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)
“Kit’s one of mine,” the other alpha had said to Remi. “He’ll always have a home here, never be forced into a choice.”
He’d held Remi’s gaze with the panther green of his own. “What your pack did to you was unacceptable. You were a cub, younger than Kit by years—any threat your alpha felt from you was due to his own inadequacies. You need to not only understand that but internalize it, so you’re never at risk of repeating the mistake.”
Remi had appreciated the blunt talking-to, even though he was well aware his flaw was a protectiveness that could turn into a cage. He wasn’t one to push any child out of the nest. But Luc’s job had been to ensure Remi ended up a good alpha. That meant making sure he was aware of his own shit.
It wasn’t until now that Remi realized a part of him had worried that he would react negatively to a young alpha in his pack, that he’d been fundamentally damaged by his own alpha’s decision to kick him out at a bare seventeen years of age. Instead, his leopard prowled against the surface of his skin, intrigued by Kit’s strength—and painfully aware of his youth.
For the first time, he really got it, understood how fucked up the WhiteMountain alpha’s actions had been. Because Kit was a gift to DarkRiver, a strong male loyal and true, who might one day extend their circle of allies to an entirely new pack. But right this moment? He was still young, needed guidance and support as he grew into his skin and his power.
Remi slapped the younger man on the shoulder after Kit confirmed that he’d alerted Lucas he was back in the country. “I’ll introduce you to the others here. We’re not heading up to pack territory until late tomorrow. You okay to wait? You can stay with us—we have some simple sleeping quarters on the second floor for the short term.” Mliss and her official staff of three had proper apartments next door.
“No problem. But can you not tell Rina?” Kit’s leopard gleamed in his eyes. “I want to see the look on her face when I walk out of the trees.”
“I’m a cat. Of course I’m good with startling her.”
Kit’s laughter made poor Phoebe all but combust on the spot before Remi took their visitor through to the back to introduce him to the others. Yet as he watched Kit win them over with the generous warmth of a leopard who’d been raised in the heart of a healthy and loving pack, he found himself thinking of Auden again.
His claws pricked his skin, his leopard’s lip curling in a snarl.
He had to let that little obsession go. Because the chances of Auden returning to the cabin anytime soon were close to nil. That she’d come even once while so heavily pregnant, though…it made Remi wonder. Why would a woman leave her home at such a critical time if that home was a safe place for her?
* * *
• • •
AUDEN sat in her office staring at her computer. She hadn’t done much on it…ever. She hadn’t even had an office until she was moved into her mother’s care.
Why she’d been given one, she didn’t know.
Perhaps as a backdrop to a meeting, should it be necessary. Because at that point, she hadn’t had enough mental capacity to utilize any of the systems. Oh, she could pretend for brief fragments of time, but nothing sustained.
That history did, however, mean that this computer was unlikely to be monitored by anything aside from the generic Scott security system that kept out hackers and the like. She hadn’t had a chance to test it yet, having done any prior computronic work on an organizer given to her as a young teen that was clear of any bugs because, quite frankly, it was too old and clunky to run the software.
Unfortunately, its age also meant she could no longer really use it except perhaps to visit the forum. As for the other organizer she’d managed to source, the one with specs high enough for everything, she had no plans to link it to the Scott system—at least not until she was ready to sacrifice the device. For now, it was clean, and she intended to keep it that way.
So it would have to be this computer. Inhaling a long breath, she started up a security check using what she’d learned as a teenager prior to the neural damage. Computronic security had been a necessary part of her studies.
“We might exist on the PsyNet,” her father had said, “but we can’t do business on the Net alone. For one, not all data can be stored there. You must know how to secure your devices.”
That advice had ended up prescient, given the continued fragmentation of the PsyNet. With the foundation in the midst of a mass collapse, nothing stored in its psychic fabric was safe, not even the most well-constructed vault.