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)
More likely, someone else—one of the faithful—had been shielding her mind from the world.
“What do you want to do?” Remi asked, the leopard in his voice.
Auden wondered what it made her that she didn’t hesitate. “I want her dead, this time for real. She’s done enough damage—I will not permit her to harm Liberty as she did me.”
Foolish girl, came a voice emotionless and arrogant inside her head, do you really believe you’re in control? I’ve had you in my power since the first day.
Auden’s breath caught, her eyes flashing to Remi. “She’s telepathing me.”
He went to move, as if to tear Shoshanna’s head off her body, but Auden stopped him with a hand on his arm.
Because her mother was still speaking. I think ten steps ahead. That’s why you were pregnant long before the unfortunate incident that caused my current state.
She was right; Auden had been impregnated while Shoshanna still lived. Liberty, Auden realized, had been created to hold Shoshanna’s mind no matter when Shoshanna died. Her mother had intended to mess with her baby’s sweet, emerging consciousness from the moment of birth.
We are connected, you and I. It was so easy to overlay my mind on yours for short bursts well before the incident that took my body from me. I negotiated the fertilization and conception agreement. I made the world see you as whole when it suited me.
Telepathic mind control, Auden thought. A difficult but not unknown thing among their race. Especially when it came to a telepath as powerful as Shoshanna who’d had unhindered access to her daughter’s damaged brain for years.
The thought sickened Auden.
But the transfer glitched when I attempted to take permanent charge after the incident, leaving part of me in you. If I die, the psychic shock will kill you, too.
Auden’s breath raced, her hand squeezing Remi’s forearm as she quickly relayed what Shoshanna had said, then turned back to her mother. “Why did you attempt a transfer into me in the first place?” she asked aloud and on the telepathic level at the same time. “You created a child for your transfer—a perfect, unbroken brain with specific genetics designed to ensure she’d be a high-Gradient telepath.”
I— A hesitation, a sense of white noise. I— The fetus. I wanted to enter the fetus as soon as possible. Better to embed while she was still forming and influence her development.
Auden frowned, because that didn’t make sense. “My brain is scarred. You had no guarantees you wouldn’t degrade once inside me.”
Holding facility. Better than this one. Brain…failing…
The hesitation was more obvious now, Shoshanna’s voice fading in and out, a touch of confusion in her tone. “She’s not all there,” Auden said to Remi, not sure if her mother could hear her or know what was in her head, but none of that mattered. Because the choice was clear. “As long as she lives, our cub is at risk.”
Remi’s jaw worked, a growl in his tone. “What about the threat to you?”
Auden’s eyes were pools of melted glacier ice, pristine and clear, with not a ripple in their resolve. “You know the answer, my Remi. You’d make the same choice.” She touched her fingers to his. “I’m only sorry”—tight words, pain in the fury now—“that I never got to know all of what it could be with us.”
Rage was a leopard’s snarl in Remi’s throat, but he knew there was no convincing her otherwise. Because he would have made the same choice. To lay down his life for a cub? It wasn’t even a question.
But he wasn’t about to just give Auden up to evil.
He gripped her hand, his claws on her skin. “Open to me, Auden. If I reach for you, you open.”
But she shook her head. “No. She’s still a Gradient 9.5 telepath and her brain has enough function that she was able to somehow transfer a piece of herself into me. I don’t know how—I’m guessing through sheer brute force because the idea of it is unadulterated insanity. If she somehow manages to get into your head via me, she’ll use you as a weapon, use your entire pack.”
Remi wanted to tell her that changeling shields were too strong, but that didn’t apply here. Because if she allowed the mating bond, they’d be linked on a level so deep that it was beyond shields or walls. “Fuck!” It came out a roar.
She tangled her fingers with his. “Whatever happens, know that I regret nothing.” Her gaze shone at him. “Make sure Liberty knows that my love for her made me. She is my heartbeat and my soul and she is the reason I understand love.” Fingers touching his jaw. “I love you, Remi Denier. Until when I look into eternity, I see you in every frame.”
Remi couldn’t speak, his chest thick. “Is she still in your head?”