Broken Moon

by Catherine Vale

  But as she stood there, her breathing gradually evening out, the sting of their taunts faded, and she focused a little more on the meaning behind their words. Why exactly had they brought her back? I mean, yeah, they’d kidnapped her initially, and she assumed that they would try to recapture her, but the fact was that they’d chosen to leave Harley behind was confusing to her.

  What exactly did they want with her? Were they not holding her as a hostage, as she’d initially assumed? But she didn’t understand how she could be valuable to them. She didn’t have any knowledge of the Order’s military operations, so she didn’t see how she could be more than a pawn, something used to control her father.

  But if that was the case, why hadn’t they tried to contact her father yet? From what she’d been able to glean from Harley, her father hadn’t been approached with any demands. Why wait so long?

  Sighing, she sat down on the cot and stared out through her cell bars at Harley’s cell, which had yet to be fixed. The sight of those bars all bent out of shape kindled a spark of hope in her chest that Harley and her father would come for her – Harley was determined and resourceful, and her father would move heaven and earth in order to ensure her safety. She knew between the two of them, her eventual rescue was assured.

  She just didn’t know how long it would take.

  Jocelyne had just started dosing off when a warm, feminine voice floated through the speakers above. “Getting comfortable, are we?” the voice said in smooth, melodic tones, and Jocelyne bolted upright, her eyes searching for the cameras she knew must be in the cell.

  “Who are you?” Jocelyne demanded, glaring at the single camera she found in the corner of the ceiling. “And what do you want with me?”

  Laughter floated out of the speaker like a warm, soft mist, as if the speaker was some benevolent spectator, rather than the cause of her current pain and misery. “I can’t imagine Harley wouldn’t have told you my name,” she said. “But in case you don’t remember it, I go by Amelia. As for why you’re here, it’s because of your untapped potential, which I am highly interested in harvesting.”

  “Untapped potential? Harvesting?” A sick, cold fear curdled in Jocelyne’s gut, and she had to force herself not to back up against the wall to put some space between her and the voice – not that that would have worked anyway. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re about to find out soon enough.”

  There was a loud beep, then a swish that signified the door at the end of the hall opening. Jocelyne’s throat tightened in fear again, and this time she did scramble back against the wall, pushing herself into a corner like a frightened animal might when the guards opened her cell door. She fought and screamed and bit, wishing like hell that she could form teeth and claws the way full-shifters could, and was rewarded with a meaty fist to the face. Stars exploded in her eyes, blood rushing down her face from her nose, and still she struggled as they dragged her down the hall and into a brightly lit corridor that hurt her eyes. They dragged her through a set of blue double doors into a large room that, from the large array of equipment and tables, looked like part laboratory and part surgical suite. Panic sent gorge rising up through her throat as they dragged her to a steel table fitted with cuffs, and she threw up on one of the guard’s shoes.

  “You bitch!” The guard pulled back his fist to hit her again, and Jocelyne braced herself from another blow.

  “Now, now,” the warm, feminine voice from earlier chided, and Jocelyne looked up to see Amelia standing by the steel table, dressed in a white lab coat that was open, revealing a gray skirt suit beneath. She had dark hair pulled up into a bun, and square, black-rimmed glasses that framed a set of lovely, beguiling dark eyes. “We wouldn’t want our lovely mother-to-be to miscarry, now would we?”

  Jocelyne froze. “Mother-to-be?” She was pregnant? How could the woman even know that? “No…you’re mistaken,” she said frostily, glaring at her captor. “That’s impossible.”

  “Oh, my dear…nothing is impossible,” Amelia said coolly as she gestured to her guards. They immediately hauled Jocelyne atop the table and were strapping her in before she had time to fight, she was so caught off guard by the woman’s bold statement. “Do you really think human birth control would prevent a pregnancy from a shifter?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Jocelyne snapped, but she had a feeling she already knew the answer as the woman gave her the kind of smug look that could only come from secure knowledge.

  “I pulled your medical records before we kidnapped you, so I already knew that you were on the birth control pill,” she told Jocelyne. “Your pristine health records were one of several important reasons we chose you for this project. But none of that matters when you have unprotected sex with a shifter… it was a given that you would eventually have sex with your mate, if you two were put in close proximity.”

  Jocelyne gaped at Amelia, aghast. “Mate? I don’t understand. Why would you do such a thing?”

  Amelia shrugged. “Well, because we wanted to get you pregnant, of course.” A feline smile spread across her lips. “We’d already collected semen samples from Harley while he was unconscious, just in case, but since you and your mate decided to move forward more… naturally, that may not actually be necessary.”

  Jocelyne clenched her fists to try and keep them from shaking, but it was no use – her whole body was trembling with a combination of fear, anxiety and rage. “You’re lying,” she hissed between chattering teeth. “You’re insane. None of this makes any sense.”

  “It’s amazing what people think they can convince themselves of,” Amelia drawled, giving Jocelyne an amused glance. “Surely you understand the mating bond?”

  “I’m a human,” Jocelyne snapped, but she couldn’t stop her body from trembling in fear. “And he’s a shifter. There’s no way we could be mates.”

  Amelia laughed lightly and returned the thing to the cabinet. “Whatever makes you feel better, sweetheart.” She motioned to two men wearing lab coats, plastic caps and surgical masks, and they moved toward her on either side. “Now let’s start the testing.”

  “Testing? What testing?” Jocelyne tried not to sound hysterical. “There’s no way you could know from my blood samples whether or not I’m pregnant.”

  “True,” Amelia said with a sigh, not even bothering to look at Jocelyne – she had a clipboard out and was making notations. “I must say that’s the one aggravating thing about all of this. We have to wait six to eight days to know whether or not you’ve conceived, and that’s quite a bit of time. But after all of the work we’ve done to get to this point…I’ve become a very patient woman, so that’s perfectly fine with me.”

  The doctors began hooking her up to hospital machines, and Jocelyne forced herself to relax, knowing they wouldn’t harm her if they truly believed she was pregnant. A tiny bubble of joy formed unexpectedly in her heart at the idea that she was carrying Harley’s baby, but it quickly burst as she caught the look of undisguised greed on Amelia’s face every time the woman glanced at her belly.

  “Why do you want my baby?” she demanded as one of the doctors, or nurses, or whatever these men were, began to take her blood pressure.

  Amelia gave a bored sigh. “My peers and I decided that rather than simply genetically modifying and training an existing shifter – which was what we were planning on doing with Harley – we should also try to breed shifters and humans together to try and see if we can get the best combinations of genes. After all, half-shifters tend to not possess the same weaknesses that full shifters do, as evidenced by your resistance to silver poisoning.” She grinned at Jocelyne like a cat who’d unexpectedly happened upon a bowl of cream. “All the other research heads are doing what I mentioned before – breeding shifters and humans – but I’ve decided to take it a step above and breed a half-shifter with a full-shifter.” Her dark eyes gleamed greedily. “I’ve no doubt that the results of my experiment are going to be far superior to any
one else’s. The Head Justice will be most pleased.”

  “My baby isn’t some kind of experiment!” Jocelyne shrieked, struggling against her bonds as a new wave of rage and fear overtook her. The doctors were forced to hold her down, one pressing down on her legs and the other seizing her arms. “You can’t do this to him!” She’d already decided, somehow in what little part of her mind was still functioning, that it was a boy, even though she didn’t even know whether or not she was pregnant for sure. But something in her gut told her she was, that the tests would come back positive, and that secret knowledge fueled her fears, making her unreasonable as she bit and kicked at the doctors.

  “Stop struggling,” Amelia snapped. “Or I’ll have your fetus sliced from your womb and placed into a surrogate, and then I’ll kill you.”

  Jocelyne froze. “You wouldn’t dare,” she breathed, staring into Amelia’s dark eyes, which were now chips of black eyes, all of their earlier warmth and humor gone as if they’d been sucked down a black hole.

  “Of course I would,” she sneered. “I’ll do absolutely anything in the name of Justice. So if you value your life, I suggest that you stay put and let my assistants run their tests.”

  Jocelyne sagged against the metal table, all the fight abruptly leaving her limbs. As she leaned her head back against the cold metal, she squeezed her eyes shut, and prayed that Harley would come find her soon, before it was too late.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Christ, they’re well-defended,” Commander Fitzsimmons muttered as he studied the base from his seat in the black SUV. They were parked on a hill about a half-mile from the enemy base, and the Commander had dragged Harley out into the cold so they could study the terrain together.

  Not that Harley was complaining. For Jocelyne, he’d walk through the fires of hell themselves if it meant ensuring her safety.

  “Yeah,” Harley agreed, peering at the base through his own binoculars. He counted six men patrolling the electric fence, and another six at various places on the grounds and atop the building. No doubt there were more inside, even though he and Jocelyne had taken out a dozen or so on their way out. “No idea how the hell we managed to escape the place.”

  “Dumb luck can get you pretty far,” the Commander said. “But we’re not going to be relying on it for this mission. Not when it comes to the safety of my daughter.”

  The two of them climbed back into the armored SUV, which was one of ten vehicles the Commander had brought along, loaded with shifter soldiers. The Commander picked up his radio, and Harley fought to take deep, even breaths as Fitzsimmons barked orders into the secure channel for everyone to hear. His strength had returned some, and he’d downed several pounds of meat and slept a few hours on the ride up here, so he was ready for what was to come. He had to be.

  Getting past the outer defense was easy enough. A few snipers perched on vehicle hoods were enough to take out the men patrolling the fence in rapid succession, and a well-placed RPG blew a nice-sized hole in the fence big enough for them to roll their vehicles through. Rapid gunfire pierced the night, cracking against the windows and doors of the armored vehicle, and Harley cradled his own gun, ready to join the fight.

  “Hang back,” the Commander warned when he would have jumped out of the vehicle to join the other shifters. “I need you by my side.”

  Harley ground his teeth, but he did as his Commander ordered, knowing he was right. Glaring down at the body armor he was covered in, he wished he could get rid of it so he could shift – he was much faster and more deadly in his wolf form – and he knew it was a sentiment shared by the other shifter soldiers. But they couldn’t risk it since being in wolf form offered them no protection against those silver-laced darts, and the Commander had been very explicit in his orders.

  “Okay, let’s move!” the Commander ordered when the other soldiers had cleared a path for them. Harley and Fitzsimmons left the car, and were immediately surrounded by a protective barrier of soldiers. Together, they headed for the nearest entrance, the other soldiers covering them as they made their rescue attempt.

  Harley didn’t waste time – he went straight for the underground cells, which was the most likely place Jocelyne would be. They busted through the prison entrance, setting off a loud, blaring alarm, but Harley didn’t care – he could scent Jocelyne here – her sweet, vanilla aroma was laced with anger and fear, but it was her, and she was alive.

  “Jocelyne!” he shouted, approaching her cell at a dead run.

  “Harley,” Jocelyne sobbed, throwing herself at the cell bars as she saw him. “Please, you have to get me out of here. They’re going to take my baby.” Her large, round eyes were red-rimmed and shimmering with tears, her nose pink and swollen from crying. “Please.”

  “Your baby?” They must have hopped her up on something, Harley decided, because she was delusional. He couldn’t see any baby. “Don’t worry sweetheart, we’ll get you out okay,” he said soothingly, motioning two of the soldiers over. “Now stand back.”

  The soldiers used hacksaws to quickly cut through the bars, and then Commander Fitzsimmons reached in and grabbed his daughter, pulling her tightly against his barrel chest. “Oh sweetheart,” he said roughly, cupping the back of her head and rocking her tight. “I was so worried.”

  “Oh Daddy,” Jocelyne sobbed, clutching him tightly. “Thank you so much for coming.”

  “We need to get you the hell out of here. Right now.”

  She tried to reach for Harley then, but Fitzsimmons put his body between her and Harley, a fierce glower on his face. “Now you stay away from him,” he growled. “He has no business getting involved with you.”

  “Yes he does,” Jocelyne choked through her tears, some of her fire returning as she glared at her father. “He’s the father of my child.”

  Harley frowned – this was the second time she’d mentioned a child. Her hand moved protectively to her belly, and his eyes widened. “Are you serious… you’re pregnant?”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake!” the Commander exploded as shouts and footfalls sounded from outside. “We don’t have time for this discussion right now.” He grabbed his daughter by the upper arm and pushed her gently toward the soldiers. “We need to get the hell out of here while we still have the chance.”

  “Not yet.” Harley stepped past the Commander and shouldered his way through the soldiers crowding the space. “There’s something else I need to do first.”

  “Something else? What something else?” the Commander snapped.

  “I need to get the data from the lab.”

  Ignoring the Commander’s shouts, he sprinted down the hall and up the stairs, then down the brightly lit hall and through the double doors of the lab, using his superhuman strength to bust through the locked doors. Amelia was already standing at the bank of computers, uploading data to an external hard drive, and she whirled around with a gasp, several of her guards training guns on him.

  “Kill him!” she shrieked, and then turned around, her slender fingers flying across the keyboard. “Kill him now!”

  Harley closed the distance in a flash, grabbed the first guard’s gun, and yanked it sideways, aiming the blast of gunfire in the direction of the others. The coppery scent of blood laced the air as two guards went down and another took a bullet in the shoulder, and Harley quickly broke the neck of the guard he was holding before taking out the fourth man with a final shot.

  Amelia backed away from the console, trying to put as much distance between Harley and herself as possible. Her hands were shaking, her face an icy white, but her sensuous lips twisted in a cruel, defiant smirk even as he lifted the gun to her face.

  “Even if you kill me, you won’t destroy what I stand for,” she cried. “We are everywhere, and our mission won’t be denied! Justice always prevails!”

  “Yeah, well prevail against this,” Harley snarled, and pulled the trigger, a shot firing into her chest.

  Amelia collapsed to the ground, and stepped back, as her head
hit the floor. She was dead within seconds. Harley moved quickly to the computer, and saw that Amelia had already started downloading the data. He waited until the hard drive had finished loading, then pulled the data card from the slot, torched the room, and left the building.

  If only everything else in life was this easy.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You know, if the data you managed to retrieve on this hard drive wasn’t so damned useful, I’d have you discharged for insubordination,” Commander Fitzsimmons said as he glared at Harley from behind his desk. It had been nearly a week since they’d stormed the Justice base in Washington and rescued Jocelyne… nearly a week since he’d last gazed into her gorgeous violet eyes, or kissed her perfect cupid’s bow lips.

  “Yeah, well I figured getting the names and locations of every single shifter they’d ever experimented on, as well as the results of those experiments, would put you in a better mood,” Harley quipped as he leaned back in the guest chair he’d perched himself in. “Sir.”

  “You always were a cheeky bastard, you know that?” Fitzsimmons arched a brow as he leaned back in his brown leather office chair. Aside from the top-of-the-line computer, and the case that held his medals which sat off in one corner, it was the only extravagant thing in the room – the Commander was a financially humble man who didn’t believe he needed to throw his money around to impress anyone. Muted greens and browns made up the color scheme, and the only things hanging on the walls were photographs of the Commander with various groups of old soldier friends from his long, illustrious career.

  The obvious emphasis on friends and loyalty over money and connections was one of the reasons he’d always liked the Commander, more than anyone else he’d ever served under before.

  “Yes, I do know that,” Harley said, hiding a grin. “I always thought that was the reason you promoted me to Lieutenant.” He bit back a sigh, reminded of his recent demotion. “I figure I have to keep doing what was successful if I ever want to get my rank back.”