Harmony reached in and a second later, tossed a wounded human male to the ground.
The man's knee was shattered. It looked as though it had taken a bullet from the antiquated sniper rifle Harmony still had a habit of carrying. The same rifle slung over her back now.
Blood congealed at his neck from a shallow knife wound, and if Jonas wasn't mistaken, a portion of hair had been scalped from his head.
That matching bloodied portion was stuck in the belt Harmony wore.
"He shot Lance." Harmony glared at him with raging, brilliant green eyes. "Enact Breed Law against me until hell freezes over, you bastard. Anyone that touches what's mine will suffer." She kicked the wounded man as she cast him a scathing glance. "Then they'll die."
Jonas halted in front of her. The pain that raged in her eyes and twisted her expression was one of the hardest things he had ever faced. He also saw the fear that her brother would find a way to enforce his threat to have her charged with Breed Law for the deaths he was certain she had left on the mountain.
"Are there any others living?" he asked her. He knew from the reports that had come through that a four-man team had attempted to capture David Lyons.
Harmony sneered, her green eyes glowing with fire. "They met Death."
Stepping forward, he held his sister's gaze, feeling that shattered part of his heart that had let her go so long ago ache with a fiery pain.
So delicate. She had always been too tiny, too easily broken.
"I would never enact Breed Law on you," he stated softly. "No matter your actions, I would protect you, Harmony, as I have always tried to protect you."
Surprise glittered amid the stark grief in her eyes.
"Liar." The look cleared out a second later, and he couldn't blame her for her distrust.
Jonas shook his head slowly. "Death is gone, little sister. Harmony Lancaster is a mate who deserves the blood she sheds." He reached out, ignored her flinch and rubbed a long strand of dark auburn hair between his fingertips. "I wouldn't have then--and I will not now--see the sister I have always loved suffer. I swear that, Harmony, on the lives I fight to save every day. I swear that to you."
He sensed it then. That grief inside her became an animal, fighting, clawing for release.
Her face crumpled and tears filled her eyes. "They shot him," she whispered, speaking of her mate. "Again, Jonas. They shot him again, and I might lose him . . ."
He had her in his arms. Despite the vague discomfort, he held her against his chest and did what he had never done before. He bent and kissed her gently on the crown of her head before laying his cheek against it while she sobbed in his arms.
Perhaps something had melted inside him as well. Never before had he known the words to say, or how to unlock the emotions he had always kept hidden inside his soul.
Until Rachel. It had happened gradually, he admitted. Slowly. But she had freed something inside him that he hadn't known had been locked away.
Looking over Harmony's head to the men who had followed her before he had found her again, he finally realized why Dane Vanderale had fought so hard to keep her safe all the years he had.
The son of a bitch loved her. It was there in his eyes, in the twisted, raging fury of his expression. He was in love with a woman who would never consider his touch, his love or his needs.
And he'd loved her enough to let her ago. To allow her to have her mate, to allow her to have her happiness. In doing so, he had lost her forever. But he had given Jonas a gift that could never be repaid: his sister. Jonas had his sister back.
"It's going to be okay, little sister," he promised gently as he stroked his hands down her back and prayed for a way to soothe her. "Ely would have told you if he wasn't going to make it."
She shook her head.
"Leo would have never allowed you to leave the estate if Elizabeth thought he would die," he pointed out, and she paused.
When she pulled back, she stared up at him. And she broke his heart all over again with those tear-drenched eyes, so vivid and filled with pain.
"You hide," she whispered brokenly. "Like I used to do, don't you, Jonas? You hide it all, so you'll never be hurt."
He shook his head. "There's no hiding it any longer, Harmony. Maybe I just needed you to see it without proof." He touched her cheek gently.
She sniffed, like a little girl who didn't know what to do with her tears.
"Go to your mate," he urged her as he turned her to the house. "I have to collect my Pride leader and his stubborn-assed father now."