Chapter 11

Chapter 11

LvrBoo: Life would be mega simples if the other races understood skin privileges as a concept.

Dnx09: I mean, they do when we explain it. My last lover was a human and he was adorable about skin privileges.

Novemba: I dunno. I like that it's our thing.

KixKix: That's because you're a smug-mated, Novemba. Shed a tear for those of us in the dating trenches.

Ferla78: There's just something delicious about exchanging skin privileges with a lover who understands the trust in touch, isn't there? Funnily enough, the last two Psy I picked up got it at once. I guess because they were taught never to touch, they see it as a decadent gift. I've never been touched with so much intent .

LvrBoo: Wait, wait, girl. Back up. You can't just drop that you're picking up multiple Psy and not elaborate! Where are you finding these Psy? And are they virgins? Because I'm hearing reports of seriously hot virgin soldier types. Spill!

— Wild Woman Forum

REMI USUALLY NEVER hesitated to share data with the Arrows; RainFire and the squad were friends as well as allies. But he had no intention of doing so when it came to Auden's pregnancy. His leopard growled at the idea of it, the human half in full agreement. It went against every ounce of honor in his body to pass on a truth so private.

"It's not like her pregnancy is a security threat," he said to Finn the next morning—because he had told their healer; Finn needed to be prepared in case shit went wrong.

"No," Finn agreed as he danced out of the way of a kick from Remi.

Like most healers, Finn hated violence. But also like most healers, he had a protective streak so wide it was a six-lane highway. Add in the fact that he was conscious of RainFire being a small and isolated pack, and here they were.

"I want to be trained," he'd declared. "I'm an adult in good condition. I need to be able to protect our vulnerable."

He was right.

Despite knowing that, Remi had to force himself to carry through on any strikes that might land—alphas just did not hurt their healers unless they were unhinged assholes.

It helped that Finn hadn't started out green as grass. He'd picked up bits and pieces during his sojourn as a relief healer in other packs, but had never done the full course intended to arm noncombatants in a pack.

Remi and his sentinels had fixed that.

The weekly sessions were to ensure he didn't forget.

"And," Finn said, his chest heaving as they circled each other in the small clearing they used as a practice ground, "I'd say it's her personal business unless she makes it ours. Woman's just minding her own right now.

"Plus, we've got no hard evidence that she was involved in what happened to Aden and Zaira in that bunker—didn't Aden say she doesn't appear to have had much power until after Shoshanna's death?"

Remi launched another attack.

Finn kicked forest floor debris right up into his face before spraying him with a disgusting smelling spray that he'd pulled from his back jeans pocket. Because with Finn, they often trained as if he'd been attacked while at work in the infirmary. Today, that meant jeans and an old blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

And the foul spray.

Fuck, that was rank.

"What the hell?" Remi choked on the stink, his forearm raised to his face in a vain attempt at blocking it.

Finn backed off, coughing—while somehow grinning at the same time, his leopard a glow in the green of his eyes. "You and Angel both told me to play to my strengths. Lots of toxic stuff to throw and spray in an infirmary. Don't worry, this one is just stinky."

Healers. Smart and smartasses with it.

His leopard proud even as it wanted to bring down curses on Finn's smart head, Remi held up his hands. "I surrender. Let's get the hell away before that stench sinks into our skin."

A smug Finn put away his dastardly concoction and did a graceful bow. "I accept your defeat." His face broke out into another huge grin as he rose up from the bow. "I also plan to tell everyone."

Remi growled without any real threat in it; it was good to see Finn happy. "I'm going to run up to the cabin again today," he said after they escaped the biohazard area. "Check she's doing all right."

Finn pressed his lips together. "To be honest," he said, hands on his hips, "I'd feel better if you did. She must have a senior M-Psy on speed dial, but that won't help if she trips and falls and knocks herself unconscious."

"Great, thanks for that image." Which would now haunt him every hour that Auden was in that remote cabin. It didn't matter that he barely knew her; protectiveness was built into his nature.

She was happy the last time she wore that watch. No pain, just comfort at being with you, at lying by the window in the sun, with the forest just outside.

His chest clenched. Because yeah, there was a little of the personal between them. Whatever had been wrong with Auden that first day, whether she was lying or not about the brain injury, she'd given him a gift beyond price when she'd spoken of his mother's last days, leaving him with an image of a leopard at peace, happy and warm.

He owed her in a way he'd never forget.

"Welcome to the inside of a healer's brain." Finn's voice brought him back to the now. "I am ever haunted by thoughts of future calamity."

A clear ping of sound.

Glancing down, Finn grimaced at the message that had popped up on the mobile comm he never took off; the pack had funded that because, quite frankly, he needed it given their limited numbers and the youthful skew of their population.

"Talking of which," the healer muttered, "possible broken ribs in a group of juveniles who decided they wanted to practice sparring without oversight. They're about a thirty-minute run away."

"How serious? You need me?" Remi was tied to Finn by a bond of blood, the act an intense and private one between alpha and healer that made Finn one of Remi's in a way that had left Finn in tears for the closing of a circle that had been open too long in his life. It also meant Finn could pull the pack's energy from Remi during a complicated healing.

But Finn shook his head. "At least one of the juveniles has completed the first aid course and thinks it might just be heavy bruising, but he isn't comfortable making that call." He changed direction toward the infirmary, no doubt to grab his medical kit, his chest reverberating with his leopard's grumble. "How our young survive to adulthood, I have no idea."

Remi grabbed the back of the healer's neck without aggression, squeezed. "A combination of dumb luck and strong changeling bones."

Finn's cat continued to grumble, but he didn't shake off Remi's touch. Which Remi had initiated on purpose—because Finn was getting grumpier with each day that passed and contact with his alpha would calm his cat.

Touch was the cornerstone of the relationships in a pack.

Remi knew the reason behind Finn's behavior. Healers loved family, loved children, and while being the healer of a small and close pack like RainFire helped feed some of that need, what Finn really needed was a long-term lover or mate.

That was simply how healers worked.

They liked to pair bond and often did so earlier than other changelings. Finn's closest healer friend, Tamsyn, had mated at only nineteen years of age, and while she was an outlier in terms of how early she'd found her mate, all of Finn's healer friends of a similar age were happily settled.

Unfortunately, Finn had never found anyone with whom he wanted to tangle on a more than friendly basis. A worried Remi had even tried to play matchmaker by sending Finn off to conferences for changeling healers, in the hope that he'd find love among his peers, but all Finn had found were interesting new medical techniques.

While he did have friends in RainFire and other packs with which he exchanged skin privileges, that was getting rare enough to concern Remi. Changelings needed contact, affection, touch, to be at their best. Dominants got aggressive without it, but healers? Healers got sad and…broken.

"You need skin-to-skin contact," he said now, after another squeeze. "None of the single women in the pack would turn you down." Finn wasn't just liked, he was loved. A heart piece, without which the pack would never quite function right.

The other man's eyes shone wet when they met Remi's. "It's not enough anymore." A raw confession. "I keep thinking what's wrong with me that I can't make that bond? I'm a healer . We bond as easily as we breathe."

This was one of the things no one could teach you about being alpha. Protection was one thing, care quite another. "There's nothing wrong with you, Finn," he said, holding those leaf green eyes to drill that home. "You just haven't found your forever yet. She's probably pissed off about it, too."

A snort of laughter from Finn before he looked away for a second. Only healers could do that in a pack—just break an alpha's gaze. But he turned back, and didn't avoid the embrace Remi gave him.

Just because Finn was strong and intelligent and held it together no matter what the emergency didn't mean he didn't also need his alpha. "I know it's not enough," Remi murmured, "but take the gift of skin privileges your friends want to give you. It'll help you maintain until you find the one who's meant to be yours."

Finn's arms clenched around Remi for a moment before he pulled back and gave a small nod. "You'd tell me if I was falling down on the job, wouldn't you?"

"Finn, that's the one thing about which I never worry—you'd be dying but still trying to help people." He tapped one palm against the other man's cheek. "But if it makes you feel better, yes, I would kick your skinny ass if you weren't living up to your promise to the pack. Message me once you've seen the juveniles."

Finn's lips curved before he turned and jogged the rest of the way to the infirmary. Right before he pulled open the door, he yelled, "My ass is prime, I'll have you know! Had an entire hunting party of bridesmaids tell me so last time I visited San Francisco!"

Chuckling as the healer vanished inside the infirmary cube, Remi turned on his heel to check up on the current biggest pain in his neck. The juveniles' antics, at least, he could predict. Auden Scott? Fucking nightmare of a problem that technically had nothing to do with him—and that would gnaw at him every second she was in his vicinity.

So of course he reached their border to discover her holding a deadly little gun all wrong while facing a homemade target—a piece of card stuck to a big stick that she'd poked into the ground. On the card was a wonky hand-drawn bull's-eye.

Then she shot and it went so wide of the mark that it wasn't even in the same galaxy.

His leopard hung its head in reflected shame.

Groaning, Remi deliberately made a lot of noise as he walked out so that she wouldn't shoot him by accident—though her chances of hitting him were so low as to be miniscule. When she swung around with the gun pointed, he held up his own hands. "I mean, you have a point one percent chance of actually hitting me, but don't shoot."

A glare.

Yes, a definite glare, before she smoothed it over with the ice-coated exterior of Silent perfection she'd shown him yesterday. His heart kicked anyway, his leopard on the hunt.

There you are , the cat purred.

"I apologize." She lowered the weapon and the movement disturbed the air currents, sending more of her luscious scent in his direction. "I didn't intend to convey aggression…but you did sneak up on me."

His body stirred in a way unexpected, as drawn to this Auden as he had been disturbed by the woman he'd first met. "I made enough noise for a herd of drunk bears."

This time, she looked like she really wanted to shoot him.

Amused, he nodded at her target before she could give in to her rage. "Let me guess—your first time with a laser weapon?"

A pause and he knew her training was telling her to lie—according to what he'd picked up from hanging out with Arrows, powerful Psy were taught to cover any and all vulnerabilities. Or they had been under Silence. Who knew how long it would take for that to change, or if it ever would. A century of indoctrination wasn't exactly easy to shrug off.

Auden finally seemed to realize there was no point in lying when he'd witnessed her stumbling attempted shot. "Yes," she said at last. "It's probably not safe for you to be close by." A grudging warning.

His cat, contrary feline that it was, liked her better for being aggravated by his teasing. "I can't leave you here with that." He sighed to further nudge up her anger, to better see her . "I'll lose my mind worrying that you'd lasered off your foot or blasted your cheekbone."

Her eyes went black.

Remi stayed relaxed, his hands on his hips—he'd seen other Psy eyes do that when in the grip of great power—or great emotion. Auden Scott was becoming more fascinating with every second that passed.

"I," she said in the most precise diction he'd ever heard, "know not to turn the weapon toward myself."

Remi stopped playing. "You're on the lowest setting. Highest setting, that thing kicks like a horse. You could accidentally trigger it in a direction you don't want."

The black didn't retreat.

Well, hell, now he'd pissed her off. But no way was he leaving before assuring himself of her safety. "I can show you how to hit your target."

Her fingers tightening on the weapon as her hand came to her belly, she took a small step back.

Shit .

Remi wanted to kick himself. He'd gotten so caught up in her clear ability to go toe-to-toe with him that he'd forgotten her vulnerable state. To Auden Scott, he wasn't Remi, her alpha who'd die to protect her; no, he was a stranger, bigger and stronger than her.

"You can keep hold of the weapon," he said. "I can direct you from a distance." Changelings might be tactile by nature, but skin privileges were just that: privileges . No changeling with any honor would just take that precious gift, no matter the context.

"First," he said when she remained silent, "you need to learn the stance. You're standing wrong for your current balance."

He showed her the standard stance, then modified it for her present center of gravity, and after a long moment, she tried to copy it.

"Yeah, you almost have it." Eyes on her legs so he could judge how well she was doing, he gave her step-by-step instructions to get her into the exact stance—it went painfully slowly, but at least she was willing to listen.

"It doesn't feel right," she muttered at one point, the steely facade falling to expose a woman with soft features and even softer lips.

"It will," he said, shoving aside the unexpected spark of attraction for this woman who was an enigma in more ways than one; Remi couldn't risk lowering his guard with her, not when he was responsible for an entire pack. "First, put the weapon away in your pocket, then lift your hands as if you're holding it."

It took her a long minute to follow his instruction, but once they got going, she proved a fast study. Sharp. Quick on her feet for a woman seven months into a pregnancy. "You've had training," he said when they came to a stop. "In movement, if not in shooting."

"Standard drills to help me evade kidnappers if I was ever in that position."

He raised an eyebrow. "Not what I thought you were going to say." But it made sense; she was the only child of two Councilors. A certain caliber of person would've seen her as a payday.

She retrieved the weapon from her pocket, her eyes shining in a way that was surprisingly adorable. "Can I shoot now?"

"Let's go through the settings first." Once they had, he told her to choose the lowest. "It'll give you experience with the smaller recoils before trying to handle the big one."

After doing as he'd suggested, she took the stance he'd taught her, sighted down the barrel as they'd practiced…and shot.

The beam hit the wall of the bunker behind the sign.

Her face fell.

He wanted to cuddle her, the response instinctive. "You singed your target," he said, while reminding himself more harshly that he couldn't take anything about Auden at face value. Even if it was fucking hard to remember that with her looking so dejected. "That means you're two meters closer than when you started out."

Walking over to the target, she peered at the left edge, her eyes in a squint. "You're telling the truth!" She turned with a lightness to her step, appearing so young and innocent that it punched him in the gut that she hadn't even hit her mid-twenties. He'd still been racing cars and battling to control his screwed up emotions when he was her age.

Six years and a lifetime ago.

Auden pointed at the spot with the singe mark. "I almost hit it!"

Remi's leopard huffed on a surge of affection strong enough to bypass his wariness. "Almost," he agreed, though that was the most generous interpretation of the word he'd ever heard.

"Let me try again," she said, that new brightness lingering in eyes that had shifted back to a luminous blue during their lesson.

Then, as if forgetting she wasn't alone, she stroked a hand over her stomach to cradle it, a faint curve to her lips as she looked down at her bump. The love and tenderness in her expression? He'd stake his life on it being genuine.

Who was the real Auden Scott?