rabid animals of the world pay for their crimes.
"Then you better start." He accelerated the Raider as he pulled out of the bar's parking lot, flipped on the sirens and headed toward the outskirts of town.
"Sheriff, we have shots fired," Dispatch reported as Lance made a quick turn. "Mason fired at the State Police as they pulled in. We now have a hostage situation." Lance's muttered curse had the hair at the back of her neck standing on end as the Raider careened around a curve and the flashing lights of the State Police cruisers came in sight.
"Stay in the Raider," he ordered her quietly. "I'll take care of this."
"Like hell," she informed him coolly.
"Look, Harmony, Mason's wife has a kid. He's turned this into a hostage situation, and if he's drinking, he's going to be unpredictable."
"You made the decision to bring me here." If there was a child involved, there wasn't a chance in hell she was staying in the Raider.
"And I was wrong," he said quietly, his gaze suddenly softening, turning regretful. "I won't risk you like this. Stay in the Raider."
"Don't worry, Sheriff, I won't embarrass you." Her smile, she hoped, was reassuring. She couldn't prick at him when he was doing something so totally unexpected. Hell, he almost made her feel warm without his touch. "You take care of your end and I'll take care of mine."
The Raider pulled to a stop behind the State Police cruisers. Harmony followed as Lance exited the vehicle, bending to keep low as they moved to the commander.
"He started firing as soon as we pulled in, Lance." His badge tagged him as Commander Steven Noonan.
Several inches shorter than Lance, he was stooped next to the opened door of his car as he stared back at the house.
"He has her in the front bedroom. Every time we try to move in, he fires. He's threatening to kill the woman."
"Is Jaime in there?" Lance asked.
"He hasn't mentioned the kid, but the neighbors say the boy was home." The commander grimaced. "We haven't seen a sign of him though." With Lance's attention distracted by the commander, Harmony slid slowly back beside the cruiser, heading for the shadowy ditch that ran along the front of the house. Watching the house in full view of the armed man wasn't the wisest course of action as far as she was concerned, and it sure as hell wasn't going to help that kid and his mother.
Harmony had a much better idea, and she wasn't stupid enough to ask for permission. Keeping low, as she reached the back of the cruiser she slid along the ground, intending to crawl to the ditch that began just on the other side of the vehicle.
"Stop!" A strong hand latched around her ankle.
Rolling to her back, she stared at Lance. "I can get them free without anyone dying. I swear it." She stared back at him calmly. "Why risk lives? You know I can do it, Lance."
"And if the kid is dead?" he growled, keeping his voice low despite the fury throbbing in it. "What will you do then, Harmony?"
She knew what he was asking. If she killed, Jonas would have her. Especially in this situation.
She inhaled sharply. "Then the bastard will live. For now," she snapped back. "Unless or until your fine justice system decides he might not be guilty. Then we may have to rethink the matter."
Lance's eyes narrowed.
"I'm fast and I'm quiet. He'll never see me coming. He's a two-bit wife beater, Lance. Not a Coyote on the hunt. I can take him."
A shot fired from inside and the sound of a woman's cry had him flinching. Slowly, he released her ankle. Reaching into the small utility bag at the side of his belt, he pulled free a set of personal comm links that fit over the ear, the small mic extending out to lie on the cheek.
"Use this." He handed one to her as he fit the other over his ear. "If I have to use a body bag tonight, I won't be happy, Harmony," he informed her quietly, the sound of his voice coming through the link as she fitted it in place and allowed the wire-thin mic to curve over her cheek.
"No body bags," she promised with a smile, before blowing him a quick kiss. Rolling to her stomach, she pushed herself into the drainage ditch and began scuttling toward the deeper shadows several feet past the house.
The black material of her uniform blended in with the darkness, giving her the additional camouflage needed when she crawled out of the ditch and into the weeds and brush that grew at the edge of the property.
Keeping to her stomach in the long shadows, she crawled over the rough grass and rock-strewn yard, keeping her eyes on the window that gave a view into that side of the house.
"I'm moving in along the side of the house," she whispered into the mic as she finally moved against the outside of the building. Coming to her feet, she flattened herself against the siding. "Is there a back door?"
"It leads into the kitchen," Lance answered. "There's a short hallway that then leads to the living room and, beside it, the bedroom where he's holding her."
