Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Auden spread her hand over the top of the incubator. “Have you ever felt the need to seek him out again?”
Remi didn’t have to think of his answer. “No. I learned how to love, how to be loyal, how to be a good son, a good man, without him. He had nothing I wanted, just a hollowness of the soul that repelled me.” He closed his hand over Auden’s on the incubator. “You love your baby with the fierceness of a leopardess. You outpaced and outgrew Henry and Shoshanna one hell of a long time ago.”
Tears in the blue, her voice husky as she said, “Do you think your mother would’ve liked me?” A question so quiet it was almost inaudible.
His throat grew thick. “She would’ve adored you.” Gina would’ve seen the same courage and heart in Auden that had tangled Remi in ropes so strong that he knew he’d be indelibly scarred if she splintered into another Auden, his Auden forever lost. “You’re planning to fight for your cub like she fought for hers. If she was alive, she’d be right by your side, claws out.”
He wove their fingers together. “She might not be here, but that cub of hers is going to walk with you into that house, and find the truth.”
Auden’s pupil’s expanded, obsidian in the blue. “I don’t know how to get you in. I’m planning to use my baby as collateral for my safety—they touch me physically or psychically, and they never see her again.” A twist of her lips. “They’ll never see her anyway, but it might buy me time to unearth the truth.”
Remi’s claws sliced out of his skin, but he made sure he didn’t cut her. When the cub made a complaining sound, he rumbled deep and low in his chest to calm her back down. Only once she was snuffling away did he ask his question. “Can they tear open your mind to get to her?”
“No. Infants are tied to their mothers. A mental assault on my mind would murder her, too—especially as she’s premature.” Auden looked down at the baby. “I’m just pretending, baby. I’d never give you to them, no matter what.”
Remi narrowed his eyes. “Hire us.”
“What?” Auden stared.
“Hire our security arm,” he repeated grimly. “I don’t actually expect you to pay us, but set it up like a business deal.”
Auden’s mouth opened, closed again. “Yes,” she said after a long pause. “They’d see me hiring you as a convenient option since we already have another deal, and you’ve built trust by flying me in the chopper.”
A look at her baby. “But not in a million years would they consider that I’d leave her with you—because whatever is wrong with me, they still believe I think like a Scott.”
“And Scotts believe they’re better than others, and infinitely better than any changeling,” Remi guessed.
Auden’s gaze turned unfocused, and he could almost see her thinking it through in every minute detail. “Does your pack have any kind of a security presence? It has to look real.”
“RainFire Security has a strong reputation in our region. Even have Psy clients who won’t trust anyone else—I’m sure they’ll cooperate if your people reach out to ask for a reference.”
He tapped the side of his head. “Changeling shields. Changeling speed. Changeling strength—and crucially, changeling senses. We make damn good bodyguards against physical threats, and can hold up much longer than humans against a psychic assault. Now that Silence has fallen, there’s no taboo against Psy hiring changeling bodyguards.”
She stared off into space for several seconds. “They could attempt to cut off access to my trust fund once they become aware of it. It’ll be harder to sell a transactional relationship if I don’t have the funds to pay you.”
“I have a hacker in the pack.” Why hide it when it was part of the toolkit of every smart alpha? Psy liked to put things in computers and Psy also liked to attack changeling systems—it was just good sense to have both defensive and offensive capabilities on that front. “If you trust me with the details of your account, we can secure it.”
“Give me an organizer and I’ll load the access details onto it,” Auden said without hesitation. “The requirements include a live retinal scan, so your hacker will need to come here. Or you’ll need to be the one to take that scan, since it’s better if you keep your packmates from my memory.”
Her face went bleak. “I’m going to fight my hardest, but I’m a Ps-Psy. I can’t keep them from my mind if they decide to rape it in order to get to my baby. It might take them a few weeks to get to that point—or they might wait a couple of months until they’re near certain the baby would survive.”
Remi’s chest rumbled. He found himself curving one hand around her nape, his claws scraping her pulse. “Make me a promise, Auden.”