Page 33 of Primal Mirror

Auden was going to throw up any second. “So we’re agreed?” she managed to say. “I’ll deal with RainFire?”

“Yes—but not here,” Charisma said. “We have a public building we can utilize. And to assure there is no attempt at interference from inside the house, I’ll make it so neither Hayward nor Devlin knows about the meeting until it is fait accompli.”

They have no real power, Charisma telepathed, but they could cause you physical harm. Especially as neither ever thought to come so close to the throne.

Auden nodded. You are a true soldier, someone on whom I can rely.

Charisma’s spine grew straighter in front of her, her face aglow. “I’ll start work on this now, sir.”

Auden barely managed to wait until after the aide had pulled the office door shut behind herself before she ran to the private toilet attached to the office, and threw up the contents of her stomach. The shudders that wracked her were hard and raw and she worried that they were hurting her baby.

Which was why, after she’d cleaned up, she went and saw Dr. Verhoeven.

“Nausea at this stage of the pregnancy is unusual, but it does happen,” he told her. “As for the fetus, its readings are within the normal parameters. You should, however, hydrate yourself with nutrient-enriched water.”

After thanking him, Auden grabbed a bottle of the prescribed water, then made her way out to the back of the property. The air was crisp and cold, the manicured lawn a bright green that seemed unreal, the trees at the back neat and tidy.

Not even a hint of the wild forests of the place RainFire called home.

That Remi called home.

She tried to focus on that, on the fleeting peace she’d found at the cabin, but all she could think about was how those words, those manipulations had come so quickly to her tongue. Her father hadn’t been like that, and he was the one who’d raised her for the most part. Even though she knew he’d hidden a lot of his evil from her, she wasn’t wrong in her judgment of his overall personality.

Henry’s household had been more martial, less political. He hadn’t been the one with the silver tongue in his partnership with Shoshanna. That had been Auden’s mother. And today, that had been Auden.

So slick, so cold, so nauseatingly serpentine.

Realizing she was in danger of hyperventilating, she began a slow walk across the lawn. She wanted to cradle her bump, wanted to reassure her baby with loving contact, but all she could do in this place where others might be watching was touch her baby’s mind. I’m here. I’m your mama. You’re safe.

The baby’s brain wasn’t yet developed enough to understand those words, but Auden hoped it would understand the emotion behind them. Because Auden wasn’t hiding anything when it came to the child in her womb. Her baby would never wonder if she was loved—Auden would drench her world in love.

But to do that, she had to stay healthy and in control. She couldn’t let her distaste of how efficiently she’d just manipulated Charisma get to her. The pregnancy had awakened some primitive part of her brain, she told herself, a part that was ready to use every tool at its disposal—including Auden’s memories of her mother.

Because while Shoshanna hadn’t been part of her day-to-day life, Auden had spent time with her in her teen years. She’d seen her mother work, seen how she made people do what she wanted without making any demands. Something inside her had clearly filed away those memories for an instance when they’d be needed.

Now they were.

Auden wasn’t going to flinch from using them.

“I’ll do anything for you,” she whispered to her child. “Cross every line without hesitation.”

Auden would fight for her as no one had ever fought for Auden.

Even if that meant playing a dangerous game with an alpha leopard with eyes of a primal yellow-green.

Chapter 15

“You are going to be the most dominant person in the room a lot of your life, Rem-Rem. That doesn’t mean you will be the most important. The coward we once called alpha has forgotten that; he thinks he’s the only one who matters. An alpha who thinks that way? He’ll crush his pack’s heart under his boot.”

—Gina Denier to Remi Denier (circa 2070)

MLISS RAN INTO the meeting room just as a T-shirt-and-jeans-clad Remi finished writing up his final set of notes before he could head home. “You will never believe this!” His calm and cool COO was literally dancing in her high heels.

Fascinated, Remi tried to come up with the most outlandish answer possible. “Nikita Duncan wants to hire us.”

Mliss’s grin was feline all right—of the Cheshire cat variety. “Not Duncan. Scott.”

He all but ripped away the piece of paper in her hand. It took him two read-throughs to confirm it said what he thought. “They want us to send in a bid for all their indi-mech needs?”

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