Page 67 of Primal Mirror

Remi and RainFire were very careful never to take advantage of the squad, their relationship built on a foundation of mutual respect and trust. But for a cub? Remi would ask and the entire squad would say yes. Because none of them would ever abandon a child at risk.

Auden’s eyes flared wide, and he could all but see the flames of her curiosity. But she seemed to shove that curiosity aside with a conscious hand to say, “I have to make a plan, because I might not be able to do it later, and my baby needs to be protected from whatever it is my mother set in motion before her death. Because there is something very, very wrong with me.”

Remi wanted to argue with her, but he knew they had to face the cold, hard facts. Rising off the bed, he paced around the room. “The scent and personality changes.”

Auden’s nod was hard, her breathing erratic. “Memory issues, too. Periods of lost time.” She exhaled. “All I know of what was done to my brain is that it involved a biograft that malfunctioned. Sometimes, I dream of fire engulfing my brain.”

Her fingers lifting to her temple. “The lesions are still there—my brain has apparently learned to work around them, but they didn’t just vanish. And there’s external evidence of things I did at points where I had to be lucid, and yet I recall nothing. Not just me managing to pretend for a couple of minutes on my better days. I pulled off a meeting with Kaleb Krychek, for one.”

Remi didn’t interrupt, a low-level rumble deep in his chest. The same instinct that made him a good alpha told him that what she was saying was important, and that she needed him to listen.

“I also have no memory of signing a fertilization agreement with another Psy family. But there’s a recording of me having a full contractual interaction with the other family.” She spread her fingers over her belly. “I’m speaking in a crisp and clear manner, negotiating the fee, and watching as the donor signs away all rights to the resulting child.”

Remi knew Psy did things that way, though his changeling mind struggled to accept it. He also knew that the woman in front of him was a creature of emotion. “You think like that, Auden?”

“No. I never have. That was my mother’s problem with me.” Her throat moving, her eyes shining. “My father didn’t mind that I was a psychometric and what that entailed, but I was never Silent enough for Shoshanna—except that I was on that video.”

Remi was caught by something else she’d said. “Why are you with your mother’s family if you were closer to Henry?”

Shadows across her face. “My father didn’t want me after I was damaged. The terrifying thing is that Shoshanna shouldn’t have, either. She kept me alive for a reason—because per her worldview, I should’ve stopped existing when I stopped having value to the family and became a drain on their resources instead.

“It wouldn’t have been hard for her to pull off. She was a Councilor at the time, and she had Dr. Verhoeven’s unconditional loyalty. A single injection and I’d have been gone, the death labeled as natural. But she didn’t do that. That is the scariest thing in all this—what did my mother want with me that she kept me alive?”

Rage scalded Remi’s veins at the idea of Auden’s light being snuffed out with such callousness.

“I hero-worshipped him, you know,” Auden added softly before he could respond. “My father. I thought he was such a good man for a long, long time. He was kind to me, often personally gave me the lessons I needed as his heir-in-training.”

Her voice faded on her next words. “I was fourteen when I got the freedom to explore the PsyNet without babysitters—though I’m guessing those babysitters were still there, just well hidden. I started to hear things about my father, started to learn things. And still I wanted to believe in him. Then…”

Her fingers lifted to her temple. “He let Shoshanna do this to me.”

“You sure he was aware what she intended?” Remi said, not because he thought Henry Scott anything less than a psychopath, but because he couldn’t quite see a father who had a happy, bright child he was raising as his heir agreeing to an experiment that would cause her harm.

“Maybe not.” Auden shrugged. “But, you see, it doesn’t matter—because he chose to give me up after the brain damage.” Her face twisted. “I read the document. It’s all spelled out. I was created as the heir to the Jackson empire, but the Scotts didn’t have to compensate them for taking me because I was ‘of negative value’ to the Jacksons by then.”

Remi released his growl. Walking over, he sat on the side of the bed and twisted so that his hands were on either side of Auden’s head on the headboard he’d put together for her. “They didn’t break you,” he growled, eye to eye with her. “You’re still standing.”

“That’s just it,” she whispered in a husky tone, “I’m not sure I’m still standing.” One small, cold hand against his chest. “I’m acting in ways that aren’t me. I have knowledge that isn’t mine. I know passwords I never learned.”

A chill passed over Remi’s skin. “Auden,” he began.

But Auden spoke over him, needing to get this out. “I’m starting to believe that my mind has split into two or even more fragments.” It was a truth she’d been avoiding since the day on the doorstep to this cabin when he’d said she didn’t know him.

“No one can fix that. It’s one of the worst mental afflictions a Psy can have—a psyche so broken that it literally becomes more than one person. Only a partial fragment inhabiting the body at any one time.”

Remi’s frown was dark.

She kept on speaking before he could say anything. “It’s called dissociative identity disorder and it exists in all the races, but for Psy, there’s an added layer. Our personalities don’t fully splinter, you see. All Psy are telepaths—it’s necessary to be one to attach to the PsyNet.”

His frown grew heavier. “I never picked that up from my friends.”

“I suppose we don’t talk about it because it’s a given. Like the fact you can shift is a given—an indelible part of being changeling.” Her fingers curled into the muscled heat of his chest. “From what I remember of my elementary school lessons, I’m pretty sure Gradient 1 telepathy is the prerequisite. Any lower than that and you might have psychic abilities, but you aren’t considered Psy on a neurological level.”

Remi’s eyes shifted to human in front of her, but his arms still bracketed her, the warmth and scent of him a haven. “How does the telepathy impact the splintering?”

“Bleedover.” A rapid inhale, a sharp exhale. “I think in the other races, the separation is much more significant. One personality won’t know what the other is doing, that kind of thing. I don’t either…but there is bleedover. That’s the only way I can have all this knowledge. One part of me was told or taught it.”

Remi’s body was rigid with tension around her, in front of her. “Could there be any other explanation? Someone trying to mind control you?”

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