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)
He came inside her. Marking and being marked.
* * *
• • •
LATER, much later, he fed her pastries while she sat naked on his lap, and music played through the speakers he’d brought up, while fairy lights twinkled all around them. He’d come up early to set it all up, give his mate the romance and the courtship she deserved—and he intended to keep it up. He planned to give her everything, permeate her world with joy.
Now he nuzzled and cuddled her, and bargained for future sexual favors with bites of cinnamon roll and salted caramel cupcake, and her giggles and kisses and happiness filled his heart to overflowing.
He was Remi Denier, Alpha, Father, and Mate.
And he was living a life far more extraordinary and joyous than could’ve been dreamed of by the lonely and grieving boy whose anger had once driven him to race and race in an effort to outrun his pain. There was no more need to run anywhere.
He was home.
In his pack.
In her arms.
Chapter 50
I am calling a meeting of the board at 11 a.m. Tuesday. Attendance is mandatory.
—Message from Auden Denier to the Scott Board of Directors (17 January 2084)
AUDEN RAN HER hand down the lines of her sleek but comfortable dark pink shift one last time before she strode out of her office at the new Scott HQ in Sunset Falls and down the hall to the conference room where the board awaited—that included her uncle, who’d emerged from his kidnapping with a healthy fear of both changelings and Auden, and no actual memories of anything.
Auden might’ve felt sorry for him if she hadn’t learned that, while she lay fighting for her life, he’d set a pack of lawyers to figuring out how to screw Liberty out of her birthright. After everything Shoshanna had done to Liberty before she was even born, Hayward didn’t get to claim the one useful thing Shoshanna might have done for Auden’s baby.
As Remi would say, fuck that noise.
She gave the entire board a cool look as she entered.
Then she took control with an ease and a depth of knowledge that had never been hers before her mother decided to invade her mind.
Bleedover.
She’d had two choices once it became clear that some of the bleedover from Shoshanna’s attempts at transference was permanent and embedded into her neurons: either rage against it in bitterness that would slowly turn toxic inside her…or own it.
Auden had chosen the latter option. Because even if Shoshanna had left information and skills behind in Auden’s head, she hadn’t left any traces of her personality or sense of self. Auden knew that beyond any doubt—because her mother had simply never had the capacity to love that bled through Auden’s veins.
Remi had confirmed that her scent no longer showed any signs of cold metal, but her mate had also supported her desire to consult an empath, as well.
“The only person inside you is you,” Vasic’s mate, Ivy Jane Zen, had said. “I’ve worked with fragmented personalities before, and you’re not one of them.” She’d taken Auden’s hands in her own. “Your mind is cohesive and your loyal, loving heart is a delight for an E—you’re a good person, Auden, and you’re very much your own person.”
Ivy’s little white dog had stood on Auden’s feet just then, his tail wagging as he waited to be petted. “See,” Ivy had said with a laugh, “Rabbit agrees with me, and he’s the best judge of character around.”
Shoshanna had played a high-stakes game—and lost.
Now, Auden owned this knowledge, and she’d decided to use it to seize control of her family.
“I have two options,” she’d said to Remi once she was healed enough to head out into the world. “Surrender the family to its current path, or assume the CEO position and try to make them something better. I’m going for option two.” Scott might not be a name Auden would ever again claim, for her or her child, but neither was she about to allow evil to win.
“I also feel bad for the young ones like my cousin Devlin,” she’d added. “He’s never had the chance to become anything but what Shoshanna, then Charisma shaped him to be. I think I can make a difference, give the next generation a shot at a life like our baby is going to have.”
“You know I have your back,” Remi had said. “I also know you’ll kick ass.”
Jaya, the empath who’d felt like a friend from the moment Auden first met her while conscious, had grimaced—but only because she knew what awaited Auden. “They’ll try to manipulate you, poison your mind. Be wary.”
“I will be,” Auden had said, having no plans to be felled by arrogance. “But I have an advantage: all of my mother’s strategic skills and memories.” Shoshanna had been a grand master.