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)
Her clothing was simple enough—a white shirt, below that sweatpants. Hugo and the other maternals had done a good job with the spare clothing they’d put together for her. The shirt would pass muster in any comm conference, and no one was going to see the sweatpants except for those in the infirmary.
Not wanting to wipe the soft joy off her face, he nonetheless knew it was time. “Auden, we need to discuss something.”
* * *
• • •
AUDEN’S heart squeezed into a knot small and agonizing. Removing her hand from her baby’s skin after one last touch, she faced Remi. “I know. I’m a security risk, aren’t I?”
But he frowned and shook his head. “Not if you stay in this cube. I don’t want to cage you, but—”
“Telepathic images for teleport locks,” she interrupted. “I get that. It’s smart. And with what’s going on with my memory blanks and personality changes, I can’t be sure about my ability to protect your pack.” Never would she want to bring any harm to Remi and his pack, people who had protected her and her baby even though most of them had never even met her.
She spread her hand over the clear plas top of the incubator. “I don’t want to go anywhere anyway. I want to be with her every second. I’m so afraid that I’ll lose myself, that I won’t know she’s my baby, that I’ll forget how to love her.” A painful thickness in her throat, she looked at where Finn sat at the other end of the room in front of a small but impressive computer station. “Did Remi tell you?”
The healer nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry we—”
“No, you had to know.” Auden kept finding herself interrupting them—because if this wasn’t about security, then it had to be about her brain. She didn’t want to know, didn’t want to hear, a child clapping her hands over her ears.
“I could’ve come out of the birth in an altered state, could’ve hurt my baby while not myself…but I suppose any personality I inhabit is me, which means the ugliness that comes out is me, too.” It was an awful thing to accept about herself.
Finn rolled his chair over from across the room, his expression solemn in a way it hadn’t been since she woke. “There’s another thing, Auden. The graft you said went into your head?”
Mouth dry, Auden nodded. There was nowhere left to go, nothing left to say to stave off the inevitable.
“It’s still there. Encased in scar tissue, but present. I’m guessing they couldn’t get it out without destroying part of your brain.”
Auden blinked. She’d expected to hear of new neural damage, not old scar tissue. “Frankly I’m surprised that stopped them,” she said on a roar of relief. “Do you think there’s any danger of it going active?”
“In a stroke of luck, the Arrow doctor we had with us is a neurosurgeon who’s worked with experimental tech, and I was troubled enough to show him the scan—don’t worry, he might have an ego, but he takes medical confidentiality seriously, so he won’t talk about it.”
Auden nodded, her faith in Remi and this healer a thing unshakable. If they said she could trust the Arrow doctor, then she could trust the Arrow doctor.
“He says all signs are that it’s dead, effectively burned out,” Finn added. “And the way your brain’s scarred around it, it won’t migrate and cause further damage.”
Auden’s chest rose and fell in a deep inhale and exhale. “So, that’s good news.” Warmth began to flow through her blood…until she felt Remi’s hand on her lower back, his eyes leopard when they looked into hers.
Heart thunder, she found herself breathing fast and shallow. “What is it?”
Remi’s voice was a rumble against her. “Finn did the standard birth DNA panel on your cub to check for genetic diseases.”
“It’s so we can handle anything treatable straightaway,” Finn said.
Auden hadn’t realized she’d turned into Remi until her hand clenched hard on his T-shirt. “Did you find—”
“No.” The healer held up a hand. “She’s got a clean bill of health. But the thing is…she wasn’t created from your egg.”
Auden’s mind vanished in a white haze that blurred all light and sound. She was conscious of Remi speaking, of the growl in his chest, of the way he held her close to his warmth, but she felt distant, removed from it.
Then came a flutter inside her mind, and with it a roar back to the bright colors and even brighter emotions of reality. “I don’t care,” she said, her voice hard. “She’s my baby. I love her until I can’t breathe. No one is ever going to take her away from me.”
“What did I tell you?” Remi’s chin on her hair, his fingers massaging the stiff tendons of her neck.
Finn rolled his eyes, his lips kicking up at the corners now that he’d delivered the news that had clearly been weighing him down. “That Auden would tear off the head of anyone who tried to say this cub wasn’t hers.”