Page 104 of Primal Mirror

Her body jerked an instant after that. “My baby.” A whisper. “I can feel her. So unformed, her thoughts more sensation than anything else. I feel Finn, too. Affection, care. Another person, the person who made this. Concentration. Cramped hands. Happiness. And I feel you. Wild protectiveness. A feral love.”

Remi’s heart squeezed. “You’re bleeding. I’m going to grab tissues from the bathroom.” He did so even as he spoke. “Here.”

She dabbed at her nose with her free hand, her other holding on to the knit cap so hard that a vein on the back of her hand throbbed. After she finally stopped bleeding, she went into the bathroom to clean up.

The woman who walked out of the bathroom was cool, calm, collected…and held that knit cap as if it was the most precious diamond in all the world. After lifting it to her mouth, she pressed a kiss to it, then held it out to him. “Just in case.”

He took it and knew he was breaking her heart in doing so, even if she had asked. “I’ll keep it safe.”

“I know.” Her trust was a punch to the heart, bringing him to his knees.

“What happened, little cat?”

“Rage formed of Silence,” she murmured. “An overwhelming sensation of cold beneath the rage, and I could swear it was directed at me for being inside the private archive.” Her eyes narrowed. “But I don’t care if the other me doesn’t want me looking.”

She sat down again, her face grim. “Let’s find out what I’m not meant to see.”

But though she spent hours in there, there was too much material to wade through to find anything—even when she tried using her own name as a search term. The only thing she was able to confirm was that Henry hadn’t known about the biograft. That didn’t alter what he’d done in giving her up, and she’d already accepted that the father she’d once loved had never existed.

She finally gave up at eleven, her eyes gritty, knowing she had to be up in four hours to access the basement.

* * *

• • •

THEY made their move at three in the morning, long after everything had gone quiet. Rina had already prowled the corridors in leopard form, and Auden could well imagine the reaction of anyone who ran across her during her patrol, those nightglow eyes a warning to the hindbrain.

The sentinel had told Remi that the staff had left the premises, with only Charisma Wai in the house. Last Rina had seen—ten minutes ago—the aide had been alone in her office. “Dr. Verhoeven’s still up, too—I did a quick sortie outside, spotted him inside his lab. But,” the sentinel had added, “I did just hear the back door open and close, so either Wai’s gone out or someone else has entered. Interval between open and close was too short for more than one person to come in or go out. You want me to do another sweep, make sure?”

“No,” Remi had said. “A single extra person shouldn’t cause us any problems.”

Rina had further confirmed that the lighting through the hallways was on muted night settings, and any lights set to activate to motion—such as in the kitchen—had also switched over to the night settings.

Now Auden fixed a black knit cap over her head, having already pulled her hair back in a tight bun to create a sleeker fit. Remi had scowled at her action, and she’d blushed, thinking of how he’d fisted his hand in her curls, and how later, when she’d put it up for the shower, he’d purred to her about how much he loved her hair.

She’d learn to do the same, she decided then and there, to give him frank words of appreciation and affection. She’d tell him she loved the breadth of his shoulders, was fascinated by how he had a hundred colors in his hair, that his thigh muscles made her mouth water, and his smile caused the butterflies in her stomach to take flight.

She adored everything about Remi.

Cap on, she smoothed her hands down her black sweater. It was the same shade as the cap and the tights on her legs. She’d even pulled on the gloves she used to dull her psychometric sensitivity in day-to-day life.

“You look like a cat burglar.” The stroke of a big hand down the curve of her spine.

Her skin shimmered beneath her clothing, attuned to his touch as she’d never before been attuned to anyone. She hadn’t even thought this was possible for her.

Then had come a leopard alpha who’d taught her to shoot, fed her delicious pastries, and made her laugh…and in the doing, prowled right into her heart.

Unable to not touch him when he was near, she ran her hand down his black T-shirt, his lower body clad in cargo pants the same color. His boots were dark and heavy and she had no idea how he managed to move with graceful silence in them. She’d gone for simple trainers because Remi had told her socked feet were too much of a risk, given that they had no idea what surfaces they’d face under the trapdoor if it proved to not be a hidden security suite.

“I’ll try to be as quiet as possible.” She knew she had nowhere near his stealth, but she wasn’t about to let him fight her battles, take all the risks.

A quick kiss that made her warm inside before they set off.

Auden had already seen Rina in leopard form when the other woman entered the bedroom to give her report earlier. Despite their previous encounter, however, she sucked in a soundless breath at seeing the leopard who sat against the wall opposite the bedroom door, its tail curled on the polished wood of the floor.

Never, she thought, would she become used to the wonder of it.

The jungle cat rose to walk over to Remi, allow him to run his fingers over the top of her head. “Two hours max,” Remi murmured. “Any longer without contact and you send in the troops.”

---