“None of ours.”
“Good. How much money? Don’t dodge the question.” It pissed him off that his best friend wasn’t being forthcoming but he understood Harley’s desire to protect his feelings. “Be honest. That’s what I need most.”
“No money was involved. She made it clear that she didn’t want to be paid.”
Some of his anger eased. It also confused him. “Then why is she here?”
“That’s what I wanted to know. I was rough on her when we met. I caught her flashing her breasts at you.”
Astonishment slammed into Moon. “What?”
Harley grinned. “Yeah. That’s what went through my mind. I was ready to toss her over my shoulder and jog her to the front gates, thinking she was a pervert about to take advantage of you or teasing you just to be cruel. You wouldn’t respond to anything but her showing her goods, Moon. That was about the sum of it. I was leery at first of her reasoning but it worked. It seems sexy humans showing a lot of skin tames the beast in you or at least makes you talk to get to see more.” He laughed.
Hazy images surfaced of Joy and her very appealing cleavage. “I kind of remember. Not much though.”
“You were pretty out of it that day.” Harley reached up and pulled his hair away from his neck. “I can feel the pounds rolling off as we speak. Is it just me?”
“No. Humans pay for this? Doesn’t it open their skin pores or some such shit?”
“My pores are so open that my skin wants to fall off.”
“Ten more minutes,” Ted called out. “Do you need water?”
“I’m in a puddle of it,” Moon answered. “We’re good.” He lowered his voice and wiped more sweat off his chest. It was running down his body. “Do me a favor though, Harley.”
“Anything.”
“Make sure I don’t get the chance to hurt her if I lose my mind again.”
Harley hesitated.
“I didn’t feel the urge to kill but I still had the idea of slamming my chin into the bridge of her nose when she came in here and got too close to me. That would have killed her instantly if I’d had enough momentum to send the bone into her brain.”
Harley reached out and gripped his wrist. “She knows the risks. She signed a waiver absolving the NSO of responsibility in case of her death or injury.” He let go.
Moon was glad he was sitting down. Was that even possible? It astonished him that Joy would willingly do something of that magnitude to stay at Homeland.
“She is aware of the damage we can do. This morning I read the files she made on some of us. Justice let me read them after we argued a bit. I wanted to look out for you. All the shrinks’ notes on patients were transferred to Homeland when we were. One of our males told her about how he tore out the throat of a technician who leaned in too close to him while he was strapped down on a table. He could only move his head. Another Species described how he got an arm free and snapped the neck of a guard before the human could even react.”
Harley swallowed, shoving at his damp hair to keep it out of his face. “That female knows how dangerous you can be yet she doesn’t shy away from rushing to your aid. What does that tell you?”
Frustration rose in Moon. He was hot, irritable, and angry.
“She’s willing to die for you. I didn’t trust her at first and was wary of her motives but she has strong, true feelings for you, Moon. She regrets bailing on you at site four.”
“She never even attempted to contact me once we came to Homeland. Or Reservation.”
“You should speak to her.”
“I’m talking to you.”
“Okay.” Harley cast a hesitant look in his direction. “I think she loves you.”
“Love?” Moon rubbed his arms again, harder this time, trying to wipe away sweat and the uneasy feeling that made him a bit lightheaded.
His finger found something odd and he rubbed the spot while he mulled over Harley’s words. He had been obsessed with Joy when they’d been at site four. She was the female he’d wanted above all others.
Her leaving had depressed him and he’d sulked for a long time over her loss. Every time he even thought about her it was as if he’d eaten something bad and pain gnawed at his gut.
Can that be love?
He wasn’t sure since he had never experienced it.
“Love,” Harley repeated. “I can’t think of any other reason she’d face off against you when you were feral. Hell, you scared me and I’m not a weak little human.”
Moon frowned, distracted. His finger probed the spot again. The small lump moved against his bone, actually hurting.
“What is this?”
“There’s something under my skin.”
Harley looked down. “Is that where you were shot?”
“Yes.”
“It was a dart, not a bullet.”
“What did you say?” It was Ted, yelling from the other room.
“I found something in my arm.” Moon’s voice rose and he looked at Harley. “It’s small and it hurts when I press on it.”
“Get out here,” Ted ordered. “Let me see.”
Moon rose to his feet but swayed when he stood, the room spinning a little. Harley didn’t have that problem though as he grabbed him at his elbows to steady him.
“You okay?”
“I think the heat is getting to me.”
“Me too but I’m not wobbly. Let’s get out of here.”
Suddenly Fury was there to help, putting an arm around him. It humiliated Moon a little to need help walking but both males kept a firm grip on him as they led him out of the bathroom. Ted pointed to the bed on the far side of the exam room.
“Put him down there.” He glanced at Flame. “Get Paul. Tell him that playtime is over and our patient won’t try to kill him. I need the ultrasound machine. Your people haven’t been trained on them as well as he is.”
“I’m on it,” Flame announced, spun, and dashed down the hallway.
“What do you think it is?” Moon nearly collapsed onto the mattress. His body was wet and he’d gone from sweating to being cold. “Did part of the dart break off in my arm?”
“Where did you feel it?”
Moon showed the doctor by placing the human’s index finger over the area. “Right there.”
Paul drew everyone’s attention as he pushed a machine on wheels into the room. He smiled when Moon met his gaze. “There’s the guy I know.” Paul came closer. “I hear you’re with us again. I’m so glad. Really. Last time you tried to take a bite out of my arm.”
“I’m sorry.”
Paul halted and bent to plug in a cord. “No problem. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye…or an arm, in my case.”
“Knock it off,” Ted snapped. “Joke around later. That’s the problem with you young people. You’re more concerned about bedside manner than treatment.”
“No one would ever accuse you of that,” Paul muttered as he turned on the machine and prepared it. “What are we looking for? Did he get injured? Does your chest hurt? I told them to make sure they didn’t tighten the straps too much and to make sure you could breathe without difficulty. We should run you through X-ray though if you think you might have fractured some ribs.”
Ted produced what looked like a marker and drew a circle on Moon’s upper arm. “Search this area right here.”
“That makes it easy.” Paul withdrew a bottle of ultrasound gel and hesitated. “Do you want me to warm this?”
“No. I’ve had enough heat to last me forever.” Moon never wanted to be that hot again.
Paul nodded and slathered the clear substance over a handheld instrument attached to the machine. He pushed it against Moon’s arm and watched the screen, which Moon couldn’t see. It slowly moved over his skin but then stopped. Paul pushed a little harder, adjusted the thing, and softly cursed.
“What the hell is that?”
“Damn it. I need a scalpel. We’ll excise whatever it is and examine it.”
“Did the tip break off in the bone?” Moon didn’t like the idea that part of the dart was still inside him.
“No, I’m sure it is not the dart tip. We didn’t check for foreign objects because the dart was intact,” Ted ground out in an angry voice. He appeared unusually concerned. “It’s an oblong object, very small. Definitely not anything that could be part of a dart.”
“Uh-huh,” Paul agreed. “Shit. It’s almost like one of those pet chips my wife had implanted in our dog in case he ever got lost. Maybe a bit bigger.”
“He was tagged with a tracking system of some sort?” Justice had returned. He wore the same type of outfit as the nurse, only in a larger size.
“I don’t know what it is,” Ted admitted. “We won’t know until I remove it.”
“Do it,” Fury demanded.
Moon nodded. “Yeah. Get it out of me. I don’t know why they’d want to be able to track me though. Our enemies know exactly where we are. Here or at Reservation.”
Harley growled. “What if they have some kind of weapon that could target a certain location? A missile of some sort. It could be sending out a homing signal.”
“Get it out of him now,” Justice ordered. “I’m calling Tim and getting his input. He’d know all about military-grade weapons.”
Moon’s first thought was of Joy as he stared up at Harley. “Get Joy out of here. Take her to human housing and stay with her.” He didn’t want her anywhere near him until he could be sure of what was going on. He also didn’t want to lose Harley if Medical came under attack.
“I’m not leaving you.”
Damn stubborn Species.
“Are you really a brother?”
Harley’s dark eyes narrowed and he softly growled. “You’re pulling that card?”
“Yes. Get her to safety and stay with her.”
“Fuck.” Harley spun away and marched toward the door. “You don’t play fair.”
“Put on some pants first,” Moon called out. The idea of Joy seeing so much of Harley didn’t sit well with him. What if she found him more sexually appealing? The concept alone had him ready to call Harley back. He didn’t say anything though and lay still.
Joy paced the living room of the cottage and chewed on her bottom lip. Harley watched her from the couch, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Is that helping any? This exercise of yours?”
She resisted the urge to flip him off. The male was annoying but she knew he was worried about what was going on with Moon at Medical. So was she. Harley had told her about the object in Moon’s arm.
“You should have told me about his arm before we left Medical.”
“Would you have left?”
She stopped walking. “No.”
“That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
“Doesn’t the NSO have antimissile systems or something similar to shoot anything down if someone launches an attack?”
“We have armed guards with weapons to deal with anything that is a threat. We aren’t sure why anyone associated with Mercile would put a tracker inside Moon but that’s the nastiest scenario we could think of and it’s better to be prepared for the worst. Maybe they only wanted to see if we’d fly him to Homeland from Reservation. They may have wanted to track our flight patterns. We change them often after one of our helicopters was shot down. I can think of a dozen more reasons they might have done it.”
“I don’t know how you live like this.” Joy paced again. “So many assholes to deal with and so much danger. Why can’t they leave Species alone?”
“We wish they would stop harassing us too. Wishing doesn’t make it so.” He crossed his ankles, his bare toes wiggling. “Your world isn’t so safe either. We get your news on our televisions. There are no muggings, rapes, or carjackings on NSO lands.”
Joy kept pacing.
“We don’t steal from each other. We don’t—”
“I get it!” She groaned. “I’m overreacting and not being reasonable. Your crime rate is much lower here. I’m a bit freaked out over the whole tracker-missile thing. You have to admit that is kind of sinister.”
“The term enemy implies they aren’t pleasant to deal with.”
Joy knotted her hands together at her waist and shot him an exasperated look. “I’m ranting, Harley. It’s a normal way for people to express their frustrations. I’m worried about Moon and what is going on with him.”
“Oh. This is a human thing?” One eyebrow arched.
“Yes.” She shrugged and relaxed. “More specifically, a woman thing. You’re supposed to nod, not start an argument with me.”
“Got it.”
She studied him. “You’re pretty calm for a Species under stress.”
“We’ve come a long way since we were freed, Doc. Don’t expect me to lie back on this couch and start discussing how I feel. It isn’t happening. I’m also not going to tear up my fists punching your nice walls. It’s tempting but it won’t accomplish anything unless you want a more open feel between the kitchen and living room.”
Joy smiled. She liked the Species when he wasn’t threatening her or accusing her of doing nefarious things to Moon. “I doubt the NSO would appreciate you remodeling one of the guest cottages.”
“Probably not.” He glanced at his wrist and then sighed. “I keep forgetting I don’t have a watch.”
“What happened to it?” She was curious about how dependent Species had become on technology. It had been a long time since she’d been around them. Gadgets had been foreign to them after Mercile.