Primal Mirror, page 1
Berkley titles by Nalini Singh
Psy-Changeling Series
Slave to Sensation
Visions of Heat
Caressed by Ice
Mine to Possess
Hostage to Pleasure
Branded by Fire
Blaze of Memory
Bonds of Justice
Play of Passion
Kiss of Snow
Tangle of Need
Heart of Obsidian
Shield of Winter
Shards of Hope
Allegiance of Honor
Psy-Changeling Trinity Series
Silver Silence
Ocean Light
Wolf Rain
Alpha Night
Last Guard
Storm Echo
Resonance Surge
Primal Mirror
Guild Hunter Series
Angels’ Blood
Archangel’s Kiss
Archangel’s Consort
Archangel’s Blade
Archangel’s Storm
Archangel’s Legion
Archangel’s Shadows
Archangel’s Enigma
Archangel’s Heart
Archangel’s Viper
Archangel’s Prophecy
Archangel’s War
Archangel’s Sun
Archangel’s Light
Archangel’s Resurrection
Archangel’s Lineage
Thrillers
A Madness of Sunshine
Quiet in Her Bones
There Should Have Been Eight
Anthologies
An Enchanted Season
(with Maggie Shayne, Erin McCarthy, and Jean Johnson)
The Magical Christmas Cat
(with Lora Leigh, Erin McCarthy, and Linda Winstead Jones)
Must Love Hellhounds
(with Charlaine Harris, Ilona Andrews, and Meljean Brook)
Burning Up
(with Angela Knight, Virginia Kantra, and Meljean Brook)
Angels of Darkness
(with Ilona Andrews, Meljean Brook, and Sharon Shinn)
Angels’ Flight
Wild Invitation
Night Shift
(with Ilona Andrews, Lisa Shearin, and Milla Vane)
Wild Embrace
Specials
Angels’ Pawn
Angels’ Dance
Texture of Intimacy
Declaration of Courtship
Whisper of Sin
Secrets at Midnight
BERKLEY
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 2024 by Nalini Singh
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Singh, Nalini, 1977- author.
Title: Primal mirror / Nalini Singh.
Description: New York : Berkley, 2024. | Series: Psy-changeling trinity novel
Identifiers: LCCN 2023058315 (print) | LCCN 2023058316 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593440735 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593440759 (e-book)
Subjects: LCGFT: Paranormal fiction. | Romance fiction. | Fantasy fiction. | Novels.
Classification: LCC PR9639.4.S566 P75 2024 (print) | LCC PR9639.4.S566 (ebook) | DDC 823/.92—dc23/eng/20240117
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023058315
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023058316
Ebook ISBN 9780593440759
Cover art by Tony Mauro
Cover design by Rita Frangie Batour
Interior design adapted for ebook by Kelly Brennan
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
pid_prh_7.0_147548044_c0_r0
Contents
Dedication
Bloodlines
Five Months Ago
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Present Day
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
About the Author
_147548044_
For the ones who are always there.
Bloodlines
GENETIC INTEGRITY.
A cold ideal, but one to which certain Psy families committed during Silence. It was believed that the more intensely curated the genetic line, the more powerful the abilities of the children born into that line. As such, potential partners in the creation of the next generation were investigated for any and all anomalies, only the most tightly controlled of the other genetic lines in the PsyNet allowed to intermingle with theirs.
It worked.
Over the more than one hundred years since the inception of the Silence Protocol and the subsequent elimination of emotion from Psy lives, this subgroup of families have refined their bloodlines to such genetic perfection that all their children are high-Gradients. Their cells carry no “extraneous” material that could initiate an unexpected result. There are no genetic leaps, no extraordinary new gifts, but on the flip side, there are no low-Gradients who will be a drain on the family’s resources.
Unfortunately, these families did not allow for a trifecta of wild cards.
First: the unpredictability of nature.
Second: the continued inability of the Psy race to pinpoint the exact genesis of their mental abilities on a biological level.
And third: the interference of those who believe themselves better than their fellow Psy—their own families included. Because for a super minority within this “flawless” minority, genetic perfection isn’t enough. A high-Gradient child isn’t enough. Even power far beyond that of the vast majority of the population isn’t enough.
Dominion over all sentient beings is what they crave.
Power so unqualified that it is a drug.
FIVE MONTHS AGO
Chapter 1
“Stand down. I have your squadmate in the truck.”
—Remington Denier, alpha of RainFire, to Aden Kai, leader of the Arrow Squad, one storm-lashed night (9 April 2082)
REMI SWORE UNDER his breath.
He’d been hoping that what he’d picked up hadn’t been conscious movement, merely branches breaking in the aftermath of the rainstorm that had passed over this part of the Smoky Mountains an hour earlier.
But what was happening on the land adjacent to his pack’s northernmost border had nothing to do with nature. Remi and his people, as well as their very dangerous friends, the Arrow Squad, had been attempting to trace the ownership of that land since two senior Arrows had woken up badly wounded in the single building that sat on the land: a flat square bunker created of old-fashioned concrete.
Back then, it had been draped in camouflage netting and dead foliage. These days, the walls were covered with moss and lichen, the concrete itself dirty and marked by exposure to the elements. Two or three more decades, and the creeping tendrils of the forest would overpower it until nothing of the bunker showed to the naked eye.
Remi would’ve been fine with that—though he’d much rather have found the owner. The Arrows knew who’d been behind their capture, but they hadn’t been able to tie any member of that group to this land. At first, it appeared the trail ended with the name of a deceased five-year-old child, but that had turned out to be just another misdirection.
Last Remi had heard, the squad’s civilian specialist had landed on another faceless shell corporation. “Whoever did the paperwork to hide ownership,” Tamar had muttered, “they were good, did all the same things I would have. Trail’s circular and eats its own tail.”
As it was, the Arrows had had to shelve the search for the time being. The PsyNet, the psychic network that connected the majority of the Psy on the planet and that the other race needed to survive, was breaking down at a catastrophic rate. The squad had focused their power and attention on that looming threat to millions of lives.
“As it is,” the leader of the squad—and Remi’s friend—Aden Kai had said, “we’ve poisoned that location for the owner, regardless. No way to run black ops out of it anymore, not when they know it’s in our crosshairs.”
Now, eyes narrowed, Remi leaned one shoulder against a mature yellow birch, its spring-green leaves a falling rain around him, and watched the small gathering in the clearing in front of the bunker: two women, three men, all of them in suits a little too lightweight for the temperature at this elevation.
The older woman—maybe in her early fifties—was a tall and very thin brunette with skin of pale brown and eyes that appeared dark from this distance. She looked to be in charge, the three men listening intently to whatever it was that she was saying.
The younger woman stood apart, her possibly curly black hair viciously contained in a knot at the back of her head, her skin an ebony that glowed even in the cloud-heavy light. She was on the taller side for a woman, maybe five eight, and wore a black skirt suit paired with a white shirt, her black heels so unsuitable for this terrain that it was laughable.
That wasn’t what caught his attention.
It was that the woman wasn’t simply silent and uninvolved in the discussion. She didn’t appear to be present, her expression seeming lax as she stared into the distance away from both Remi and the other group. Though all he could see of her was her profile, the way she stood—her arms loose at her sides, her body swaying the slightest amount— confirmed that something wasn’t quite right.
Shifting his attention off her because she wasn’t the threat, he zeroed in on the brunette. But no matter how much he strained, he couldn’t pick up on the conversation. The group was just a fraction too far away for even his leopard’s acute hearing.
Which left him with only one real choice.
He straightened, and was about to prowl out of the trees when the younger woman jerked her head in his precise direction.
Her eyes were a hauntingly eerie blue, moonstone made liquid.
Remi sucked in a breath. His leopard surged to the surface of his skin at the same time, Remi’s own eyes shifting to the yellow-green of the primal creature that was the other half of his self.
The cat’s response wasn’t, however, aggressive. It was…more complicated. As if the cat was compelled and repelled by her in equal measures. The animal within Remi had belatedly realized the same thing the human part of him already had: she might be strikingly beautiful, but even with her expression no longer distant and vacant, her body held with tension, something about her raised his hackles.
Still, aware that he couldn’t afford to scare her, Remi allowed the human side of him to rise to the surface once again as the woman began to walk toward him. The others didn’t look to be paying attention to her, but, soon, the most heavyset of the men turned to follow her.
Then the older woman called out to him, and the man returned to the huddle around her without giving the blue-eyed woman a second glance.
Not worried. Why should they be?
After all, they were meant to be alone in the wilderness.
In truth, they should have been alone. The heart of RainFire’s territory lay a significant distance away—but that didn’t mean Remi and his packmates didn’t patrol this area on a regular basis. It would’ve been stupid in the extreme to leave an unguarded threat on their border.
No one came after the younger woman even when she walked into the trees, but Remi stepped forward so she wouldn’t come too far. Right now, given the shadows thrown by the other trees immediately around them—a mix of maple and beech along with a stand of poplar—the others would still be able to see the back of her body but would have no chance of spotting Remi.
“Good morning,” he said as he took a deep inhale of her scent in an instinctive changeling act.
Scents could tell you a lot about a person.
Hers was…problematic. Erratic in the most abnormal way he’d ever sensed. He’d never usually use that term about a person—each person’s normal was their own, scent a very unique marker—but it was the only one that suited this specific situation.
Her scent fit none of the parameters for a sentient being. Had it been formed of light, he’d have said the rays were reflecting off a funhouse mirror that distorted everything. Muddy and sluggish and with too many pieces to it, it made his leopard snarl.
Those extraordinary eyes—such a striking translucent hue—held his for a split second before drifting away.
He didn’t mistake it for an act of submission.
Lost in her own world, this woman likely didn’t hold anyone’s eyes.
It would’ve been easy to peg her as neurologically atypical, but that didn’t sit right, either. Not when her scent was so wrong. He’d interacted with others through the years who wouldn’t meet his eyes in the same way, but their scents had read as natural nonetheless.
Never had he met anyone with such a fragmented and unsettled scent…almost as if she wasn’t a whole person at all, rather a collection of disparate pieces that clashed and broke against each other.
The hairs on his nape prickled.
Yet he didn’t do anything to stop her when she reached for his hand. He couldn’t, however, keep his leopard’s claws from pushing out of his skin or his eyes from shifting back to those of his cat. That cat’s initial fascination with her had turned into a confused protectiveness: it didn’t want to hurt her, seeing her as wounded, but it also didn’t want her too close.
She didn’t pause or stare at his clawed hands, continuing on her trajectory until her fingers grazed the face of his mobile comm unit. Small as an ordinary watch, the thing was pristine even more than ten years after its purchase…because Remi had never been able to make himself use it except for this one day every year.
Her birthday.
“I know you’ll never spend this kind of money on yourself,” his mother had said with a smile right before the end, when she’d insisted he take it. “You and your dragon’s hoard.”
All those years he’d been denying his instincts to nurture and protect a pack, determined he’d never be an alpha, he’d still hardly spent anything. He’d told himself he was saving for retirement…even when he’d believed with every fiber of his being that he’d fuck up his life well before then.
“Rem-Rem.” A whisper of a word from the woman with the muddy scent.
One that kicked him right in the gut.
“So tired.” She swayed left and right. “My wrist is so thin this is falling off. Wonder if my Rem-Rem will figure out I bought it for him in the first place.”
Remi fought not to lash out, not to react in a rage of grief. Because she couldn’t be reading his mind. Changeling shields were too powerful. She’d have had to launch a violent telepathic assault before she could have ever gotten to his memories—and such an assault would’ve probably destroyed his brain in the process.
Whatever this was, it wasn’t mind reading.
“It’s my mother’s,” he said, his voice harsh. “She left it to me.” She was also the only person in the entire world who’d called him Rem-Rem. But only when they were alone together. Because it was a little boy’s name, and “oh my Rem-Rem, what a man you’ve become”—words she’d spoken to him more than once, her eyes shining with love.
But the blue-eyed woman who knew his deepest memories was listening only to her own internal voice. “One last gift.” Her face softened. “My boy, I’m so proud of you.” Her lashes quivered, her eyes staring hard into nothing. “Cake. Brown cake. Small brown cakes.”
