Chapter 43

Chapter 43

Henry is showing signs of mental degradation. A lingering effect from the implants we decided to utilize precipitously? It seems the most logical answer, given his previous stability. It is pure luck that I have not been similarly afflicted.

—Private journal of Shoshanna Scott (personal archive, address unknown)

AUDEN COULD STILL see and feel her direct link to the PsyNet. The Arrow shield didn't affect that. Nothing could affect that. It was so deep inside a Psy mind that it was a thing primal.

Cutting that link with no attempt to lock into another network would be a death sentence. Psy brains couldn't survive without the biofeedback provided by a psychic network. It was a necessity akin to air.

A piercing beeping on the physical plane that seeped into her consciousness.

Bye, my baby , she whispered to Liberty, I love you. Because her baby would survive. The Arrow watching over her would notice the shock wave, move to protect the child. She trusted in that unknown Arrow because she trusted in Remi.

I love you, Remi , she said, even though he couldn't hear her.

Such a huge emotion she had inside her when it came to the alpha who'd prowled into her life and shown her happiness, pleasure, laughter. It was so different from her love for Liberty, had so many more jagged edges and harsh demands, and it was as beautiful.

I wish I could say bye to you. I wish I could tell you all you are to me. I wish we could've had forever.

But her time was over; she'd held the line until she knew she was hemorrhaging internally—but death of the body wouldn't end Shoshanna unless Auden ensured a psychic death at the same time.

The only way to take Shoshanna down was for Auden to go down.

Auden sent out one last pulse of rage in an attempt to distract Shoshanna while she cut the link…but that rage burned with a feral anger so hot that it singed her insides. It had claws and teeth, was a thing of muscle and strength of enormous size. As if it was the rage of tens…a hundred…more…people fired up in battle against the monster that was Shoshanna.

Auden roared with them, as feral and as ferocious, her psychic claws digging into the bed and her eyes shifting form.

That was when she knew.

Remi had come into battle with her. He'd brought with him the wild fury of every single member of his pack. She didn't know how, but she knew it was a one-way street. Shoshanna couldn't get to him—because even Auden had no idea how he was there.

So she surrendered to the primal storm without fear for RainFire, and that storm was far more violent a foe than Shoshanna had ever faced. Her mother withdrew in an effort to regroup, retracting her hooks from inside Auden as she did so.

But the hunters on her tail continued to chase after her, the pack's rage coalescing into a black mass that suffocated Shoshanna until she whimpered and screamed in a tiny corner of Auden's mind.

Good-bye, Mother , Auden said.

Because Remi's storm? It was waiting for her to make the choice, a crouched leopard that quivered with bloodlust.

Only one choice would protect not just Liberty, but all the Libertys to come.

Auden ended her mother with a fine blade of rage that slammed into Shoshanna's psychic core, causing it to implode. The rage that was Auden and Remi and RainFire didn't permit the pieces of Shoshanna to escape. Instead, they watched like the cats they were, until she disintegrated into nothing, no trace remaining of the woman who'd once been Councilor Shoshanna Scott.

Auden's mother was dead. This time, forever.

···

REMI snarled when the doctor tried to put some kind of net on Auden's skull. "Get that the fuck away unless you want your arm ripped off!"

The doctor halted, hovered. "I've done what I can for the body, but she needs this to stabilize the transfer. She was very clear about that!"

Remi saw Charisma Wai reach toward her lower back at the same instant. The aide was on the other side of the bed and quite a distance away—but Remi was an alpha leopard. He vaulted over the bed and slammed Charisma to the wall before she ever touched the weapon, much less attempted to fire it.

Her head hit the wall so hard that it left behind a streak of blood as she slumped to the floor. The weapon clunked uselessly to the hospital-grade plascrete.

He turned to the doctor, claws out. "The instructions have changed."

"Yes, of course." The doctor babbled, right as alarms began to shriek throughout the facility. "I didn't realize. I'll do whatever the Councilor wishes, of course."

Remi had never wanted this man anywhere near Auden, had only permitted him to work on her because she would've otherwise died. "You are no longer her physician. Don't touch her unless you want to end up like Ms.Wai."

"She's hemorrhaging badly—I've only temporarily stabilized her." Dr.Verhoeven hovered over Auden. "I can—"

But Remi had already scooped her up in his arms and was racing out at a speed no Psy could ever match. He wasn't surprised to find Rina running toward him in leopard form. The sentinel would've felt it when he leaned so heavily into the pack the instant he'd felt he could get to Auden through a bond strange and oddly young .

He'd known then that his team were fine. None of them had leaned on him in turn, had just given and given.

"Teleport!" he yelled at her—and hoped the Arrows would have the capacity to help them. Because if they didn't, then he would have to trust Auden to the same doctor who'd caused her harm after harm. "Dr.Bashir!"

Changing direction, Rina raced back up.

The hatch was open when he reached it; Wai or the doctor must've left it open in their rush, giving Rina an easy entry. Lift must not be DNA encoded. Whoever had installed the security system had probably considered it overkill when entry was so difficult.

He took the final stairs three at a time.

It wasn't an Arrow who waited for him in the basement—alongside Rina who'd shifted back into leopard form after making the call for the teleporter's assistance.

Remi hadn't even known she had this particular number.

Kaleb Krychek didn't speak, and didn't wait for Remi to reach him. Remi was mid-run when he emerged into the center of a high-tech treatment facility, Krychek and Rina at the same distance from him that they'd been in the basement.

Fuck.

He got it, what people meant when they called Krychek a power.

Shoving that realization aside, he put Auden on the stretcher Dr.Bashir himself was pushing into the room. The surgeon might not know much about obstetrics, but he'd had plenty of training in trauma injuries thanks to his links to the Arrows, and he got to work on Auden at once.

Remi refused to leave the room, but shuddered back against the wall while the medical staff worked.

Krychek's starlit obsidian eyes stared at Auden with an intensity that had Remi snarling.

The cardinal turned to him. "It's not her," he said almost to himself. "Then why?"

"That's Auden," Remi said, wondering if Krychek had responded to save Shoshanna.

His claws pricked his skin.

But Krychek said, "I know." Then he was gone.

"I forgot how…intense he can be," Rina said, her chest heaving now that she'd shifted into human form. "I didn't call him. He arrived before I could even get to a phone."

Remi had no fucking idea what was going on, and he didn't care. All he knew was that Auden was alive. "The others?" he asked, his alpha heart unable to rest until he knew.

"Safe. Scott team had no idea how to fight against trained changelings. They thought they'd be fighting dumb animals and ended up facing a tactical team better organized and more skilled than them. Lark is holding the house with the others and will clean up whatever is in the basement."

Remi nodded, his eyes on the medical team, and—his heart no longer torn in two now that he knew his people were safe—slid down to the floor, back braced against the wall.

Stars in his peripheral vision as Rina shifted back into her feline form, so she could lean her body against his chest. As if she'd sensed he needed the comfort of pack in a way she could better provide in this form.

"I got to her," he rasped, his packmate's fur a thick gold and black under his hand, and the warmth of her body a caress of family. "Like I can get to you or Angel or the others when you need pack energy."

Zaira thought it was a type of psychic ability Psy didn't understand. Remi didn't think about what it was, just that it worked. An alpha's heart reaching for his people when they were wounded and in pain…but it could work in reverse, too.

"We're not mated," he said. "She wouldn't allow it. Said her mother might be able to use the bond to get through to me, then RainFire." The hollow inside him where Auden was meant to be ached. "But I still got to her. You felt it."

The leopard nodded, a question in that wild gaze.

"It felt so young, the bond, somehow unfinished and fuzzy." He smiled, his aching heart roaring in pride. " Libby . Sweet, ferocious cub as tough as her mother. Bonded to me through blood." Others could take charge of figuring out how a child could be blood-bonded to a changeling alpha, and still be linked to the PsyNet, but he had no doubts about the bond after today.

Liberty wasn't old enough to have made a conscious choice in reaching for Remi. No, like any cub in the pack, she'd run to her alpha when she was scared—and her alpha had held her safe in his clawed embrace as he fought off the monsters.

Only…he didn't know if he'd been fast enough, strong enough.

Because Bashir was still yelling out commands, asking for more blood, more drugs, and Auden remained motionless on the hospital bed, the sheet stained with streaks of red. Remi couldn't reach her anymore, could no longer feel the tempest of love and rage that drove her.

Liberty was only an infant. She'd fallen asleep once the storm broke.

Knowing what Auden would ask of him in this instant, he rose to his feet while indicating that Rina should stay, keep watch on the dying, bleeding woman who was Remi's mate.

Once outside the chaos of the hospital room, he made a call. "Finn, how is Libby?"

"Vital signs spiked just before I suddenly had Zaira and an Arrow I've never before seen in the room. I think he's the teleporter she talks about—Alejandro. A minute later and the cub's snoozing away, all stats stable. No fear in her scent. Wait, I'll put you on speaker so you can talk to Zaira."

"I was the one holding Auden's shields today," Zaira told him. "Whatever took place destroyed the secondary shield over her mind, alerting me to a psychic blast that might impact Liberty. I was ready to shield her, but wasn't needed in the end." A question in her voice.

Finn came on the line again before Remi could respond. "Remi, Liberty's in distress again." His tone changed. "Hey, now, little one. I have you. Shh." A fine, thin cry reached Remi through the line. "Something's wrong."

Remi growled loud enough that the cub would hear, then purred low in his chest until the cries trickled off into sobs. He kept it up until Finn whispered that she was asleep.

"She's scared because she can't reach her mother," Remi said, his voice rough. "Auden's hurt bad. She must've done something to block the baby. She would never want Libby to—" Remi's entire chest threatened to collapse in on itself. He couldn't say it, couldn't refer to the possible backlash from Auden's death.

"Understood." Zaira's tone was softer than the harsh word implied. "I'll maintain a close watch so I can cocoon the child against psychic shock."

"You're protecting Auden's heart, Zaira. I'll never forget this."

"You protected mine once, Remi," was the curt Zaira-like reminder. "No ledger between us. Ever."

"I've taken you off speaker." Finn's voice. "What happened? Did someone assault Auden?"

Remi told the healer about Shoshanna's psychotic attempt to transfer her consciousness by an unknown process. "She and Auden fought—inside their minds. I don't know the details, just that Auden won."

Because if Auden had lost, then Liberty wouldn't be blocked from her mother—and Finn wouldn't be concerned only about fear in Liberty's scent; the infant's scent would've been drenched in unmistakable cold metal as Shoshanna attempted to use her in her horrific quest to live forever.

"I was able to pass on pack energy to her through Liberty, but the damage done prior to that…" Hand fisting against the wall, he pushed off. "She gave everything she had."

"Can you—"

"No," Remi interrupted, well aware what his friend was suggesting. "She's blocked me, too." One last act of honor and courage from the only woman who'd made her way into Remi's heart. "I've tried to get through."

He'd never have pushed for the mating bond if she hadn't been bleeding out in front of him. It was meant to be a choice. Her choice. But with the mating bond would come a direct link to him and his pack—and the energy of a changeling pack was a thing primitive and potent.

But Auden wouldn't even let him try.

Protecting him from the unending grief of losing his mate. As if it wasn't already too late, Remi's heart forever tattooed with the name Auden Scott.