Page 110 of Primal Mirror

Holding facility. Better than this one. Brain…failing…

The hesitation was more obvious now, Shoshanna’s voice fading in and out, a touch of confusion in her tone. “She’s not all there,” Auden said to Remi, not sure if her mother could hear her or know what was in her head, but none of that mattered. Because the choice was clear. “As long as she lives, our cub is at risk.”

Remi’s jaw worked, a growl in his tone. “What about the threat to you?”

Auden’s eyes were pools of melted glacier ice, pristine and clear, with not a ripple in their resolve. “You know the answer, my Remi. You’d make the same choice.” She touched her fingers to his. “I’m only sorry”—tight words, pain in the fury now—“that I never got to know all of what it could be with us.”

Rage was a leopard’s snarl in Remi’s throat, but he knew there was no convincing her otherwise. Because he would have made the same choice. To lay down his life for a cub? It wasn’t even a question.

But he wasn’t about to just give Auden up to evil.

He gripped her hand, his claws on her skin. “Open to me, Auden. If I reach for you, you open.”

But she shook her head. “No. She’s still a Gradient 9.5 telepath and her brain has enough function that she was able to somehow transfer a piece of herself into me. I don’t know how—I’m guessing through sheer brute force because the idea of it is unadulterated insanity. If she somehow manages to get into your head via me, she’ll use you as a weapon, use your entire pack.”

Remi wanted to tell her that changeling shields were too strong, but that didn’t apply here. Because if she allowed the mating bond, they’d be linked on a level so deep that it was beyond shields or walls. “Fuck!” It came out a roar.

She tangled her fingers with his. “Whatever happens, know that I regret nothing.” Her gaze shone at him. “Make sure Liberty knows that my love for her made me. She is my heartbeat and my soul and she is the reason I understand love.” Fingers touching his jaw. “I love you, Remi Denier. Until when I look into eternity, I see you in every frame.”

Remi couldn’t speak, his chest thick. “Is she still in your head?”

Auden stared at her mother. “Fragmented thoughts. Telling me that we’re linked, that it’s too late to separate.” A pause. “I think she’s right. She’s the other Auden. I didn’t splinter. I didn’t fragment. She stamped herself onto part of me.”

“But in the end, you won.” He hugged her roughly to his body, his voice shaking. “Your love for Liberty won.”

Auden let him hold her for a long second before she drew back. “Remi, my Remi.” A single tear streaking down her face before she turned toward the bed.

Remi growled, his cat wanting to rend that shriveled body to a hundred pieces, his rage an ineffective shield against his pain.

“Good-bye, Mother.” Auden pulled the plug on the machine that powered her mother’s heart, then unhooked the breathing tube…just as all hell broke loose.

Pounding feet in the tunnel, yells, every alarm on the machines around Shoshanna going off. But Remi didn’t give a shit about that.

Because Auden was convulsing, the sclera of her eyes streaked red when she looked at him. Grabbing her before she could collapse, he was only peripherally aware of the scream of the machines as Shoshanna’s heart flatlined.

Charisma Wai entered the chamber with a weapon a heartbeat later, the doctor at her heels. Remi figured the nurse had called them even before she yelled that they’d disconnected the “lifelines.” The doctor was bleeding from claw marks to his cheek, while Wai’s loose sleep pants were torn at the knee.

Rina and the others. Fighting against that strike team Wai must’ve activated early. Now, his people were keeping the same team busy because Rina knew that Remi could easily take care of one slender Psy woman and an out-of-shape doctor who was huffing from his run.

Wai couldn’t shoot or hit him with a psychic assault before he could separate her head from her body.

But that wouldn’t save Auden. “Councilor Scott completed the transfer,” he said in a growl of a voice.

Charisma’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Her body was about to fail. She made the executive decision, but there’s been a physiological issue,” he said, as Auden’s body went rigid in his arms. “Deal with it!”

The weapon trembled in Charisma’s hand. “How do you—?”

“Did you think it was a coincidence that Auden found me?” he yelled. “The Councilor and I have an agreement. She comes back, and we get a payment big enough to take my pack into the future. Now move!”

Wai shook her head. “No, why would she do that?” But her hand wavered. “Your people attacked us.”

He snarled. “Some don’t agree with my decision. I’ll handle them—that’s my job. You can do your job now or you can let the Councilor die!”

Dropping the weapon, Wai urged the doctor forward. “Go!”

“That body is dead,” Remi snapped when the doctor would’ve gone to the emaciated frame on the bed. “If it worked, she’s inside this body.” And if that was so, then he’d keep his promise to Auden and end her.

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