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)
The fifth member of their group was from a herd of horses. Calm and even-tempered, and with enough grit to hold his own against a bunch of snarling predators. It helped that the entire group never met in person. Less chance of a personality conflict leading to posturing.
After that headache, he had a scheduled call with Aden. With the two of them so busy, he hadn’t seen the Arrow leader in person for a couple of months, but they never let a week go by without speaking. Other than Angel, Remi considered Aden his closest friend. The other man was an alpha, too, albeit of a different kind—but unlike with the area group, Aden was an alpha with whom Remi had no trouble dropping his shields.
When they talked, it was the real deal, complete with hard edges and private worries.
Once he’d parked, he made his way to the cabin on foot—and wasn’t the least surprised when a tiger prowled out of the trees to shadow him. “Shut up,” he said to his best friend. “She’s out here all alone. I’m just being a good neighbor.”
The tiger made vocalizations that sounded suspiciously like choked laughter. You’d never know that Angel was one of the quietest members of the pack, the one who’d intended to be a loner all his life—until Remi talked him into being part of RainFire. Angel had only initially signed on for a year out of loyalty to Remi.
“I’ll take off after,” he’d warned.
But he hadn’t left.
He’d committed. Even if he questioned his sanity in doing so at times, Angel never flinched from the duty he’d taken on. For one, Jojo and her posse often talked him into playing hide-and-seek and Angel would gamely pretend he didn’t see their tiny butts sticking out of their hiding places, or pick up their scents, or see their tails swishing as they hid in the “bestest” spots.
It was to Angel’s credit that he pulled it off with such aplomb that he was their favorite hide-and-seek playmate. Kids had a way of seeing right through his scowl to the heart of the boy who’d first become Remi’s friend. Angel had survived hell, had once told Remi he’d lost his soul in the process.
He’d been wrong. Angel’s soul might be scarred over, but it stood wild and strong.
This morning, Remi’s best friend nudged at his legs in a silent question. “I don’t know,” Remi said. “But I don’t think it matters whether we can trust her or not—we still have to look after her.”
A human or Psy might not have understood, but they were changeling. More specifically, they were RainFire, a pack that held protecting the weak as a core tenet of their honor. Never would Remi’s pack be like WhiteMountain, a noxious place that had seen nothing wrong with a fight-or-die mentality.
In the end, it had been the pack that had died.
If Auden didn’t want company, he’d back off—but his people would continue to do discreet runs past her place, and he’d continue to drop off food. That was their way.
Growling an acknowledgement, Angel broke off to the left to complete his security sweep.
And Remi walked out into the clearing in front of the cabin. It was still damp from the night’s rain, though the sun was starting to spear through the clouds. The soft morning light made Auden’s skin glow as she opened her front door to step out and for a moment, he was stunned by her radiant beauty.
Then he saw her eyes. Frigid. Hard. Flat.
“What are you doing on my property?”
He went motionless at the unwelcoming question asked in a voice that was “off” in a way that made his claws prick at his skin. “Being neighborly.”
“I have no need of company.” She stared at him with an eerie lack of recognition on her face.
Spine locking as he thought of her vacant stare on their first meeting and of how she’d told him of a head injury, he said, “Do you know who I am?”
“I assume you must be a changeling to be so at home in these feral surroundings.” She looked around, almost as if she didn’t know what she was doing here herself.
Inside his skin, Remi’s leopard opened its mouth, its incisors glinting. A reaction to her scent…to the teeth-aching metal in it.
Metal that hadn’t been present the last time they’d met. It wasn’t a contact scent, either. This was hers—except how could it be? A person’s true scent—the one created of the total sum of their parts—didn’t change in a matter of days. It wasn’t like perfume that could be washed off or applied at will.
“Why haven’t you left?” the woman with Auden’s face demanded. “I’ve made it clear I don’t want your presence on my land.”
Every instinct Remi had screamed that something was wrong.
Holding up the cooler as he considered his next action, he said, “A gift from the pack, to establish friendly relations.”