Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Status: Ten percent increase in neural decay.

—Notes on Patient X by Dr.Nils Verhoeven (17 October 2083)

MORE THAN A week after her return to the compound and Auden knew she'd snap if she didn't get to the cabin soon, to the one place she knew was safe. She was so paranoid about being monitored in her room that she'd even risked a read of the walls and other objects to see if she could find the device she was certain was hidden within.

But Charisma knew this was the room of a Gradient 9.4 Ps-Psy, had no doubt taken precautions. All Auden sensed were random echoes from those who'd stayed in the room while at the compound for training. None had stayed long enough to create a true imprint. Transient—as Auden felt transient. Because this place wasn't home, would never be home.

Trapped as she felt, she shut Charisma down the instant the other woman suggested she not attend next morning's meeting with RainFire. "I need to do this negotiation," she said with Silent precision. "Once it becomes known, it will add to my reputation."

Charisma parted her lips to argue, but Auden held up a hand before the other woman could speak. "I am getting the impression you don't trust me, Ris."

"I apologize, sir. I've had to care for you for a significant period of time and it's hard to break the habit."

"Do it anyway," Auden ordered. "You're useless to me if you're second-guessing my every move." She rose to her feet, cutting off Charisma's repeated apologies with a harsh look. "I need you to function as my aide, my eyes and ears. Figure out if you can in this new reality."

Charisma's eyes flared, a rare physical sign of her emotions. "I will," she said, that unnerving awe back in her tone. "I am the only one who has always been loyal to you, sir."

While Auden nodded in the moment, she was still chewing over Charisma's words the next day when she took a seat at the conference table situated in an office building in the nearest town. Her family had purchased it as a local business base after relocating her to this area, in order to keep up the facade of her being the new Scott CEO.

The table was an expanse of black glass, the executive chairs around it glossy leather that proved unexpectedly comfortable. Exhaling, she tried to see through the frosted glass of the wall that looked out into the reception area. Charisma was waiting out there with the nondisclosure agreement. Only once that was signed would she allow RainFire inside.

Her heart stuttered, even though she knew that was foolishness.

Then the door opened.

Charisma walked in first. "NDA signed." She slid a copy of the physical contract over to Auden. That was a quirk of changelings—they wanted things in physical form.

Auden ran her eyes over it, but saw nothing, her attention on the leopards who waited outside. "Good," she said out loud. "Let's get this meeting underway."

Her skin prickled before he prowled into the room. The predator she'd decided to trust because there was no other choice…and because he'd never yet caused her harm. She couldn't say the same for any other person in her immediate circle.

"Ms.Scott," he said, with an incline of his head, while she fought not to let her mouth fall open.

Remi Denier was wearing a suit. A cool gray one he'd paired with a white shirt and a tie in a darker gray. His hair was neatly brushed back, his jaw shaved. You'd have taken him for one very good-looking CEO…but for the wildness that prowled beneath his skin and lived in his eyes for a heartbeat in a glimmer of yellow-green.

Relieved beyond belief at seeing that he was still the same wild creature, even in this corporate skin, she said, "Mr.Denier. I apologize for not rising to greet you." She'd now passed the eight-month mark, and her body felt like it was all belly.

"Call me Remi," he drawled, following her lead without a hitch. "And I'd have been insulted if you rose. This is Mliss Phan, my chief operating officer. She'll be your people's first point of contact should you accept our proposal. Though, of course, you will always have a direct line to me."

"Ms.Phan." She greeted the other woman before waving to the seats. "Please."

"Ms.Scott," Mliss Phan responded with a smile. "And please, call me Mliss."

Tall, with a stylish haircut and a light layer of cosmetics applied with a skilled hand, Remi's chief operating officer wore a black pantsuit paired with a simple silk shell of dark green. Look at her corporate appearance, her complete civility of expression and you'd never, not for a second, guess that this woman was a changeling, much less a leopard.

"You've met Charisma Wai," she said to Remi. "Mliss, Charisma will be the primary contact person from our end."

"I think we'll work well together," Mliss said with a smile. "From our correspondence thus far, Ms.Wai is efficient and thorough, and I prize nothing more in business."

Charisma, her seat beside Auden's, leaned forward to brace her forearms against the table. "I must say the same. I was pleasantly surprised by our interaction. Forgive me if this is ignorant, but we've heard rumors of less than businesslike dealings with changelings."

That was a ringing endorsement coming from Charisma.

"Bit players." Mliss sighed. "I'm sure you have them among the Psy, too. RainFire takes its business operations as seriously as the DarkRiver leopards in San Francisco. In fact, we based our business model on theirs—no point in messing with success."

"I see." Charisma's telepathic voice in Auden's mind. This is excellent. While DarkRiver has been problematic in many ways politically speaking, their business reputation is stellar. The only complaints come from the usual quarter.

Those who wish to find loopholes in contracts and throw a tantrum when they can't , Auden answered. The lack of emotion in Silent Psy had never stopped behavior that Psy like her mother and father found excruciating.

To them, cheating your partner in business was fine— if you could do it in a way that no one ever caught on and there was no risk to your reputation. That they'd both thought that an acceptable way of doing business—and had taught their minor child the same—was an accurate assessment of their morals and values.

The worst of it was that they'd done it to her: made her believe in a truth except for the one right before her eyes. Henry more so than Shoshanna—but even Shoshanna had convinced Auden she had value to her: as a genetic legacy if nothing else.

"So"—a deep voice, clear eyes of topaz brown rimmed with yellow-green, drawing her back from the past—"you've seen the proposal and since we're here, you must like it. Shall we talk contracts?"

"That's highly presumptuous of you," she said, playing the game because it was expected, even though she was exhausted from maintaining her front for four endless days. "Your proposal is passable, but we need to negotiate more than a few matters."

Remi's eyes narrowed, his gaze skimming her face as if he could read her tiredness. His response when it came, however, was even. "Where do you want to start?"

An hour of vigorous debate later and they had a satisfactory-to-both-sides breakdown of contract terms. "Charisma," she said, "please take charge of drafting this up and sending it to our future partners for review." She winced. "I apologize. Ris, would you be able to get me a glass of nutrients?"

Remi looked like he was about to offer to rise, but she met his eyes with a silent no. He frowned. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes," she said, as Charisma got up. "I just need an infusion of energy. Happens at times with my current status."

The instant the other woman was out of the room, she turned the contract terms toward herself, went to an empty page of the physical pad on which they'd been working, and made a note. "I have an idea about point seven," she said. "It's minor, but it could prove profitable on both sides."

Remi read the note before throwing back his head in a laugh that was a caress over her parched skin. "It would only be profitable for you," he said, then ripped out the page and scrunched it up into a ball in his hand. "We're new, Ms.Scott, but we're not green."

Though her pulse was racing, Auden lifted a shoulder in a mild shrug. "It was worth the attempt. You may have been more gullible than it appeared."

She was conscious of Mliss Phan watching with an intense quiet, but the other woman didn't interrupt, and they sat in silence the short time until Charisma's return. "Here you go, sir."

"Thank you." Taking the drink, Auden lifted it to her lips and only then realized she was truly hungry.

Her mouth watered at the memory of the cinnamon roll and the croissant…and of Remi's creased cheeks and brilliant eyes as he said, Next time.

The nutrients tasted like dust.

Remi spoke after she put down the glass. "We do have one more point to discuss," he said. "We'd like you to tour our manufacturing facility, get agreement on the ground floor in terms of the processes used. I don't want a costly disagreement down the road where you're expecting handwork on a piece we consider better made via machine."

He glanced at Charisma. "We can clear out the place so it's only me and Mliss, and you and Ms.Scott. We can even do it at night if you prefer, so there's less chance of her being seen—and you can drive a vehicle straight into our internal goods bay. Nothing to see from the outside."

"That's an excellent idea," Auden said, telepathing Charisma at the same time. I should do it as soon as possible, well before I get to full term.

Are you sure you want to come? I can do it on my own.

Charisma.

A slight flicker in the other woman's eyes at the chilly reminder of the promise she'd made not to second-guess Auden. Yes, sir.

Auden didn't interrupt while Charisma worked out the details with Mliss Phan; her attention was on Remi.

His gaze met hers, the leopard bright in them. A shiver rippled over her.

"That's settled, then," Mliss said. "We'll see you at the facility in two days' time."

···

REMI'S leopard, its growl a low rumble only Mliss would pick up, paced inside his human skin as he left Auden behind in a situation that was clearly dangerous for her.

"What was all that about?" Mliss asked him once they were in their car and pulling out of the parking lot. "We don't need them to tour the facility. I could've shown them the entire place onscreen."

Reaching into his pocket after he'd turned the car to the left, Remi passed Mliss the note Auden had given to him under the guise of negotiation: Need to talk in unmonitored location.

"I see." Folding the note up into neat quarters, she placed it back into the hand Remi had outstretched.

He put it safely back in his pocket.

"You know what's going on?"

"No," Remi admitted, his hands clenching on the steering wheel as his claws sliced out. "But your job on the day of the tour is to distract Charisma so I can talk to her."

"Consider it done." A pause. "She still just a business associate, Remi?"

He and Mliss, they weren't friends the way he was friends with Angel or Aden, but he respected and trusted her. And she'd be his partner on this. So he told the truth. "That's all she can be for now. She's too vulnerable for anything else."

"The hard-nosed negotiator we just met didn't strike me as vulnerable." It wasn't a criticism—Mliss was as hard-nosed.

But he heard the question she was asking.

"I've thought hard on this, Liss, and I keep coming back to one fact: no heavily pregnant woman would leave her home for an isolated cabin in the Smokies if she felt safe in that home." An instinctive truth he'd fought against because of the visceral draw he felt toward Auden.

" She's the one at risk in that scenario. We could knock her out, take her captive, keep her under so she couldn't call out for help on the psychic plane—there is no point at which a lone civilian Psy in her last trimester is the threat against a pack of predatory changelings."

"Well, shit." A stir of sound that indicated Mliss's claws were out, too.

Remi growled. "Yes. Exactly." Whatever was going on with Auden, it had nothing to do with business.