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"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.
"I didn't think about this," he whispered as he lifted her hands to his lips and placed a kiss in the center.
She inhaled roughly as Lance felt arousal tearing through him. Dammit, wrong place. Definitely the wrong place for this.
"Let's get those reports written so we can head home. " He released her slowly. "We can check in on Liza and Jaime at the hospital if you want to, when we're finished. " She shook her head firmly as she ducked away from him and slid into the Raider.
"It's better if we don't," she finally whispered. "Better for all of us. " As they drove to the department, Lance kept his window down a bare inch, allowing the winds to move through the vehicle, to whisper at his ear. Warnings. Danger. Pain. And Tommy Mason's name.
He pulled into the parking lot of the Sheriff's Department and sighed wearily before leaving the vehicle, staying close to Harmony as they moved up the steps toward the entrance.
Inside, a crowd milled within the reception area, which wasn't that unusual on a Friday night. The State Police cruisers were parked at the curb, which meant Steven and his partner, Lyle, were booking Mason.
Following Harmony, he stepped into mayhem. With no warning, no whisper of the wind to guide him, he came face-to-face with Reverend H. R. Alonzo.
"Sheriff Jacobs, your actions tonight border on the criminal. " Alonzo stood with perhaps half a dozen of his society members backing him as deputies looked on warily. Harmony tried to move to the side, to skirt the crowd and escape the coming confrontation. Until one of the larger men stepped in front of her, his hand reaching out to grip her arm.
Harmony hissed. A furious feline sound of anger as she bared her teeth and jerked back from him.
"Alonzo, what the hell are you doing here?" Lance grabbed Harmony's arm before it could go for her knife, and pushed her behind him.
"You can't save her. " Righteous indignation flushed the reverend's heavy jowls as his pale blue eyes burned with fanaticism. "We saw what she did to that poor man the State Police just brought in. The brutality of her attack was uncalled for. " Lance stared back at him coldly. Brutality, his ass.
"If you have a complaint to file, come back in the morning," he snapped. "Until then, get the hell out of my way. "
"Do you think you can force these animals on Godfearing people. " Alonzo's voice rose, the strident question posed in a sermonizing tone that grated on Lance's nerves. Behind him, he could feel Harmony watching, waiting. The air began to hum with danger then.
"Alonzo, it's too damned late for this," Lance growled as he gripped Harmony's arm and began to move around the crowd. They shifted with him as their voices began to rise in volume.
"Since when do we cater to animals, Sheriff?" one woman's voice rang out. "It's bad enough we have that cousin of yours consorting with those creatures and messing up our town. "
He swung his gaze to one of the matrons of the city, a prudish, troublemaking old busybody who protested everything under the sun. He should have known she would be here.
"Take it up with the City Council, Matilda," he snapped. "Not here. "
"He's as ensnared by the creature as his cousin is to her own pet," Alonzo cried out.
