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)
Auden Scott remained silent, her unseeing gaze on the trees.
Her assistant could’ve told him it was none of his business, and she’d have been right. Instead, she said, “Auden inherited it from her father. The records were lost after his passing—and it appears from the unauthorized structure on the land that someone made use of that oversight. Do you have any knowledge of the people who trespassed here?”
Remi’s leopard growled within, not particularly interested in talking to this woman whose scent was off, too, but not like Auden’s. Charisma’s had that metallic undertone present in the scents of a percentage of Psy.
It wasn’t as bad as before the empaths had returned to the PsyNet, but it was still bad enough. Changelings who’d had more contact with Psy than Remi had told him that the metallic edge came from those who had no real emotion in them, their growth permanently stunted by the program called Silence that had ruled Psy lives until the very recent past.
The three men carried a faint glimmer of the same scent.
Auden Scott, this woman who’d just torn him to pieces, shifted on her heel.
His cat drew in another breath, snarled. What the fuck was that in her scent? Some kind of sedative? He’d smelled nothing medicinal when close to her, and he could’ve sworn that Psy didn’t deal much with those types of drugs—multiple Arrows had told him it messed with their psychic abilities.
Forcing his attention off her, he answered Charisma Wai’s question. “Paramilitary-type unit,” he said, wondering if she was as clueless as she was making herself out to be.
Everyone knew what had happened to Councilor Henry Scott—he’d picked a fight with the biggest wolf pack in the country and lost. Man had mingled with exactly the type of people who’d abducted, then brutally operated on Aden and Zaira. The two would’ve died if Remi hadn’t been prowling around with the intent to spy on the activity up here; next thing he knew, he had two bleeding Arrows in his vehicle. “Whole unit cleared out one day roughly a year and a half ago and haven’t been back since.”
Aden had told him the squad was certain the unit was linked to a group called the Consortium. “They’ve gone quiet of late,” he’d said more recently, while the two of them were scaling a sheer rock face. “Kaleb mentioned to me that while he’s never been able to prove it, he’s always suspected Shoshanna of being part of the Consortium, maybe even the central figure.”
So whichever way you sliced it, the Scotts had been involved in all kinds of deadly games. They were likely to have been in this up to their necks.
“I see.” Charisma Wai made a note in the thin computronic organizer in her hand. “Do you have any further details?”
“Nope.” Remi glanced once again at Auden Scott. “Funny.”
Auden focused on him, staring in an unblinking way that his leopard would’ve read as a challenge at any other time. Today, he was disturbed by that stare—because he was near certain she wasn’t seeing him at all, her gaze directed at some sight beyond his senses.
“What is funny?” Charisma Wai asked after a glance at her boss.
Who blinked several times before her gaze turned fuzzy once more, the abnormal tones back in her scent.
A growl threatened to rumble inside Remi’s chest; he fought it back because Psy would take it as a threat. “Losing track of a whole piece of land.”
“Councilor Scott’s passing was unexpected.” A smile so false that it looked like a skeletal rictus to his eyes. “And, to be quite frank, he was wealthy on a level you can’t hope to understand. This little tract of land was but an afterthought.”
“Oh, ouch.” Remi’s grin was real. “That put me in my place.”
“No offense was intended.”
“Rich people things, huh?” Remi lifted one shoulder in an easy shrug to take any sting out of his words. “So, you interested in selling?”
Charisma Wai glanced down at the organizer. “We’re in the preliminary inspection process, so I can’t promise anything, but yes, there is a possibility the parcel will be up for sale.”
Well, that he hadn’t expected. And while he wanted to talk to Auden Scott, this was more important—it was pack business, was part of his duty as alpha of RainFire. That duty came first.
No one had ever had to tell him that. He’d known from day one.
“I’d appreciate a heads-up if you do decide to put it on the market.” RainFire wasn’t rich, far from it, but this particular parcel was so isolated and remote that it was unlikely there’d be other takers. The pack might be able to negotiate their way to it by dint of being the only interested party.
“Of course. Do you have a comm code I can contact you on?”
Remi recited it, then directed his next question to Auden. “You have any idea why your father bought this land in the first place, Ms. Scott?” he asked, to see if he could get a response out of her. “And why he hid it under so many shell corporations and false identities?”