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)
“Clinical” was the word that came to mind.
“Security sweep.” Auden’s voice was an order that ruffled his leopard’s fur the wrong way—but not because it was an order. Because it had been given by this alternate version of Auden.
Rina closed and locked the door behind them before they both took out scanners they’d purchased through a contact of the squad. They were the highest spec on the market, and so far had never failed to detect any covert surveillance devices. Because while Auden hadn’t been lying about their senses being able to pick up things that didn’t belong, such small devices rarely had a scent strong enough to make a difference.
Still, he wasn’t against helping strengthen the legend of changeling abilities.
Auden stood motionless and watchful by the door as they worked, but her eyes had gone obsidian in a sweeping tide and he realized she’d taken off her thin black glove and was touching the door handle, checking for imprints.
He and Rina found ten devices between them, depositing the components in a neat pile on the glass desk. “Clear,” Rina said after a secondary scan.
Remi then did a third. “Clear,” he confirmed.
Eyes of haunting obsidian stared off into nothing for another long second before Auden said, “Clear.” Staggering forward in the aftermath, she placed her hand smack on the glass of the desk.
A hiss of sound.
Chapter 36
Bo, the blood-bonding is now complete.
After discussion with Sahara Kyriakus and Ivy Jane Zen, we also bonded in as many fully Psy children as they calculated the clan’s changeling network could handle, and it’s possible the little ones may make it—my innate urge to protect means they live in my heart now, so there is an emotional tie. I only wish we could take so many more.
As for full-blooded adult Psy who aren’t linked to us by emotion—no change on the needle there. Still, we’ve laid the groundwork with multiple empaths because the children will need psychic oversight, and Es seem to be the best bet. Let us hope that we’re all wrong and that we won’t have to stand by and watch the loss of life on a scale incalculable.
—Miane Levèque, alpha of BlackSea, to Bowen Knight, security chief of the Human Alliance (4 November 2083)
“PROBLEM?” RINA ASKED from where she kept watch by the door, even as Remi growled deep in his chest and went to Auden.
She shook her head when he would’ve touched her, her gaze pleading with him to keep his distance. Those eyes, that expression, it was the Auden he knew—but a faint whisper of the metal remained tangled in her scent.
He halted, man and leopard both fighting the urge to shake her and hold her close at the same time.
“No, this desk is cold.” A pause. “In the psychometric sense. That’s why so many of my designation go for hyper-modern furnishings. Less chance of embedded history. But this particular desk is cold in the sense that I don’t think anyone’s touched it since I was gone.”
“What did you do at it?” Remi asked, unable to imagine his Auden in this space.
“Prior to this past month, nothing much.” She rubbed her chest, her face flinching.
“Auden.” A growl and this time, he gripped her jaw, held the moonstone blue of her gaze.
“It’s me with a piece of another,” she whispered, low enough to reach him alone.
He scented the truth of that in her body.
“I need her,” she added with a hard swallow. “She knew the code to Charisma’s private files. I don’t understand why I would’ve ever had that.”
He understood what she was asking of him, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. “You’re in control,” he told her, and this time, he pitched his voice so Rina could hear as well—Auden had asked Remi to brief her on the possibility of a hostile personality. “I can scent it.” He released her jaw. “Yours is ascendant.”
“I scent the same,” Rina said, her eyes narrowed. “Whatever is going on, that metallic part of you is only a thread.”
Auden took a deep breath, then looked from Remi to Rina and back. Her spine grew straighter. “Can you make it so we’ll know immediately if anyone enters after today?”
“That won’t be a problem. We’ll do scent sweeps on a regular basis.”
“Good.” She shifted so that she could see both him and Rina, her expression set in unmoving lines. “Let’s do this. For her.” Love in her scent itself, Liberty’s scent tangled with Auden’s on an indelible level—and that part of her scent, Remi realized on a roar of satisfaction, had never altered.
The other Auden could no longer get past his Auden’s love for her child. It was a thing enormous, and the Auden he loved—because yeah, why the fuck fight that when it was a blazing star deep within—was stronger, tougher, harder to break because of the power of her heart.