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)
—Essay by Catalina NightStar (16), for Modern History module II
THE AIR WAS clean and icy in Auden’s lungs, the steam from her heated nutrient drink a welcome balm against her face. Color caught her eye everywhere she looked, the forest ablaze in such brilliant hues as she’d never imagined.
A bump inside her, a sudden shocking reminder of the life within. Shifting her mug to a one-handed grip, she cradled her belly with the other, for the first time feeling as if she could show what she felt without it being used against her. “You’re safe,” she murmured to the child who shouldn’t exist—but whom she would defend to her last breath.
No one would do to this child what had been done to her. Was still being done to her.
A rustle in the trees.
She jerked up her head…and wasn’t the least surprised when the cat prowled out of the shadows, pure, taut power and languid motion. All she felt was a knee-trembling relief. He was real. She hadn’t imagined him in the fragmented landscape that had been her mind until four weeks ago, when the last of the pieces had finally come together and stayed together.
“Which cat?” she found herself saying when he was close enough to hear her, her breath a puff of white in the air.
“Leopard.” A rumble of a voice that rolled over her in a tactile brush.
She continued to cradle her stomach, even as her heart accelerated. She knew it was rude to stare as she was doing, but she’d lost a lot of her social filters during the years when she hadn’t been present. “I thought I imagined you.”
He held up his forearm, muscular and with visible veins. “Do you remember?”
Her gaze hooked on the streamlined black comm device.
Fingers gripping her upper arm, eyes that weren’t human looking into hers.
“Did I read the device?” she asked. “I’m sorry, I have no memory of it.”
Eyes narrowing, he dropped his arm. “You were pretty out of it that day. Medicated?”
“Something like that.” Auden wished it was that simple, wished she’d just been sedated—because the truth was far worse.
Charisma had fought with her about her decision to come here, reminding her that she was in the most vulnerable state of her life, but Auden had needed time to think, to decide. She couldn’t do that in Shoshanna’s house, her mother’s influence in every mind that worked there, embedded into the very walls of the building.
Part of Auden had expected Charisma to stop her—because whatever it might say on paper, the truth was that Auden wasn’t in charge in that house. Neither was Hayward, Shoshanna’s younger brother, and the supposed second-in-command. Auden still had no idea why Charisma had folded at last, but no doubt the older woman was playing a deep game.
Regardless, Auden had made it here.
Still, now she questioned her stubbornness. She had her reasons. Very good reasons. Deadly reasons. But as a result of her own decision, she was now face-to-face with a predator while all alone on a mountain, far from any source of help that could arrive fast enough to stop a leopard’s strike.
It wasn’t as if her psychometric ability could help her here—she’d heard that some Ps-Psy could turn what they read against a target, literally take violent energy and channel it, but she’d never seen a concrete example.
It sounded like a myth made up by young psychometrics to her. As far as she was concerned, Ps abilities were among the most passive in the Psy race. That she was a 9.4 didn’t make any difference. Neither did the fact that she had a basic level of telepathy—a bare 2 on the Gradient.
Nothing enough to take on changeling shields should this leopard turn aggressive.
“You sure you should be up here alone?” His eyes, such a clear topaz, darkened. “Cubs have been known to come early.” A nod at her belly.
Auden’s spine stiffened. “I’ve been told that asking about a woman’s pregnancy without invitation is a social faux pas among the emotional races.”
He shrugged those big shoulders. “Usually. But these are exigent circumstances—specifically that you are an extremely pregnant woman in a cabin on my border. I’m going to feel responsible if anything goes wrong.”
Auden didn’t soften her stance.
Care, she’d come to learn, even true care, could be a front for terrible ugliness. Never would she have believed that her father would go along with her mutilation. He’d spoiled her as much as any child could be spoiled in Silence. In her secret heart, Auden had believed he loved her.
Yet he’d hurt her in a way brutal and permanent.
“I’m only just past the seven-month mark, with no indicators of a possible early birth.”
The leopard’s gaze flashed to that inhuman green-gold, making her skin prickle in warning. “Did Ms. Wai give you my comm code? Name’s Remi.”