Broken Moon (7 page)

Harley went upstairs to the guest bedroom
facing the front of the house, where Agent Lancaster was currently seated at a
desk, tapping away at a laptop. A flat screen television, connected to the
closed circuit cameras surreptitiously stationed around the house, outside and
inside, displayed six separate screens, and Harley confirmed with a quick
glance that there was no suspicious activity.

           
Yet.

            “Hey
there.” Agent Lancaster swiveled around in his chair to face Harley. He had a
headful of blonde hair, and had ditched the dark shades, revealing dark green
eyes. “How was the pizza?”

            “Good.”
Harley inclined his head. “Thanks for getting to us so fast.”

            Lancaster
shrugged. “Just doing our job.” He jerked his thumb to the cordless phone on
the desk. “You need to make a call?”

            “Yes
please.”

            Harley
sat down on the guest bed, careful to stay out of sight of the windows, and
called the Commander again. This time, he was put straight through with practically
no hold time. “You made it to the safe house?” Fitsimmons demanded.

            “Yes.”

            “How
is my daughter.”

            “Footsore,
but safe.” Harley winced when he remembered her flesh wound. “She was also shot
in the side while we were making our escape. “But she’s healing well.”

            The
Commander let out a round of curses that were foul enough to make a sailor’s
ears turn red at the tips. “I’m going to annihilate the bastards who did this,”
he growled when he’d calmed down enough to speak again. “What can you tell me
about them?”

            “Not
much, unfortunately.” Harley gave him a rundown of everything that had
happened, starting from his meeting at the bar with the informant, and ending
at their escape and subsequent stay at the cabin in the woods.”

            “Dammit,”
the Commander said quietly when he’d finished. “So the Intel file is gone?”

             “Yes
sir. I apologize.” His ears burned with shame at having to tell the Commander
just how he’d managed to lose the thing. “I take full responsibility for the
failure.”

            “Damn
well you do,” Fitsimmons snapped. But then he sighed. “Not that you’re the
first soldier to be compromised by his desires. We’re going to have to work out
some kind of antidote for that perfume concoction they used on you,” he
growled. “I can’t have my shifters being taken down by some manufactured bullshit
scent.”

            “Yes.”
Harley paused. “The silver is also a major problem, sir.”

            “Yeah,
well unfortunately I don’t know that I’m going to be able to come up with a
solution for that,” Fitsimmons growled. “There’s only so much one can do about
biology. But I’ll see if our scientists can come up with something to
neutralize the silver, or at least flush it out of the system faster.”

            “That
would be great. Because I have a feeling that they have a whole lot more of
those darts available to use against us.”

            “Christ,”
Fitsimmons muttered. “And I thought silver bullets were the worst thing we had
to worry about.” Harley could imagine the Commander sitting back in his chair
and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I assume that Dawson has been taken out
as well,” he said, referring to the informant.

            “I
smelled blood in the alleyway shortly before I was ambushed, so I have to
assume so,” Harley said, feeling guilty as hell that he’d let the guy leave
before him. “I should have checked to make sure the perimeter was safe before I
allowed him to leave.”

            “No,”
the Commander disagreed. “Dawson was responsible for his own safety. He knew
the risks involved with coming to work for us, and while it’s unfortunate, it’s
also par for the course.”

            Harley
leaned against the wall and rubbed at his temples. “So what’s our next move,
then?”

            “I’m
sending out a team to accompany you back to enemy base you escaped from,” the
Commander said. “And a separate one to escort Jocelyne home.”

            Harley
felt a pang of sadness at the idea that Jocelyne would be leaving him, even as
relief washed over him. “That’ll be good. She’s missing home, and you.”

            “I
should have had a car waiting for her the moment she got off work,” Fitsimmons
growled. “I’ll be keeping her at my home until the dust behind all of this has
settled… maybe even longer.” There was a pause. “I owe you a debt for rescuing
my daughter, Coulter.”

            “We
rescued each other,” Harley said simply. “No thanks needed, sir. She covered my
back so I could get us out of there safely.”

            “She’s
always been so brave,” Fitsimmons said, his voice full of fatherly pride. “I
taught her how to use a gun at a very early age, and she’s had a concealed
carry permit since she was old enough for me to get her one. I’ve never really
worried about her safety before now.”

            “She’s
lucky to have you as a father,” Harley said. Part of him wondered what it would
have been like to have parents who watched over him like that with such
devotion. But he’d been orphaned at a young age and raised by his aunt, who
hadn’t liked him much, and hadn’t hesitated to pack him off as soon as he
professed his desire to join the army.

            “I’m
more lucky to have her as a daughter, she’s so brave and headstrong” the
Commander said, his voice thick with emotion again. He cleared his throat, then
added. “But she’s not nearly as invincible as she thinks she is. Keep her safe
until I can get her back to me, will you?”

            “On
my honor.”

            “Good
luck, Coulter. You’ll have your orders shortly.”

            “Thank
you, Commander.”

            Harley
ended the call and placed the phone back in its cradle. Checking the time, he
realized it was nearly three in the afternoon. “Damn,” he muttered. “Still got
a hell of a lot of hours between now and bedtime,” he said.

            Lancaster
looked up. “There’s plenty of card and board games stashed in the living room,”
he said. “And video games too, if you’re into that kind of thing. Maybe you can
rustle up your lady friend for a game or two. I saw her go into the bedroom.”

            Harley
glanced at the television screen again. Two of the screen views were dedicated
to the bedroom – one trained on the window, and the other one trained on
the door from the hallway, so he couldn’t actually see her in the room.

           
Guess
that means you can take her to bed without giving the boys a show.

           
His ears
burned at the idea of making love to the Commander’s daughter, just moments
after getting an earful from him about how precious his daughter was to him
over the phone. But, he did want to spend time with Jocelyne right now, and if
she was in the bedroom, that’s where he was going to go.

            “I
think I’ll do that,” he told Lancaster. “Thanks.”

            He
headed for the bedroom down the hall, wondering just how he would find Jocelyne
when he opened the door.

* * *

The bedroom door swung open just as Jocelyne
was about to pierce herself with the needle, and she squeaked, dropping the
tiny implement on the bedcovers. “Oh!” she exclaimed when Harley stepped in.
“It’s just you.” She scrambled for the needle, which was rolling toward the edge
of the bed, and snatched it just before it fell. “Gotcha!”

            Harley’s
bemused eyes scanned the first aid kit supplies she had spread out on the bed,
which included a bottle of peroxide, cotton balls, and bandages. “Do I want to
know what this is about?”

            Jocelyne
crossed her legs and propped her right foot against her knee, angling it so
that she could see the huge blister that had formed on the ball of her foot.
“Just trying to pop these suckers.” She picked up the needle and prepared to
stab the thing.

            “Here,
let me do it.” The bed creaked beneath Harley’s weight as he settled onto it.
He gently plucked the needle from her fingers, then grasped her ankle and
pulled it into his lap.

            “Hey!”
she protested as he popped the first one. He quickly grabbed a cotton pad and
mopped up the liquid that trickled down her foot, then swabbed the area with
peroxide and bandaged it.

            He
laughed. “What, you really want to sit there and do it yourself when I can see
better than you?”

            “I
guess not,” she grumbled, crossing her arms and leaning back against the
headboard. She watched Harley pop and dress three more blisters, and then move
to the other foot. “You’re pretty efficient.”

            “Yeah,
well I’ve had my fair share of blisters too,” he said, his head ducked down so
that his dark, wavy hair obscured his features. He finished bandaging the other
foot, then looked up at her through his bangs as he started to massage her
foot. “How does that feel?”

            “Like
bliss,” she groaned, leaning her head back. She let him work his magic, his
strong, sure fingers finding every single sore spot in her foot and rubbing it
away. “God, you’re really good at this.”

            Harley
gave her a lopsided grin. “I’ve had sore feet enough times in my life to know
where the trouble spots usually are,” he told her before switching to the other
foot.

            “I’ll
bet,” she said, thinking of his time in the army, and then didn’t speak for a
while as she endured the pleasure-pain of Harley’s amazing foot massage. When
she could find her breath again, she asked, “When did you join the military?”

            Harley
paused briefly, and then his thumb continued its slow, firm circles against the
ball of her foot. “When I was seventeen.”

            “So
young,” she breathed, looking down at him and trying to imagine what he looked
like as a seventeen year old. “I was enjoying Europe with my girlfriends when I
was seventeen and enduring thrice-daily phone calls from my father.”

            Harley
chuckled a little. “I’ll bet your father had a fit at the idea that you’d be
off in a foreign country for weeks without him.” Finished with her foot, he
began gliding his fingers up and down the tendons and muscles in her calves,
and Jocelyne groaned as he hit all kinds of sore spots she didn’t even know she
had.

            “He
did,” she admitted, “but he loves me, and he knew how badly I wanted to see
Europe, so he let me go.” She hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Why did you
join at seventeen, if you don’t mind me asking?”

            Harley
shrugged as if the question was no big deal, but she didn’t miss the almost
imperceptible tightening of his facial muscles. “I didn’t have anything else
better to do,” he admitted. “Both my parents were dead, and I had no family or
job prospects. I figured I could put my superhuman abilities to better use if I
served my country.”

            “How
did your parents die?”

            This
time there was no mistaking the dark look that crossed Harley’s face. “My
mother died when I was young,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know her very well,
and my father raised me as best as he could, even though he was the leader of
our shifter pack and couldn’t spend nearly as much time with me as he liked.
Nevertheless, he raised me well, and was grooming me to take over the pack from
him when he died.” A far off look entered his eyes, and he stopped speaking for
a moment.

            “What
happened then?” Jocelyne was almost afraid to ask. “Why didn’t you end up
becoming the pack leader?”

            “Another
shifter came into town and challenged my father for pack leadership,” he said
darkly. “According to our laws, the pack leader must accept the challenge, so my
father had to fight even though it was clear the other wolf was stronger than
him.” His blue eyes shone with raw pain, and Jocelyne’s throat clenched with
sadness for him. “He was killed, and the new wolf took possession of the pack,
and banished me.”

            “What?”
Jocelyne nearly jumped up from the bed, but Harley was still holding her leg so
she fell back down. “Why would he do that? He had no right to push you from
your home, and family like that.” Though she’d never grown up in a shifter clan
or pack, she knew that every member viewed the other as family, and that the
community would have been Harley’s support system.

            “Actually…he
had every right,” Harley said flatly, shaking his head. “I was a threat to him,
and besides, I refused to accept his rule.” His eyes were like blue steel. “No
one in the pack was strong enough to stand up to him or overthrow him, so it
was either a choice between choosing to follow him, choosing to leave, or
choosing death.”

            Jocelyne
wanted to say something to comfort Harley, but she didn’t know what to say to
calm him down – his eyes glowed a fiery gold and his chest was heaving
with anger as he glared at her. “Well?” he finally demanded. “Aren’t you going
to tell me that I made the wrong choice? That I should have stayed and died,
should have stood up and challenged him for the birthright he stole from me?
Aren’t you going to tell me I’m a coward?”