Primal Mirror, page 8
“You need skin-to-skin contact,” he said now, after another squeeze. “None of the single women in the pack would turn you down.” Finn wasn’t just liked, he was loved. A heart piece, without which the pack would never quite function right.
The other man’s eyes shone wet when they met Remi’s. “It’s not enough anymore.” A raw confession. “I keep thinking what’s wrong with me that I can’t make that bond? I’m a healer. We bond as easily as we breathe.”
This was one of the things no one could teach you about being alpha. Protection was one thing, care quite another. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Finn,” he said, holding those leaf green eyes to drill that home. “You just haven’t found your forever yet. She’s probably pissed off about it, too.”
A snort of laughter from Finn before he looked away for a second. Only healers could do that in a pack—just break an alpha’s gaze. But he turned back, and didn’t avoid the embrace Remi gave him.
Just because Finn was strong and intelligent and held it together no matter what the emergency didn’t mean he didn’t also need his alpha. “I know it’s not enough,” Remi murmured, “but take the gift of skin privileges your friends want to give you. It’ll help you maintain until you find the one who’s meant to be yours.”
Finn’s arms clenched around Remi for a moment before he pulled back and gave a small nod. “You’d tell me if I was falling down on the job, wouldn’t you?”
“Finn, that’s the one thing about which I never worry—you’d be dying but still trying to help people.” He tapped one palm against the other man’s cheek. “But if it makes you feel better, yes, I would kick your skinny ass if you weren’t living up to your promise to the pack. Message me once you’ve seen the juveniles.”
Finn’s lips curved before he turned and jogged the rest of the way to the infirmary. Right before he pulled open the door, he yelled, “My ass is prime, I’ll have you know! Had an entire hunting party of bridesmaids tell me so last time I visited San Francisco!”
Chuckling as the healer vanished inside the infirmary cube, Remi turned on his heel to check up on the current biggest pain in his neck. The juveniles’ antics, at least, he could predict. Auden Scott? Fucking nightmare of a problem that technically had nothing to do with him—and that would gnaw at him every second she was in his vicinity.
So of course he reached their border to discover her holding a deadly little gun all wrong while facing a homemade target—a piece of card stuck to a big stick that she’d poked into the ground. On the card was a wonky hand-drawn bull’s-eye.
Then she shot and it went so wide of the mark that it wasn’t even in the same galaxy.
His leopard hung its head in reflected shame.
Groaning, Remi deliberately made a lot of noise as he walked out so that she wouldn’t shoot him by accident—though her chances of hitting him were so low as to be miniscule. When she swung around with the gun pointed, he held up his own hands. “I mean, you have a point one percent chance of actually hitting me, but don’t shoot.”
A glare.
Yes, a definite glare, before she smoothed it over with the ice-coated exterior of Silent perfection she’d shown him yesterday. His heart kicked anyway, his leopard on the hunt.
There you are, the cat purred.
“I apologize.” She lowered the weapon and the movement disturbed the air currents, sending more of her luscious scent in his direction. “I didn’t intend to convey aggression…but you did sneak up on me.”
His body stirred in a way unexpected, as drawn to this Auden as he had been disturbed by the woman he’d first met. “I made enough noise for a herd of drunk bears.”
This time, she looked like she really wanted to shoot him.
Amused, he nodded at her target before she could give in to her rage. “Let me guess—your first time with a laser weapon?”
A pause and he knew her training was telling her to lie—according to what he’d picked up from hanging out with Arrows, powerful Psy were taught to cover any and all vulnerabilities. Or they had been under Silence. Who knew how long it would take for that to change, or if it ever would. A century of indoctrination wasn’t exactly easy to shrug off.
Auden finally seemed to realize there was no point in lying when he’d witnessed her stumbling attempted shot. “Yes,” she said at last. “It’s probably not safe for you to be close by.” A grudging warning.
His cat, contrary feline that it was, liked her better for being aggravated by his teasing. “I can’t leave you here with that.” He sighed to further nudge up her anger, to better see her. “I’ll lose my mind worrying that you’d lasered off your foot or blasted your cheekbone.”
Her eyes went black.
Remi stayed relaxed, his hands on his hips—he’d seen other Psy eyes do that when in the grip of great power—or great emotion. Auden Scott was becoming more fascinating with every second that passed.
“I,” she said in the most precise diction he’d ever heard, “know not to turn the weapon toward myself.”
Remi stopped playing. “You’re on the lowest setting. Highest setting, that thing kicks like a horse. You could accidentally trigger it in a direction you don’t want.”
The black didn’t retreat.
Well, hell, now he’d pissed her off. But no way was he leaving before assuring himself of her safety. “I can show you how to hit your target.”
Her fingers tightening on the weapon as her hand came to her belly, she took a small step back.
Shit.
Remi wanted to kick himself. He’d gotten so caught up in her clear ability to go toe-to-toe with him that he’d forgotten her vulnerable state. To Auden Scott, he wasn’t Remi, her alpha who’d die to protect her; no, he was a stranger, bigger and stronger than her.
“You can keep hold of the weapon,” he said. “I can direct you from a distance.” Changelings might be tactile by nature, but skin privileges were just that: privileges. No changeling with any honor would just take that precious gift, no matter the context.
“First,” he said when she remained silent, “you need to learn the stance. You’re standing wrong for your current balance.”
He showed her the standard stance, then modified it for her present center of gravity, and after a long moment, she tried to copy it.
“Yeah, you almost have it.” Eyes on her legs so he could judge how well she was doing, he gave her step-by-step instructions to get her into the exact stance—it went painfully slowly, but at least she was willing to listen.
“It doesn’t feel right,” she muttered at one point, the steely facade falling to expose a woman with soft features and even softer lips.
“It will,” he said, shoving aside the unexpected spark of attraction for this woman who was an enigma in more ways than one; Remi couldn’t risk lowering his guard with her, not when he was responsible for an entire pack. “First, put the weapon away in your pocket, then lift your hands as if you’re holding it.”
It took her a long minute to follow his instruction, but once they got going, she proved a fast study. Sharp. Quick on her feet for a woman seven months into a pregnancy. “You’ve had training,” he said when they came to a stop. “In movement, if not in shooting.”
“Standard drills to help me evade kidnappers if I was ever in that position.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Not what I thought you were going to say.” But it made sense; she was the only child of two Councilors. A certain caliber of person would’ve seen her as a payday.
She retrieved the weapon from her pocket, her eyes shining in a way that was surprisingly adorable. “Can I shoot now?”
“Let’s go through the settings first.” Once they had, he told her to choose the lowest. “It’ll give you experience with the smaller recoils before trying to handle the big one.”
After doing as he’d suggested, she took the stance he’d taught her, sighted down the barrel as they’d practiced…and shot.
The beam hit the wall of the bunker behind the sign.
Her face fell.
He wanted to cuddle her, the response instinctive. “You singed your target,” he said, while reminding himself more harshly that he couldn’t take anything about Auden at face value. Even if it was fucking hard to remember that with her looking so dejected. “That means you’re two meters closer than when you started out.”
Walking over to the target, she peered at the left edge, her eyes in a squint. “You’re telling the truth!” She turned with a lightness to her step, appearing so young and innocent that it punched him in the gut that she hadn’t even hit her mid-twenties. He’d still been racing cars and battling to control his screwed up emotions when he was her age.
Six years and a lifetime ago.
Auden pointed at the spot with the singe mark. “I almost hit it!”
Remi’s leopard huffed on a surge of affection strong enough to bypass his wariness. “Almost,” he agreed, though that was the most generous interpretation of the word he’d ever heard.
“Let me try again,” she said, that new brightness lingering in eyes that had shifted back to a luminous blue during their lesson.
Then, as if forgetting she wasn’t alone, she stroked a hand over her stomach to cradle it, a faint curve to her lips as she looked down at her bump. The love and tenderness in her expression? He’d stake his life on it being genuine.
Who was the real Auden Scott?
Chapter 12
PsyNet disintegration has picked up speed at levels we can’t explain, given known factors. The time remaining has compressed to six months—but if the compression is cumulative, that estimate is useless.
—Report to the Ruling Coalition and EmNet from PsyNet Research Group Alpha (1 September 2083)
THE STATE OF her brain aside, the Auden with whom Remi spent the next half hour was the same one who’d come to him in the trees and spoken to him of his mother with an openness that was raw and without sophistication.
She was a wild and quixotic creature who argued with him over millimeters when he eyeballed how close she’d come with a shot, and who—at one point—asked if it hurt if someone stepped on his tail while he was in leopard form.
“I’m too fast for that to ever happen,” he growled back in insult.
A sly look. “I bet I could do it. Not step on it. Catch it.”
Remi stared at her. “Are you daring the alpha of a predatory changeling pack?”
“No.” She took aim. “Just making a statement.”
She fired.
This Auden, Remi realized with a sense of the portentous hanging over his head, could be far more dangerous to him than either of the avatars he’d previously met.
The question was, was she real…or a mask created with him as a target in mind? “I have to head back,” he said and it wasn’t a lie. He also, however, needed space to think.
Her face fell. “Of course.” The quicksilver faded. “Thank you for the lesson.”
Remi found himself hesitating, once more viscerally conscious of her aloneness. “I can help carry the target inside for you. Might rain overnight.”
“No.” A stiff look, the corners of her soft mouth pinched. “No, I prefer to do it myself.”
Remi thought of her fingers on his comm device, the way she’d clutched at her abdomen as she whimpered that it hurt, and realized he had no idea how her psychometric abilities impacted her daily life. But from the guarded way she was looking at him, she didn’t plan on sharing anything with him on the point.
He could’ve left it, but that didn’t sit right, especially when her reticence was going to roadblock things he could do to help her. “Psychometric stuff?”
A rapid blink, a long pause.
“I have friends in the PsyNet,” he added. “Rumor is you’re a Ps-Psy, and I know that’s right because of what you did with my comm. No one knows your Gradient, but guesses are 7 or higher, because of your parents.” Remi made a face. “I don’t get grading people that way, but I guess it works for the Psy.”
Narrowed eyes, the stiffness eroding under a flash of irritation she couldn’t conceal. “From what I know, changelings do the same.”
It was his turn to scowl. Folding his arms, he set his feet apart. “You’ll have to explain that to me, Deadshot.”
She folded her own arms, and held his gaze with the moonstone blue of her own. “Your grading scale goes from dominance to submission.”
Remi opened, then shut his mouth. “Well, damn.” Shoving his hand through his hair, he said, “Point to you, Ms. Auden Scott.” She was wrong in putting submissives on the end of the “grading” scale—submissives weren’t automatically less important in the hierarchy of a pack—but that there was a hierarchy was the salient point.
Her lips parted, her shoulders easing, and for a single heartbeat, he thought she might even smile. But a pulse later, the mask swept over her features, the Auden who’d dared say she could catch his tail retreating beneath the veneer of Psy ice. “I appreciate the time you took out of your day to give me the lesson.”
Remi didn’t want to leave, especially not when he’d begun to get a glimmer of the woman behind the mask, but he had vows to uphold. And unlike his father, he took his vows dead seriously.
“My pleasure,” he said, and shot her a playful salute.
He’d already half turned on his heel when a sudden thought made him freeze. “Don’t go in that bunker.” Shifting, he locked his gaze to hers again, his leopard in the growl of his voice. “Did Ms. Wai tell you about the paramilitary team that last used it? They hurt people in there. I don’t know how long stuff lasts in terms of your ability to pick it up, but you should know the risk.”
From the way she flinched, it was clear Charisma Wai had forgotten to warn her.
“You understand?” The words came out rough with the leopard’s protective streak—a streak that was so intense and so deep-rooted that Remi had to fight it to allow those under his care freedom.
Given free rein, that part of Remi could turn him into a controlling dictator and he knew it. That was why he surrounded himself with people who’d haul him back if he ever got too close to the brutal edge, and, if necessary, who had no trouble getting in his face about it.
Auden Scott, for all her current physical vulnerability, had the same titanium spine. His cat liked that. A whole dangerous lot.
* * *
• • •
AUDEN nodded to acknowledge Remi’s warning about the bunker, but the man who’d made her forget all the rules for the past hour—and whose eyes had shifted to a feral yellow-gold before his curt words—still hesitated for several long seconds before loping off into the trees with that feline grace of his. She continued to stare after him long past the time she should’ve turned away.
Aloneness enclosed her in wings of soft black.
Shivering, she hugged her arms around herself, and stared at the bunker.
Auden didn’t believe Charisma’s omission had been malicious. Charisma was well aware of the risk to the baby should Auden come into unprepared contact with a surface with a violent past.
In her present state, it could trigger preterm labor.
Charisma would never risk that; she was very, very invested in Auden’s child.
Auden cradled her belly, her heart racing and skin ice. Her shields, shields her father had helped design when she’d still thought him a good man, a good person, held her emotions inside, away from the betraying darkness of the PsyNet. Auden’s Silence had never been flawless—as with most psychometrics she’d just skated through the tests, basically by ensuring she never tried to read anything that might be saturated with emotion.
Easy enough to do in Shoshanna’s and Henry’s homes.
She had, however, had trouble maintaining around Remi. Probably because he was a creature of open emotion, untamed in a way that triggered the part of her that was embarrassingly imperfect by Psy standards.
Auden couldn’t believe she’d told him she could catch his tail.
Her cheeks flushing, she patted at her belly. “That was fun, though, wasn’t it? He’s fun…and wild and deadly in a way that makes me want to be stupid.” Never in her life had she met anyone whose energy prowled so close to the surface of his skin. It had taken all she had not to touch him, feel if that energy had a tactile form.
Was it like his leopard’s fur? A soft enticement before the predator snarled?
Her fingers curled into her palm.
She could think such primal thoughts here, safe in this landscape far from those who watched her and who monitored her baby with voracious intent.
Charisma wanted the child in her womb. Auden just didn’t know why.
“They won’t get to you, won’t ever do to you what they did to me,” she promised again, the words trembling with a rage that had built and built from the first moment when she returned to true consciousness. “I’ll bring down their entire precious empire first.”
Because, no matter how much she might wish it otherwise, Auden was her parents’ daughter. But where they had used their ability to strategize and game the system to grow their power and brutalize those who were weaker, Auden’s actions were shaped by her all-encompassing love for the child in her womb. Her mother had no idea what she’d unleashed when she’d permitted Auden to be impregnated.
Two months.
That was how long she had to set everything in place. And to pull it off, she needed data, the most important piece of which was why Charisma was so focused on her pregnancy—and why Shoshanna had taken the step of leaving her aide in effective charge of Scott operations.
