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)
“I have all the nutrients I need, so I’m unlikely to consume anything within if the gift is of food, but I appreciate the gesture.” Words so encased in frost that they raised the hairs on his arms—and made his leopard pace in dislike and confusion both.
Much as he’d prefer an easy explanation, this wasn’t another woman, a secret twin. She did carry Auden’s scent except that it was mangled and altered on a level he’d never before experienced.
Could the change be a sign of serious mental instability in Psy?
Hit by a sense of loss for something he’d never possessed, every muscle in his body threatened to turn rock-hard. “I’ll leave it with you anyway. My cook included high-energy items that might come in useful if we get another storm and you run out of supplies.” A total lie; he’d packed the cooler himself, and he’d brought treats for the vulnerable woman who carried aloneness in her skin, not useful items for this stranger.
“I’m leaving as soon as I can arrange it, so it will go to waste, but once again, I appreciate the gesture.” Auden’s doppelgänger smiled…and it made him want to shake her, force her to divulge what the fuck she’d done to Auden.
Because that practiced curve of the lips complete with eyes that warmed? It wasn’t an inept grimace made by a Psy trying to interact with a changeling. No, this smile would’ve passed as normal to most people.
It was as psychopathic in its smoothness as Auden had been awkward.
Remi’s growl threatened to escape his chest. “Shall I place it inside your doorway? I won’t have to step into the cabin.”
“There’s no need. I’ll take it.”
“It’s pretty light,” he assured her as he handed it over.
She gasped and swayed the instant her fingers closed over the handle, the blue of her eyes eclipsed by a wave of black.
* * *
• • •
—WARMTH, laughter—
—satiation—
—green-gold eyes, small paws—
—impatience—
—a big male hand, a sense of home—
The imprints burned into Auden’s senses, shoved through her veins, her synapses sparkling fire.
Pregnancy intensifies our ability to sense imprints.
The imprints pulsed in a living beat within her, her skin feeling as if it rippled with fur.
“Auden?”
Only then did she realize she wasn’t alone. She stared uncomprehendingly at Remi. “When did you get here?” Her eyes caught on the arm she’d raised in a startled motion…and she realized that not only was she standing in sunlight, but that her dress was blue. The last thing she remembered wearing had been black.
The cooler slipped from her grip. “What—”
Her eyes clashed into those of feline yellow-green. She noticed with some distant part of her brain that he’d caught the cooler before it hit the ground, put it aside. But his attention was on her. “Do you know who I am?”
Auden’s mouth went dry that he’d even ask that. “Why wouldn’t I? Remington Denier, alpha of RainFire. Remi.”
He watched her with unblinking focus. “Do you remember what we were talking about just before?”
Her shoulders grew tight, her hands clammy all at once. She tried to speak, but her tongue was too thick in her mouth. It had happened again, and this time outside of the Scott compound, where it could be hushed up and forgotten.
“Of course I do,” she said, hoping she could bluff her way out of the blank spot in her mind.
“Liar.” A single soft word that crashed her world to her feet.
Emotion rolled over her in a wave of terror held back far too long, and suddenly, to her absolute horror, she was crying. Huge gulping sobs that wracked her frame and had her searching her PsyNet shields with manic desperation to ensure they hadn’t fallen.
Officially, Silence might no longer be the Psy way, but emotion remained verboten in her family. A single hint that she’d broken the line, and she’d lose the little freedom she’d carved for herself.
Across from her, Remi seemed to lock up that big body, his hands fisted at his side. Growling deep in his chest, the sound rough against her senses, he said, “Come here. If you can handle the contact, come here.”
She shouldn’t. It went against every rule of the world in which she’d been raised. It also exposed her to this changeling who was all but a stranger to her, and who now knew that something was very, very wrong with the ostensible scion of the Scott empire. But she stumbled forward anyway, her cheek ending up pressed to the hard warmth of his chest, and her hands gripping the sides of his T-shirt.
He burned hot, his scent of the forest wild.
And his arms, when they came around her, were so strong that panic fluttered at her.
“Just say the word when you want me to let go.” His voice was a rumble-growl against her, a vibration that comforted despite the danger of the creature she heard in his voice. “Skin privileges are just that, a privilege not a right.”