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 touched his arm with a tentative hand. “I’m sorry. I…” She hesitated, lines forming between her eyebrows. “I want to say she loved you to the end with a fierce maternal devotion. I know that.”
Remi spoke past the thickness in his throat. “First time we met, you read her imprint on a gift she gave me.” He tucked back a fine flyaway curl behind her ear. “I’ll let you read it again one day. So you’ll get to know her, see her.” His mother might never be able to meet her, but Auden could meet the strong, powerful leopard named Gina Delphine Denier who’d raised him.
Auden’s eyes burned. “I would love that. And Remi?” She shook her head. “I hope you don’t worry now—about yourself as an alpha. Your pack is so happy.” Her eyes shimmered. “RainFire might be small and young, but it’s joyous in a way I’ve never been my entire life.”
He cupped her cheek because he couldn’t not touch her when she’d just torn her heart bare to make him feel good. “You will be happy,” he promised roughly. “No matter what we have to do, we’ll figure out a way.”
Auden’s lower lip trembled before she pressed her lips together and took a deep, shuddering breath. “I want my baby—my little girl—to feel like the cub who sat in your lap in that chair. No fear. No concern. Trust absolute.”
“She will. She has you for a mama.” And of one thing Remi was certain: Auden Scott loved her baby as much as any leopardess.
A hard swallow. “Thank you.”
Forcing himself to let go of her, he walked again with her under the moonlight, and he thought of a future where he might walk with a miniature version of Auden, curious and wild. Holding her little hands from above as she found her feet, as she giggled and looked up at him.
Neither man nor leopard was ready for the emotion that punched through him.
“What is that?” Auden was staring at what sat at her front door, a food carrier…and a single extra-large package.
“Bed frame.” Remi was damn glad to be distracted by the practical. “I dropped it off this morning before I headed into town, and our healer delivered the food about the time we lifted off. I figured he’d be the best person as far as imprints go?”
Auden nodded, the movement a touch jagged. “Empaths don’t affect us badly, so I’m guessing a healer won’t, either.” She reached into her pocket to pull out a slimline black device that looked like a remote. “Before anything, sweep the cabin with this.”
Recognizing it as a detector, Remi took it from her and went to the cabin to run the scan immediately. Only once he was certain the cabin was clean of any bugs did he come back outside and return the device. “I didn’t pick up any other scent except for yours inside, either,” he said. “No one’s been here since you left.”
Her shoulders eased.
Shoving up the sleeves of his gray sweatshirt, Remi went to the carrier. “You hungry?”
“I feel like I’m constantly starving,” Auden admitted with a little groan.
Remi’s gaze took her in with an intensity that felt like a touch. His eyes gleamed in the silver light of the moon and she knew she stood with a wild creature.
A flutter against her mind, a reminder that it wasn’t just the two of them in this clearing. “The baby’s…excited to see you again.” A pause. “Her brain isn’t formed enough to give me much, but I sense her emotions. She knows you.”
“From the outside, psychometrics and empaths have a lot in common.” He passed over a cinnamon roll. “I can put together the bed while you devour this.” A slow grin.
Her stomach tumbled, leaving her breathless. Unable to speak, she just nodded.
Then she watched him move with feline grace as he opened the package to take the pieces inside. His every move held a wild power and for this moonlit fragment of time, she allowed herself to believe that he was her man.
Her Remi.
Looking after her not out of obligation because she was pregnant and in need, but because he wanted to.
A silly fantasy but no one had to know.
“Futon needs to be moved out of the way,” he said. “You want to use your feet to do that in case my imprint does make the frame unusable? I don’t want you without a place to sleep.”
Auden nodded and, after finishing the cinnamon roll, went over to nudge the futon to the far wall using her socked feet. Remi was in socks, too, having told her he’d worn two pairs to insulate his imprint from the floor.
Auden wasn’t so sure she didn’t want his imprint everywhere. He filled up the space, big and warm and wild.
“Here.” He’d put together a chair in the time she’d been moving the futon. “Try this. Easy test—and you need a proper chair.”