She watched through drowsy eyes as he came to his knees, staring down at her, his expression heavy with hunger and need, and she realized he was just as defenseless against her. He had opened himself to her from the start, and she hadn't even realized it.

"Beautiful," he whispered as he positioned the thrusting, heavy erection between the folds of her pussy. "My sweet beautiful little kitten."

Harmony arched to him as he began to work his cock inside her. Each stroke drove him deeper into the clenching muscles as his hands moved along her thighs, her waist. Finally, when he was buried to the hilt, he rose over her and allowed her arms to wrap around him.

"I'm warm," she gasped then, realizing that the bone-deep cold she had known for so long was gone.

"Very warm," he whispered at her ear, his voice raspy, almost agonized as his hips began to move. "Sweet baby, so fucking warm we're going to burn the house down." Harmony undulated against him as he paused then, settling closer against her body as he pressed his lips at her neck. Slowly, the stretching burn in her pussy eased as her muscles adapted to the penetration. She could feel him, every inch of his cock throbbing inside her, stretching her until hidden nerve endings were exposed and deliriously caressed.

"Feel us together, Harmony," he whispered. "Do you really want to escape this?" He didn't give her time to answer him. Harmony bit back another strangled cry as he began to move. Long, slow strokes of his cock impaled her, burned her as she began to writhe beneath him.

She needed more. He was going too slow, torturing her with a slow, even rhythm that stroked her higher yet never triggered the orgasm burning just out of reach.

"God, you're so tight. So fucking sweet," he groaned at her ear. "You make me fly, Harmony."

He made her cry. She fought back her tears as the pleasure began to spiral. Each stroke inside her, each burrowing impalement of his cock stretching her, pushing her higher, stole another part of her soul.

It wasn't just his touch. It wasn't just his acceptance. It was the air heavy with hunger, ripe with emotion. It was feeling his warmth, the very essence of him wrapping around her.

"You steal my soul," she gasped, her nails biting into his shoulders as he paused, his head lifting as he stared down at her.

His gaze was drowsy, dark with sensual heat.

"Where do I end and you begin?" Her whispered cry shocked her; the realization that he owned so much of her would have terrified her if it didn't feel so damned right. Lance grimaced, baring his teeth a second before his lips lowered to hers. "We begin together, baby. Together. With no end."

His lips covered hers and reality receded. His hips began to pump hard and fast, the brutal pleasure in each stroke tearing through her.

Her cries filled the night as he whispered erotic, sinful words against her lips.

"Fuck me, baby… There, sweetheart, hold me tight right there… Fuck, you're hot. So fucking hot."

Lance gripped her hip with one hand, her hair with the other, as his lips parted hers, driving his tongue deep as he began to fuck her desperately. Moving. Stroking. Sending her flying as she exploded.

She flew with him. Brilliant explosions of light and ecstasy tore through her as she felt him jerk against her. Her pussy clenched tight on him, holding him deep, convulsing around the hard length of his spurting cock as she screamed out her pleasure. There. Ecstasy. Rapture. And a merging. She felt a part of him merge with her, deep inside her very spirit, and in that moment, she knew freedom wouldn't come in leaving Lance. Leaving Lance would destroy her.

CHAPTER I5

"I wanted to save Jonas. She was going to kill him."

Drowsy, immeasurably sad, Harmony spoke into the predawn light that filtered through the crack in the dark curtains of the room.

Lance held her close against his chest, his chin resting against her head, his arms wrapped around her, pressing her back against his chest and abdomen.

"Who was going to kill him, Harmony?"

"Jonas," she whispered after a long pause. "Madame LaRue gave birth to him. She cuddled him as a babe and as a toddler. He was given the best of everything the labs could provide, but he was kind. He would brush my hair when he returned from a mission. LaRue always ordered my tests while he was gone. She didn't want him to know the extent of her cruelty. He believed the other scientists controlled her, forced her to the acts she committed in the name of science."

He would brush her hair. It sounded simple, a small enough gesture, but Lance heard the reverence in her voice when she said it. "When Jonas captured me last month, his scientist Elyiana had to take blood and swabs. I hate that. I hate the needles poking into me. He came to my cell a while later. He still had the brush he used when I was at the labs. And he brushed my hair."

Her voice was thick with emotion, and Lance had to blink to force back the rush of moisture as he let her talk. The tone of her voice, reflective, husky, tore at his soul.

"Madame LaRue was going to kill him." Her hands tightened on his arms. "All but a few of us were ordered to die. The other Breeds in that room, the ones I killed, they had been betraying Jonas for months as he planned an escape for all of us. Even Madame." A small shudder raced through her body. "He was her personal experiment, and he could never see it. I was her child as well, but only Jonas knew peace within those labs. Only he knew gentleness. And I wanted to preserve the kindness I saw in him. The memory of a mother. Such memories are precious, aren't they?"

"You wanted to protect him," he whispered. "Because you loved him." Her breath caught as a silent sob shook her body.

"Within weeks, his personal guards, two Coyotes known for their viciousness, found me. He had sent them. Their final words to me were the message he sent. Rogues die. The last words he said as I ran from the room where I had killed his mother." Lance swallowed tightly. God help him, he wanted nothing more than to tear Jonas apart. The bastard had no idea what he had done to the child who had risked her life for him.

"You have proof of what she was," he said then. He knew she did. "Why didn't you give it to him?"

She was silent for long moments. "There was so little that we had to hold onto." She inhaled roughly, her voice rasping on her tears. "We knew we were creations of man, rather than of God. That we were created to kill. But Jonas, he had a mother. He had gentle touches and soft words. He had something to dim the hatred and the pain, the brutality of our lives. And giving him the information wouldn't change anything." She trembled again, her breathing jerky as she pressed tighter against him, and he felt her hunger for all the things she had mentioned. She had fought to protect Jonas's vision of a mother that was a monster because she had hungered so desperately for the illusion herself.

"I couldn't let her kill him," she whispered raggedly. "He brushed my hair…" He had given her the one bit of warmth and gentleness in a dark, horrific world. Lance pulled her closer to him, tucking her in as tight as possible as he buried his face against her hair.

"And now, there's you," she whispered tearfully. "Honorable. Patient. What do I do, Lance, if you die because of me? If the monsters find you and destroy the life that burns so pure inside you?"

And what would he do without her?

"I'm a child of the earth," he told her softly, feeling her still against him. "The winds call to me, the very air around me whispers the secrets of others at my ear. It warns me of danger and it protects me when others would have seen me fall. It led me to that bar the night I met you. As I sat outside, wondering what the hell I was doing there, it whispered your name."

She turned to him slowly, staring up at him with tortured pale green eyes as he lifted himself on an elbow. He wanted to surround her. He wanted to wrap himself around her in such a way that she would never be alone again.

"You have something Jonas wants," he told her then. "I hear the knowledge of it each time I see Jonas, each time you mention his name. A secret or secrets that go far beyond the mother you share."

Lance watched as her face paled and fear filled her eyes.

"Jonas doesn't want revenge, Harmony. The only reason he's still alive is the fact that there's no true malice in him when he's around you. But he does want whatever you're hiding from him. And he wants it bad enough that he'll use you, or me, to get it." She shook her head slowly as he watched her expression. It went from fear to confusion, her eyes shadowing as she frowned back at him.

"He can't know what I have," she said. "No one knew but the scientists in that office, and I killed them."

"Knew what, Harmony?"

"That the first Breed created still lives." Her voice lowered until it was no more than a breath of sound.

_________

Unknown secrets. What came before and still is. The words whispered at his ear, breathed across his mind.

"There's more." Lance ran his hand comfortingly down her arm as she trembled beneath him again. "But considering it's Jonas, only God knows what he wants."

"And if we can't afford to wait to learn what he's after?" Lance felt her fear then.

"Alonzo knew me as Death, when I was younger. If he recognizes me now, my cover is blown. If that happens, every Coyote still alive and working with the Council will be after me. The price on my head is very high."

God, could it get much worse?

"What was he doing there? How was he involved?" Lance asked.

"I'm not sure what role he played." She sighed. "But he was very important to Madame LaRue, and I know he provided vast amounts of money toward the Breed project."

"Do you have proof Alonzo was part of the Council?" He would love to see the good reverend taken down.

She shook her head. "I don't have that proof. But he was at the lab several times and met with Madame and my trainer. If he recognizes me, Lance…"

"Then we'll have to make certain Alonzo doesn't find out." He could feel that danger intensifying around them then, and heard the whisper of relief at his ear, even as the air warned of the danger Alonzo could represent. He didn't know who Harmony was, and that was all that mattered at this point.

A small smile tipped her lips. "Are you listening to the winds?" He smoothed her hair back from her cheek. "Finally," he acknowledged ruefully.

"Grandfather would be pleased with me."

"The Council searched for women who had gifts such as yours," she said. "They were perceived as the perfect incubators for the implanted Breed embryos. It was believed that the women who carried the creations added an element to the final makeup of the Breed. Psychic power is one of the elements they believed could be transferred in such ways."

Embryos and creations. Never babes or children. God help him, but the rage burning in him against those who had scarred her soul from birth terrified him. He had known that many psychics and Native American women were taken, held captive until the children they were implanted with were born, then released. The women they used in such ways had come from all over the world, and Jonas knew they had searched heavily for psychics.

"I won't let you leave me," he finally said.

"How do I stay?"

He held himself still, silent, staring down at her as she reached up, running the tips of her fingers down his cheek.

"I've never had anyone," she whispered. "I knew better. I knew they would be used to capture me. They'll take you, they'll torture you, and they'll make certain I know. I would give my life for you, but all it would do is ease the pain you would experience because of me. You would die anyway."

A tear fell from her eyes, creating a silvery track down her cheek as her lips trembled. Lance felt his chest jerk, felt the emotion that welled within him like a cruel fist, clenching around his heart. "We fight to survive. To love. What the earth wills will be, Harmony. Running won't change that. It won't save either of us." Her face twisted in agony as she turned from him, huddling on her side, her body trembling as he pulled her close once again.