Page 12 of Primal Mirror

Angel, the boy who’d walked alone since he was sixteen, had then stayed with Remi and Gina for seven months…all the way to the end. Gina had hardly slept toward her final rest, and the tiger had sat up with her during the times when she’d ordered Remi to sleep. He didn’t know what they’d talked about, but they’d had their private jokes neither would explain to him.

His friend had made his mother laugh in her last days and it was a gift Remi would never forget. Angel had also been one of Gina Denier’s pallbearers on the day they’d laid her to rest in a sunny meadow, with no headstone or other sign to mark her grave.

It was the changeling way and what she’d wanted.

“Close to the earth, Rem-Rem. So that my body nourishes the flowers that bloom in the spring.”

The other pallbearers had been his mother’s closest friends, four women who’d wanted to mother Remi in the aftermath because that was their way. But Remi had only ever had one mother, and he couldn’t accept their kindness. After doing the last thing his mother had ever asked of him and laying her to rest in that field eleven years ago today, he’d left with Angel—because Angel let him grieve and run and rage without trying to make it better.

“Just remembering her,” Remi said today, and though his sorrow would forever be a part of him, the loss had long ago stopped being an open wound. He could remember the good times now, laugh about how often she’d allowed him to think he was getting away with mischief as a cub. “Thinking how she would’ve been the warm core of RainFire had she had the chance.”

“Yeah, your mom knew how to love with open arms. I miss her.”

Angel rarely made such emotional statements; he’d come too late into Gina’s life for Gina to bathe him in maternal love as she’d wanted to do, Angel already closed off, remote. Yet there had been the laughter, and the nights when they’d spoken of things that made Gina squeeze Angel’s hand while she shook her head in affectionate denial.

Remi had never asked Angel what his mother had told him not to do, what his friend had shared with Gina between them alone.

“I’m thankful every day that she was my mom.” Feeling a rustle under the table, Remi reached in without looking and grabbed a cub in leopard form by the scruff of his neck.

“Snuck away from your parents, did you?” he said with a grin, and nipped the cub on the nose before cuddling him against his abdomen. Asher wasn’t much more than a year old, all soft edges and playfulness and affection.

“She told me you’d be an amazing alpha if you’d only give yourself the chance,” Angel said, his eyes on the cub who was currently trying to chew the tongue of Remi’s belt. “Did I ever tell you that?”

You were her greatest pride.

Remi’s entire body stiffened at the memory of Auden Scott’s whispered words. “No. But I knew what she thought.” He let the cub put small paws on the edge of the table so the boy could peer at Angel. “I just didn’t believe her.”

Angel reached over to tug on the cub’s ear, making Asher emit happy sounds. “She’d be so proud of you, Remi. For the pack you’ve built, the family you’ve created for all of us—this asshole included.”

With that, Angel pushed away from the table to head off for his sleep cycle. Pretty standard for the tiger. He could only do so much emotion before he had to hit the cutoff valve. Remi knew some of why, but he had the feeling that perhaps Angel had told his mother all of it.

As for Remi…

He touched the mobile comm he’d put on again today. He’d started wearing it more often after his encounter with Auden Scott. Wasn’t that a kicker, that it had taken a Psy with haunted eyes and an uncanny way of staring into forever to make him accept the final gift his mother had ever brought for him?

Chapter 7

RainStone: 27 survivors, including 12 minors, no alpha, no sentinels. Seniormost-ranking survivor a young maternal; she has advised the Peace Accord Resettlement Board of the survivors’ unanimous decision to join the new amalgamate pack, SkyDawn.

Any remaining RainStone funds to be added to SkyDawn’s. RainStone lands to be surrendered to the trust in return for a compensatory addition to SkyDawn’s newly assigned territory.

Transfer signed off by the Resettlement Board in conjunction with all adult survivors of RainStone (see appendix 21C for documents).

—Handwritten entry made in August 1781 in the Changeling Historical Codex, maintained by the Peace Accord Land Trust

“COME ON,” REMI said to the escapee in his lap. “Let’s get you back to your table.”

After chatting with the pajama-clad family, he exited out onto one of the canopy walkways. This early, the world was rich green and darkest gray shrouded in diaphanous mist. Light glowed from the windows of the aeries that perched in the branches of the massive trees that formed the heart of his pack, a scattered string of jewels.

RainFire’s small size and disproportionate number of young members was why the aeries remained snugged together in this area, multiple homes perched in the branches of each tree—trees that had been planted long ago by another pack. RainStone hadn’t survived as a pack after the Territorial Wars, but it had left the gift of these incredible trees for the future.

It had felt right to incorporate part of the old pack’s name in theirs.

Now, he used the high walkways to do the rounds, greeting those who were awake, and ensuring that those who slept were safe. Peace reigned, the only sounds that of the light morning wind—and the quiet movements of leopards on their own business, their bodies whispers of stealth in the mist.

After spotting motion inside the large plas-enclosed activity area that they had on the ground, he jumped to the forest pathway with feline grace and made his way inside.

“Remi!” Little Jojo, her fourth birthday soon on the horizon, ran in his direction.

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