Page 52 of Primal Mirror

She was conscious of Mliss Phan watching with an intense quiet, but the other woman didn’t interrupt, and they sat in silence the short time until Charisma’s return. “Here you go, sir.”

“Thank you.” Taking the drink, Auden lifted it to her lips and only then realized she was truly hungry.

Her mouth watered at the memory of the cinnamon roll and the croissant…and of Remi’s creased cheeks and brilliant eyes as he said, Next time.

The nutrients tasted like dust.

Remi spoke after she put down the glass. “We do have one more point to discuss,” he said. “We’d like you to tour our manufacturing facility, get agreement on the ground floor in terms of the processes used. I don’t want a costly disagreement down the road where you’re expecting handwork on a piece we consider better made via machine.”

He glanced at Charisma. “We can clear out the place so it’s only me and Mliss, and you and Ms. Scott. We can even do it at night if you prefer, so there’s less chance of her being seen—and you can drive a vehicle straight into our internal goods bay. Nothing to see from the outside.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Auden said, telepathing Charisma at the same time. I should do it as soon as possible, well before I get to full term.

Are you sure you want to come? I can do it on my own.

Charisma.

A slight flicker in the other woman’s eyes at the chilly reminder of the promise she’d made not to second-guess Auden. Yes, sir.

Auden didn’t interrupt while Charisma worked out the details with Mliss Phan; her attention was on Remi.

His gaze met hers, the leopard bright in them. A shiver rippled over her.

“That’s settled, then,” Mliss said. “We’ll see you at the facility in two days’ time.”

* * *

• • •

REMI’S leopard, its growl a low rumble only Mliss would pick up, paced inside his human skin as he left Auden behind in a situation that was clearly dangerous for her.

“What was all that about?” Mliss asked him once they were in their car and pulling out of the parking lot. “We don’t need them to tour the facility. I could’ve shown them the entire place onscreen.”

Reaching into his pocket after he’d turned the car to the left, Remi passed Mliss the note Auden had given to him under the guise of negotiation: Need to talk in unmonitored location.

“I see.” Folding the note up into neat quarters, she placed it back into the hand Remi had outstretched.

He put it safely back in his pocket.

“You know what’s going on?”

“No,” Remi admitted, his hands clenching on the steering wheel as his claws sliced out. “But your job on the day of the tour is to distract Charisma so I can talk to her.”

“Consider it done.” A pause. “She still just a business associate, Remi?”

He and Mliss, they weren’t friends the way he was friends with Angel or Aden, but he respected and trusted her. And she’d be his partner on this. So he told the truth. “That’s all she can be for now. She’s too vulnerable for anything else.”

“The hard-nosed negotiator we just met didn’t strike me as vulnerable.” It wasn’t a criticism—Mliss was as hard-nosed.

But he heard the question she was asking.

“I’ve thought hard on this, Liss, and I keep coming back to one fact: no heavily pregnant woman would leave her home for an isolated cabin in the Smokies if she felt safe in that home.” An instinctive truth he’d fought against because of the visceral draw he felt toward Auden.

“She’s the one at risk in that scenario. We could knock her out, take her captive, keep her under so she couldn’t call out for help on the psychic plane—there is no point at which a lone civilian Psy in her last trimester is the threat against a pack of predatory changelings.”

“Well, shit.” A stir of sound that indicated Mliss’s claws were out, too.

Remi growled. “Yes. Exactly.” Whatever was going on with Auden, it had nothing to do with business.

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