Broken Moon

by Catherine Vale

  Jocelyne gasped. “That’s… that’s ridiculous! Why would they do that?”

  Harley shrugged. “I’m honestly not sure.” He twisted his lips into a cruel grimace. “Perhaps they’re just afraid or jealous of what we can do. The Order of Protection has been able to accomplish a lot of things that normal human military just aren’t capable of. We’ve always known we’ve had enemies… we just didn’t realize there was an organization out there who’d decided our presence meant they had to get rid of all of us.”

  Jocelyne bit her lip. “But if that’s the case, then why were they holding you instead of just killing you? Were you a hostage as well?”

  Harley’s dark brows drew together as a thundercloud passed across his face. “No,” he said harshly. “They were torturing me in a series of experiments to try and test my limits,” he told them. “After that they were planning on engineering me into some kind of super soldier, I guess. Like an evil Captain America, maybe.”

  “But why?” Jocelyne gasped. “If they hate shifters and supernaturals in general, why would they want to use them?”

  “They’re fighting fire with fire. Guess they know they aren’t necessarily strong enough to take us down on their own, so they’re recruiting and brainwashing some of us to the cause.” An ugly look passed across Harley’s face. “I wonder who they’ll go after next, if they can’t recapture me.”

  Horror chilled Jocelyne’s blood at the very thought. “We can’t let that happen,” she said. “We have to stop them, however we can.”

  “And we will.” Harley pushed back his chair and headed upstairs. “By getting whatever information we can back to the Order so we can figure out our next move. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a report to make.”

  Chapter Ten

  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 w
ithout 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?”

  “No,” Jocelyne said softly, shaking her head. “I would never call you a coward. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

  Shock shimmered in the blue depths of his eyes. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

  Jocelyne lifted her chin. “I am not,” she said firmly, “and you know it. The coward’s way out would have been to stay there and die, to give up on your life. Instead you went out into the unknown, with no help or friends or family to rely on, and you found yourself a new life. A new community in which you learned to thrive. You made your own way.”

  Harley’s eyes seemed to swirl with a whirlwind of emotions. “I abandoned my pack. I should have stayed to protect them. They probably all think that I’m worthless for leaving them.”

  “Some of them might say that,” Jocelyne argued, “but I’ll bet that if you could get inside their heads, most of them would admire you for what you’ve done.” She leaned forward to squeeze one of his hands. “I’ve met pack shifters before, and I know from experience that many of them would sooner die than be turned out of their communities. So you’re not a coward just because you decided to choose the possibility of life over the certainty of death. You’re the bravest person I know, and you’ve saved countless lives with everything you’ve done.”

  Harley stared at her for a long moment, then dipped his head down to brush a soft kiss against her knuckles. “Your words… they make me feel so good,” he whispered against her skin. “Better than I have a right to feel.”

  “Everybody has the right to feel good,” Jocelyne murmured as she crawled into his lap. She straddled Harley’s hips, then wrapped her arms around him and rested her head against his shoulders, embracing him with all the warmth and affection she had to offer. “Especially t
he soldiers who serve our country. I’m honored to know you.”

  Harley pulled back a little so he could look at her face. His eyes gleamed with such intensity that they stole her breath and made her heart beat faster all at the same time. “No, I’m the one who’s truly honored,” he said.

  He kissed her then, a soft, sweet, slow expression of love… or so Jocelyne liked to believe. She didn’t know if Harley loved her, but the emotion that was swelling in her chest as she kissed him back certainly seemed scarily close to the emotion. But rather than reject it, she embraced it, allowing herself to be engulfed by the rising passion between them. She could feel his erection pressing against her inner thigh, and her blood heated at the knowledge that this big, strong, handsome soldier actually wanted her.

  “Do we have to worry about cameras?” she breathed as he laid her back on the bed.

  “No,” he chuckled. “We’re safely in the blind spot. And I don’t think they have any sound.” He bit down on Jocelyne’s earlobe then, and she gasped as he suckled on the soft cartilage, sensitizing the sweet spot. His hands slid up her shirt to undo her bra, and then he was cupping her breasts, teasing her nipples with soft tweaks and rolls of his thumbs as his mouth moved down the side of her neck and to her collarbone.

  “Harley,” she moaned as desire tightened in her belly. “I want you.”

  “And you’ll have me.” He slid off her jeans in one smooth motion, then divested her of her top as well. “Your wound’s healed up pretty nicely,” he murmured, tracing the outline of the pinkish scar that was all that was left behind. That, too, would be gone in a few days, and she’d be left with nothing but a memory of the injury.

  He leaned down to trace the outline of the bullet wound with his tongue, and Jocelyne shivered with pleasure as his hot, wet tongue slid across her flesh. She moaned softly when he bit down gently on the area, and then continued south to the juncture of her thighs.