Chapter 12

Chapter 12

PsyNet disintegration has picked up speed at levels we can't explain, given known factors. The time remaining has compressed to six months—but if the compression is cumulative, that estimate is useless.

—Report to the Ruling Coalition and EmNet from PsyNet Research Group Alpha (1 September 2083)

THE STATE OF her brain aside, the Auden with whom Remi spent the next half hour was the same one who'd come to him in the trees and spoken to him of his mother with an openness that was raw and without sophistication.

She was a wild and quixotic creature who argued with him over millimeters when he eyeballed how close she'd come with a shot, and who—at one point—asked if it hurt if someone stepped on his tail while he was in leopard form.

"I'm too fast for that to ever happen," he growled back in insult.

A sly look. "I bet I could do it. Not step on it. Catch it."

Remi stared at her. "Are you daring the alpha of a predatory changeling pack?"

"No." She took aim. "Just making a statement."

She fired.

This Auden, Remi realized with a sense of the portentous hanging over his head, could be far more dangerous to him than either of the avatars he'd previously met.

The question was, was she real…or a mask created with him as a target in mind? "I have to head back," he said and it wasn't a lie. He also, however, needed space to think.

Her face fell. "Of course." The quicksilver faded. "Thank you for the lesson."

Remi found himself hesitating, once more viscerally conscious of her aloneness. "I can help carry the target inside for you. Might rain overnight."

"No." A stiff look, the corners of her soft mouth pinched. "No, I prefer to do it myself."

Remi thought of her fingers on his comm device, the way she'd clutched at her abdomen as she whimpered that it hurt, and realized he had no idea how her psychometric abilities impacted her daily life. But from the guarded way she was looking at him, she didn't plan on sharing anything with him on the point.

He could've left it, but that didn't sit right, especially when her reticence was going to roadblock things he could do to help her. "Psychometric stuff?"

A rapid blink, a long pause.

"I have friends in the PsyNet," he added. "Rumor is you're a Ps-Psy, and I know that's right because of what you did with my comm. No one knows your Gradient, but guesses are 7 or higher, because of your parents." Remi made a face. "I don't get grading people that way, but I guess it works for the Psy."

Narrowed eyes, the stiffness eroding under a flash of irritation she couldn't conceal. "From what I know, changelings do the same."

It was his turn to scowl. Folding his arms, he set his feet apart. "You'll have to explain that to me, Deadshot."

She folded her own arms, and held his gaze with the moonstone blue of her own. "Your grading scale goes from dominance to submission."

Remi opened, then shut his mouth. "Well, damn." Shoving his hand through his hair, he said, "Point to you, Ms.Auden Scott." She was wrong in putting submissives on the end of the "grading" scale—submissives weren't automatically less important in the hierarchy of a pack—but that there was a hierarchy was the salient point.

Her lips parted, her shoulders easing, and for a single heartbeat, he thought she might even smile. But a pulse later, the mask swept over her features, the Auden who'd dared say she could catch his tail retreating beneath the veneer of Psy ice. "I appreciate the time you took out of your day to give me the lesson."

Remi didn't want to leave, especially not when he'd begun to get a glimmer of the woman behind the mask, but he had vows to uphold. And unlike his father, he took his vows dead seriously.

"My pleasure," he said, and shot her a playful salute.

He'd already half turned on his heel when a sudden thought made him freeze. "Don't go in that bunker." Shifting, he locked his gaze to hers again, his leopard in the growl of his voice. "Did Ms.Wai tell you about the paramilitary team that last used it? They hurt people in there. I don't know how long stuff lasts in terms of your ability to pick it up, but you should know the risk."

From the way she flinched, it was clear Charisma Wai had forgotten to warn her.

"You understand?" The words came out rough with the leopard's protective streak—a streak that was so intense and so deep-rooted that Remi had to fight it to allow those under his care freedom.

Given free rein, that part of Remi could turn him into a controlling dictator and he knew it. That was why he surrounded himself with people who'd haul him back if he ever got too close to the brutal edge, and, if necessary, who had no trouble getting in his face about it.

Auden Scott, for all her current physical vulnerability, had the same titanium spine. His cat liked that. A whole dangerous lot.

···

AUDEN nodded to acknowledge Remi's warning about the bunker, but the man who'd made her forget all the rules for the past hour—and whose eyes had shifted to a feral yellow-gold before his curt words—still hesitated for several long seconds before loping off into the trees with that feline grace of his. She continued to stare after him long past the time she should've turned away.

Aloneness enclosed her in wings of soft black.

Shivering, she hugged her arms around herself, and stared at the bunker.

Auden didn't believe Charisma's omission had been malicious. Charisma was well aware of the risk to the baby should Auden come into unprepared contact with a surface with a violent past.

In her present state, it could trigger preterm labor.

Charisma would never risk that; she was very, very invested in Auden's child.

Auden cradled her belly, her heart racing and skin ice. Her shields, shields her father had helped design when she'd still thought him a good man, a good person, held her emotions inside, away from the betraying darkness of the PsyNet. Auden's Silence had never been flawless—as with most psychometrics she'd just skated through the tests, basically by ensuring she never tried to read anything that might be saturated with emotion.

Easy enough to do in Shoshanna's and Henry's homes.

She had, however, had trouble maintaining around Remi. Probably because he was a creature of open emotion, untamed in a way that triggered the part of her that was embarrassingly imperfect by Psy standards.

Auden couldn't believe she'd told him she could catch his tail.

Her cheeks flushing, she patted at her belly. "That was fun, though, wasn't it? He's fun…and wild and deadly in a way that makes me want to be stupid." Never in her life had she met anyone whose energy prowled so close to the surface of his skin. It had taken all she had not to touch him, feel if that energy had a tactile form.

Was it like his leopard's fur? A soft enticement before the predator snarled?

Her fingers curled into her palm.

She could think such primal thoughts here, safe in this landscape far from those who watched her and who monitored her baby with voracious intent.

Charisma wanted the child in her womb. Auden just didn't know why.

"They won't get to you, won't ever do to you what they did to me," she promised again, the words trembling with a rage that had built and built from the first moment when she returned to true consciousness. "I'll bring down their entire precious empire first."

Because, no matter how much she might wish it otherwise, Auden was her parents' daughter. But where they had used their ability to strategize and game the system to grow their power and brutalize those who were weaker, Auden's actions were shaped by her all-encompassing love for the child in her womb. Her mother had no idea what she'd unleashed when she'd permitted Auden to be impregnated.

Two months.

That was how long she had to set everything in place. And to pull it off, she needed data, the most important piece of which was why Charisma was so focused on her pregnancy—and why Shoshanna had taken the step of leaving her aide in effective charge of Scott operations.

The official word, per the private family-only document Shoshanna had left behind to be opened in the event of her sudden death or disability, was that Hayward didn't have the capability or the personality to lead the family. It said a lot about how effectively Shoshanna had psychologically destroyed her brother that Auden's uncle had just accepted that slight.

The transfer of power document hadn't ended there:

Auden is incapacitated and not in the line of succession except in terms of public perception. However, if she is able to maintain for periods of time, she should be used as the face of the Scotts. Only if that is absolutely impossible should Hayward step in as the face.

This temporary state of affairs will end with Devlin Scott reaching his majority at twenty-five years of age. Charisma will take over his training from the time of my demise or disability, and ensure he's ready to step in as full CEO at twenty-five.

Hayward's son, Devlin, was only sixteen right now, but he was already turning into a cold and calculating creature. Auden still felt sorry for him—the boy had to spend many hours a day with Charisma, his future mapped out for him, choice not even a question. Yet despite him being the official heir apparent, Auden couldn't shake off the feeling that she and Devlin were both pawns in a bigger game.

Something just wasn't right in the entire setup.

But no one could challenge the status quo while Charisma held the control codes. Hayward couldn't get into the main systems, and neither could Auden. Young Devlin would only get the codes when he turned twenty-five.

Charisma held the keys to the kingdom and that kingdom was rife with secrets.

Auden's eyes landed on the bunker dark green with algae and mold.

Another secret. Another mystery.

Breath catching and throat dry, she began to walk toward it. Her heart thudded louder and louder with each step she took. But she wasn't a little girl anymore. She knew how to control the input into her circuits when it came to rapid "test" reads—pregnancy hadn't eliminated those walls.

When warned, she could and did protect herself.

Stopping a foot away from the external wall, she raised a hand and touched the tip of her pinky finger to the lichen green plascrete. External walls tended to be safer for the most part—unless they were on the ground floor and had street frontage, people didn't much make contact with them. And this external wall was in a remote area.

—fur—

—shouts, dulled by time—

—cold, contained power—

—gold and black—

—a handprint in blood—

Jerking back her finger, she nonetheless stood in place. That last image had been vivid, but still…distant. Whoever had created that handprint had done so long enough ago that time and the elements had scrubbed most of it.

The strongest impressions hadn't been of violence. She'd felt the softness of fur, seen colors black and gold that rippled with life, heard a throaty growl. "Leopards," she whispered, realizing RainFire cats must've been prowling around and through this land on a regular basis.

She was glad for that, for them.

For him .

She'd never before had an opportunity to touch a changeling imprint, but the people in her group who had experienced them had mentioned that they had a different impact from Psy or human imprints. Likely because of the nature of changeling shields. Today, all she'd sensed was an intense awareness of their surroundings—under paws, against fur, in the air—entwined with a wild curiosity.

She wondered if a Ps-Psy had ever been inside a changeling den. And she found herself searching desperately for something Remi might've touched.

So she could see him, know him.

But he'd been scrupulous in keeping his distance, and now he was gone, just another feline shadow in the trees.

···

REMI dreamed of Auden Scott, an eerie dream in which her face kept switching. One face was frigid and remote, while another laughed, another cried.

And the final one…it screamed.

Jolting up in bed, he didn't fight his instincts and, shifting into his leopard form, ran full tilt to her cabin. All seemed peaceful within, no sign of any trouble. No hint of anyone's scent but hers and those of his packmates.

He was tempted to wake her up nonetheless, see her with his own eyes, but he knew that was irrational, would disturb rest she needed. But he couldn't make himself leave, so he jumped up onto a branch of a tree that overlooked her cabin, and napped there. Lights came on in the cabin with the break of dawn, and not long afterward, he spotted Auden's form pass in front of her window.

Remi growled softly in satisfaction before jumping off the branch to run back to his pack—and to the vows he'd taken to protect and shelter each and every individual within it. Those same vows meant he couldn't get back to the cabin the rest of that day, or the next. Having foreseen that, however, he'd ordered his people to do extra sweeps, keep an eye on her from afar and make sure she was safe.

Then Theo reported that Auden had flown out in her jet-chopper, and that was that.

Or it should've been.

Those moonstone blue eyes haunted Remi…as did the strange dream born of his leopard's memory of her funhouse mirror of a scent. It made Remi wonder if the cat had seen something the man had missed, if the woman who'd said she could catch his tail—and had instead caught his interest—had been the best mask of all.