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"All secure," Leo snarled, strong, sharp incisors flashing at the sides of his mouth. "We still have a few of the bastards to pull in. The main strike escaped, though they left empty-handed."
"How is Lance?" Rachel could hear the concern, as well as the promise of retribution, in his voice.
Leo looked aside for a moment, his jaw clenching, before turning back. "Elizabeth and Ely have him. They're confident he's going to pull through, but he's unconscious now."
"Harmony?" Jonas's voice thickened with concern.
Leo's lips tightened in fury as his eyes blazed. "She's gone after them, Jonas. I couldn't stop her."
Rachel looked into Jonas's face and saw, for just a second, pure, naked fear and pain.
"I'll bring her home," he stated with chilling force. "My ETA is in five."
"Bring her home," Leo affirmed. "But if you'd left her the hell alone, we wouldn't be worried about her, now would we?"
"No, we'd be mourning her."
Jonas didn't give the other man a chance to respond. The communication device flipped off before his hand clenched around it with enough force that the veins bulged in his hands.
"Harmony's fine." Rachel wanted to console him, wanted to ease the worry, though she knew that wasn't entirely possible.
His head jerked to her. "Harmony will bathe that mountain in blood if I don't rein her in," Jonas snorted. "We need at least one of those bastards left alive. She'll skin them all. She makes your sister look like the tooth fairy."
Rachel frowned. "My sister isn't that bad."
Jonas merely snorted again.
"If Harmony is that dangerous, then she'll be fine," she reassured him again, watching the clenching of his jaw as he fought to rein in whatever emotions were tearing him apart.
"I nearly lost her once." He turned back to her, their gazes meeting, locking as she read the worry in his. "She was on a fast track to suicide, and as much as Leo's family cared for her, they couldn't have stopped it."
"But you did?" She hadn't known this. Merinus had told her very little about Jonas's sister.
His smile was tight but victorious. "When I met her mate, there was a calm about him, a streak of pure peace that seemed to surround him. The second I looked into his eyes I felt my sister's salvation in him, though I swear to God I don't know how. When his cousin mated one of my Enforcers, I was able to use the blood and saliva samples we require for anyone working with Breeds, from him. They matched what I had acquired of Harmony's from the labs we were bred in. I gave her peace, and this makes twice someone has attempted to steal it from her."
Which meant someone was going to pay for it.
"Brandenmore?" she asked. "You think he's behind this?"
"I know he is," Jonas grunted as his hand lifted to rub at hers where it lay on his thigh. The motion was almost unconscious, as though he was doing it by instinct rather than by design. "There's something he's after--something that has to do with the mating phenomenon."
"The information regarding the halt in aging?" She knew what it was. She had known, once she had thought about it, why Merinus and Kane hadn't aged over the years when the rest of their family had.
"Sometimes you're too damned smart." He sighed, but there was a hint of approval in his tone, as well as his gaze.
Sometimes he was entirely too approachable, Rachel could have retorted. Such as now, when he was reaching out to her, amid the danger and the strife of his life. He was still making room for her, finding a reason, and a chance, to be gentle.
He wasn't hiding from her. He wasn't manipulating her. And she knew Jonas well enough to know when he was doing exactly that.
"Sanctuary in sight," Jackal called out. "Prepare to disembark, Director. We have live fire still coming in. Duck and run."
The heli-jet swooped down, its engines powering down, vibrating through the cabin as it set down as close to the estate house as possible.
The door swung open. Rachel found herself held tight to Jonas's side, her feet off the ground as he jumped from the craft, raced across the short distance and toward the opened double doors, which led to the large underground lab network beneath the estate house.
Live fire burst around them from the mountainside. Jonas was shouting orders as Seth and Dawn raced behind them, completely surrounded by a formation of Breeds.
"We're in. We're in," Jonas called out as steel and cement surrounded them.
