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 her pinky to one surface first, got no real feedback. So she placed her whole hand on it…and got a faint but distinct wash of protectiveness…and annoyance.
Cheeks hot, she said, “Why are you annoyed?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
“It’s because it’s fresh. Psychometrics can usually only pick up embedded imprints, but direct contact within minutes can occasionally open the doorway.”
“I’m annoyed because you’re tired and pregnant and standing when you should be resting. Sit.”
Auden wasn’t one to take orders, but because her back ached, she sat. “You don’t have to be rude about it,” she muttered, even as she reached back to undo the tight knot of her hair and finally relax the pressure on her scalp.
Growling, Remi grabbed the food carrier, placed it next to her, then picked out a flat, bread-like creation with tomatoes and cheese on it to put in her hand. A bottle of nutrient-enriched water was placed beside her chair. “Now, behave.”
Remi knew he was acting like an uncivilized bear, but she was so small and had huge shadows under her eyes, and it was infuriating. Despite his growling, she didn’t seem mad, or—even worse—cowed or scared. Her hair was longer than he’d thought—past her shoulders, with big and loose curls that bounced the instant they were set free, her eyes bright as she watched him work while she nibbled at the pizza bread with obvious pleasure.
His fucking heart melted.
That had not been in the program. Even if Auden was in any state to play with him woman to man, Remi was shit in relationships. He could commit to being an alpha, would die for his pack, but when it came to women? He was a fun bed partner, and then he was gone.
“You’re not your father, Remington.” His mother’s slender fingers against his cheek, her face so frail that final month before he’d lost her. “Your heart is a huge and powerful thing, your love a storm force. Why won’t you let yourself love and be loved like you deserve?”
The thing was, intellectually, Remi got it. He wasn’t his shithead of a father. He didn’t abandon people. He was still friends with kids he’d known as a cub, even though they’d scattered across states and continents; the Arrows considered him a rock-solid friend and ally; and not a single member of RainFire would give a second thought to picking up the comm and calling him if they needed their alpha.
Each and every one knew Remi would come, that Remi kept his promises.
But emotions weren’t that easy. Because tangled around his worry about what he’d be like with the woman he loved was grief old and deep. Losing the only person who’d stuck by him from childhood, it had wrecked him. He’d had no pack to fall back on, no family who’d embrace him. Only Angel, a friend new, the bond between them in the process of forming.
His mother’s death had left him hollow and adrift, a leopard without a home, a changeling without a pack—because he wasn’t going to take advantage of their foster pack’s kindness by saddling them with a dangerous dominant who had no loyalty to them, and who was, quite frankly, angry and messed up. A part of him had broken the day they put Gina Denier into the earth, the fracture a permanent part of his psyche.
His leopard had learned that love on a personal, private level equaled pain so deep it was beyond blood and bone. And now he was falling for a woman who might cease to exist, her brain injury eroding her sense of self until only the cold darkness remained.
“You’re thinking too far ahead,” he muttered to himself. “Focus on the bed.”
“Did you say something?” Auden licked a bit of cheese off her finger.
His groin tightened, the most primitive part of him in no doubt about what he felt for this woman with the eyes of luminous blue who’d walked into his life without warning. “Just figuring out the join,” he said, and put his head down to work. “How did you escape Ms. Wai’s iron grip?”
“I didn’t tell her until you were almost there. I also let her know the doctor diagnosed me with stress.” She swallowed a bite. “I don’t know how long she’ll stay away. The attention on my baby”—her free hand cradling her bump—“it’s intensified even further since we spoke at the factory. I can’t think of any good reason why they’d want her so badly, but they do.”
“What about the father?” Remi asked, his leopard annoyed at the idea of anyone else having even a vague claim on Auden and the cub. “I know Psy do business deals to create children, but is it possible he has some special ability they believe the cub might inherit?”