“They have a permit, Sheriff.” Lenny was sweating as frustration lined his rounded face. “Somehow they got the mayor to sign it.”
“Weasel,” Lance snarled as he placed his hand at Harmony’s back and led her to his office. “Keep them out of the damned department. Are Wyatt and his crew here?”
“In your office. With their lawyer.” Lenny nodded.
Harmony tensed, her hand falling to her weapon. The fact that Jonas had brought his lawyer couldn’t mean anything good. Jess Warden was a barracuda; Harmony had seen that when Jonas held her in the cells at Sanctuary. She knew Breed Law like the back of her hand and had become well acquainted in working it.
“Let’s get this the hell over with,” Lance snapped as they moved to the door.
At the last second, he pushed her behind him and threw the door open.
Jonas was waiting for them. Merc, Rule and Lawe carried their short automatic rifles with casual readiness. They were dressed in the black enforcer mission uniforms, their expressions hard, emotionless. Harmony’s hand tightened on her weapon as she stepped into the office behind Lance.
This was it. Jonas had found what he needed. It wouldn’t matter that he knew she hadn’t made those kills. He could use them. That would be enough for him.
“I need your weapons, Harmony.” Jonas’s voice was a warning rumble as Lance closed the door behind them. “We need you at Sanctuary for questioning in the death of Tommy Mason.”
“Jonas, you don’t want to do this,” Lance warned him as Harmony felt tension rising in the room. “You know I’m not going to let you take her.”
Harmony snorted. “The alpha stuff is really cute,” she drawled. “And this standoff is so testosterone-laden I’m about to have overload. Could we get past it, please?”
She loosened her body, consciously relaxing her muscles as she considered her options. The door was next to her; getting free wouldn’t be a hardship. Running would be a tad more difficult.
The lawyer, Jess Warden, was possibly the only one to give her words much notice. Jess’s lips tilted in amused agreement as she lounged against the front of Lance’s desk.
“Harmony, remember when I warned you that Jonas wanted something?” Lance reminded her quietly.
“Yeah? So?” Of course he wanted something. Everyone wanted something from her.
“Ask him what he wants.”
She watched as Jonas lifted a brow, his gaze reflecting admiration.
“Your sheriff is quick,” he murmured as he inhaled deeply. “In more ways than one.”
“Jonas!” Lance’s voice was a commanding whip. “Don’t burn your bridges here, man.”
Jonas’s lips tilted in mocking amusement.
“Fine, we’ll see if we can make this easy.” He shrugged in unconcern. “I want your shadow. You’ll follow the mission plan we’ve put together and help us capture the team that repeatedly rescues you. I want them both.”
Dane? He wanted Dane and Ryan? Not the information she had stolen from the labs? She stared back at him in confusion.
“Why?”
“That doesn’t concern you, Harmony,” he said. “Give me what I want, and your little indiscretions here will be ignored. You’ll receive clear status and freedom. Freedom to stay with Lance.”
“And if I don’t?”
“If you don’t, I’m taking you with me, and Breed Law will be enforced. You’re a wanted assassin, not just by the Bureau but by regular law enforcement channels as well. As Death, you have a hefty price on your head in several countries. Give me what I want, and I’ll ensure, personally, that everyone believes Death is dead. Harmony can live her life in peace.”
“This isn’t going to happen, Jonas.” Lance’s voice surprised her. What surprised her more was how easily his hand dropped to the weapon at his side. “Harmony has upheld her end of the deal. I will personally attest to it.”
“Can you save Death as easily?” Jonas asked, his voice soft, almost gentle. “She’s a wanted killer.”
Harmony gauged her chances of making the door. Dane and Ryan would find her; all she had to do was get out of there. She felt agony well deep inside her at the thought of leaving Lance. The warmth, the pleasure of his touch.
“Breed Law will do that for me.” She stilled at Lance’s voice. “Breed Law cancels when a child is involved. The moment she conceived she was exonerated until and unless she kills again. And she has conceived. You can’t take her, Jonas.”
Harmony almost smiled. Lance surely knew this wouldn’t work. Jonas would know better.
Instead, Jonas nodded. “I scented that the moment she walked in the door. But think about this, Lance. Will she ever be safe with you?”
“I’m not pregnant.” The rest of the conversation dissolved as her world narrowed to that single piece of information. “That’s not possible.”
Her gaze swept around the room, taking in the compassion, sympathy and knowledge in the expressions staring back at her.
“It’s not possible,” she repeated.
“Harmony, you are pregnant,” Jonas stated softly. “You and I both know that once your shadow learns of this, he’ll take you. He will take you himself, because his single most important goal is protecting you. And that child will weaken you.”
“No one captures me unless I want to be captured,” she hissed back at him. “You managed it, because fool that I was, I still called you brother.” The knowledge of that tore through her soul. “I couldn’t harm your men, I couldn’t get free without killing them, so I let them take me.”
She couldn’t breathe. Pulling air into her lungs hurt; the implication of what they were saying was destroying her. How could she have not realized she was pregnant? It was her body, her child. Surely she would know.
For a moment, Jonas’s expression seemed to gentle.
“Breed females can rarely scent their own conception. But it’s there, Harmony. I can smell it, and the winds have whispered it to Lance. You can’t run from it. You’re here. And you’re pregnant. The man protecting you won’t let you stay. Help me capture him before he takes you from Lance anyway.”
“Stop it, Jonas,” Lance warned, his voice hard.
“He won’t take me, because I won’t let him.” She was pregnant. Lance’s child rested inside her. She could feel herself weakening, options she’d thought she had dissolving beneath the knowledge.
“You’re weak now, Harmony. And you know he will take you. You’re important to him because of the information you stole from those labs. He won’t allow anyone else to possess that information. There was no chance of you sharing what you had. Mated, pregnant, you’re weak and therefore a threat. He won’t allow that. He won’t allow you to turn that evidence over to anyone else.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s the first Leo. The first created, Harmony. His genetic typing is the blueprint for every Breed that came after him. And Madame LaRue possessed the last evidence of his existence in the papers and files you stole. You are his weakness.”
Shock raced through her. Shock that he knew the information the files contained—but that first Leo couldn’t be Dane.
She shook her head slowly. “He’s too young. There’s no scent of a Breed…”
“There’s no scent at all. You forget, he mated one of the Genetic Council’s foremost experts on Breed genetics at the time. If he found a way to cover his scent, then the Breed community can use that knowledge as well.”
“He’s too young.”
“Aging halts between a Breed and his mate once mating heat occurs,” he answered. “We have no idea how long mates can live. We need that knowledge.”
“Then why hasn’t he taken the information?” she snarled. “If this were true, then he would have told me. He would have demanded what I had and I would have easily turned it over to him. This makes no sense, Jonas. You’re lying.”