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)
Remi. She either hadn’t known that or hadn’t remembered it.
“If anything does happen,” he continued, “we have a qualified doctor in the pack. He recently completed a unit on treating Psy patients, too.”
Auden wondered why a changeling healer in an isolated pack would want to know how to treat Psy patients, but she had the feeling Remi wouldn’t answer that particular question. “Is your full name Remington Denier? If so, I have your code.”
Charisma had included that information as part of the packet for Auden’s “time in the wilderness”—though Auden’d had no idea to whom it related until this moment, when the leopard nodded, but added, “Call me Remington at your own peril.” Easy words, but his eyes were primal in their intensity.
The hairs rose on her arms, fear a frigid whisper on the back of her neck. “What?”
“You’re not like when I first met you. If not medication, then what?”
Auden’s blood ran cold. “I was recovering from a head injury,” she said, the cover story one Charisma had devised for her. “I really shouldn’t have come out, but I made a miscalculation as to my health status.”
* * *
• • •
SHE was lying to him. Remi knew that as well as he knew that he’d been more than rude in his bluntness. But that was the thing with Psy who clung to Silence as so many of them did so close to the fall of the Protocol—you had to be in their face to get any kind of an answer.
Give them any wiggle room and they’d take it.
His leopard prowled against his skin, intrigued by the cub growing inside Auden. That was an alpha thing. The cat liked to keep an eye on the pregnant members of its pack. Apparently, the same feline had decided to extend its protectiveness to this non-packmate because she was alone while in a deeply vulnerable state.
“Auden Scott,” Zaira had said when he’d asked the Arrows for intel, “is peculiarly little known for being the child of not one, but two Councilors. Political dynasty aside, she should be sitting on dual financial empires except that it appears Henry chose a different heir some years prior to his death. It’s odd, because she was raised in his household, not Shoshanna’s.”
“Is she Shoshanna’s official heir?”
A nod. “The two must’ve agreed on that, with Henry giving up rights for some unknown reason.”
All that financial power and still, Auden remained a cipher, unknown and unseen. Per Zaira, even the squad hadn’t been able to confirm her specific psychic ability, but if the rumors they’d picked up were right, then Auden Scott had no offensive capabilities.
“Possible high-Gradient psychometric,” Zaira had said.
She’d been leaning back against a majestic sugar maple at the time, one booted foot braced on the distinctive bark of the trunk as she peeled an orange for a cub who’d handed it to her. She’d been using a razor-sharp throwing knife to do it.
Psychometric.
“Those are Psy who can pick up information from objects?” Remi had asked, to be certain.
“Yes. How much and the exact parameters of what they can pick up depends on the specific psychometric, but in general, it’s considered an academic ability. A rare few are attached to search and rescue teams on the tracking end, but most work for museums and other institutions. Can’t have been easy being born a psychometric in a family like the Scotts. They’re known for aggressive telepaths.”
And today here was this Ps-Psy, seven months pregnant in an inimical environment.
Remi was now responsible for her. It didn’t matter if she told him she could look after herself. A human might call that overbearing male chauvinism, but a female alpha would’ve had the exact same reaction.
It was built into their DNA.
“You have enough food, nutrients for your stay?” he asked, a niggling sense of having missed something important gnawing at him.
Her expression didn’t alter. She was giving a good impression of being a remote machine, when the woman who’d read his comm had done so with tears shimmering in her eyes. “Yes. If I need more, I can fly myself out anytime I please.”
“Make sure you check the weather every single time, even if it looks clear.” He wondered if he’d only gotten that glimpse of emotion on their first meeting due to her head injury—this woman with her frigid expression was a Scott, had to be the real Auden. “Mountains can be changeable as a rule.”
“I appreciate the data.” Those piercing eyes wouldn’t look away from his in what at any other time he’d have taken as an act of dominance.
Today, he brushed it off, his leopard’s protective instincts overwhelming any sense of aggression. “Stay safe.”
He could feel her eyes between his shoulder blades until he was deep into the trees.
A shiver rocking him, he looked back once he was far enough into the forest that there was no way she could track him…to see her staring after him, her gaze along the exact line he’d taken. Just a Ps? He narrowed his eyes. Maybe. And maybe, she had more of a hunter’s instincts than was public knowledge.