Page 81 of Primal Mirror

He wove their fingers together. “She might not be here, but that cub of hers is going to walk with you into that house, and find the truth.”

Auden’s pupil’s expanded, obsidian in the blue. “I don’t know how to get you in. I’m planning to use my baby as collateral for my safety—they touch me physically or psychically, and they never see her again.” A twist of her lips. “They’ll never see her anyway, but it might buy me time to unearth the truth.”

Remi’s claws sliced out of his skin, but he made sure he didn’t cut her. When the cub made a complaining sound, he rumbled deep and low in his chest to calm her back down. Only once she was snuffling away did he ask his question. “Can they tear open your mind to get to her?”

“No. Infants are tied to their mothers. A mental assault on my mind would murder her, too—especially as she’s premature.” Auden looked down at the baby. “I’m just pretending, baby. I’d never give you to them, no matter what.”

Remi narrowed his eyes. “Hire us.”

“What?” Auden stared.

“Hire our security arm,” he repeated grimly. “I don’t actually expect you to pay us, but set it up like a business deal.”

Auden’s mouth opened, closed again. “Yes,” she said after a long pause. “They’d see me hiring you as a convenient option since we already have another deal, and you’ve built trust by flying me in the chopper.”

A look at her baby. “But not in a million years would they consider that I’d leave her with you—because whatever is wrong with me, they still believe I think like a Scott.”

“And Scotts believe they’re better than others, and infinitely better than any changeling,” Remi guessed.

Auden’s gaze turned unfocused, and he could almost see her thinking it through in every minute detail. “Does your pack have any kind of a security presence? It has to look real.”

“RainFire Security has a strong reputation in our region. Even have Psy clients who won’t trust anyone else—I’m sure they’ll cooperate if your people reach out to ask for a reference.”

He tapped the side of his head. “Changeling shields. Changeling speed. Changeling strength—and crucially, changeling senses. We make damn good bodyguards against physical threats, and can hold up much longer than humans against a psychic assault. Now that Silence has fallen, there’s no taboo against Psy hiring changeling bodyguards.”

She stared off into space for several seconds. “They could attempt to cut off access to my trust fund once they become aware of it. It’ll be harder to sell a transactional relationship if I don’t have the funds to pay you.”

“I have a hacker in the pack.” Why hide it when it was part of the toolkit of every smart alpha? Psy liked to put things in computers and Psy also liked to attack changeling systems—it was just good sense to have both defensive and offensive capabilities on that front. “If you trust me with the details of your account, we can secure it.”

“Give me an organizer and I’ll load the access details onto it,” Auden said without hesitation. “The requirements include a live retinal scan, so your hacker will need to come here. Or you’ll need to be the one to take that scan, since it’s better if you keep your packmates from my memory.”

Her face went bleak. “I’m going to fight my hardest, but I’m a Ps-Psy. I can’t keep them from my mind if they decide to rape it in order to get to my baby. It might take them a few weeks to get to that point—or they might wait a couple of months until they’re near certain the baby would survive.”

Remi’s chest rumbled. He found himself curving one hand around her nape, his claws scraping her pulse. “Make me a promise, Auden.”

She waited, fierce will and unshakable courage.

“It would kill me to be unable to protect you against that kind of assault. So the first hint of something happening, you tell me—and then you tell me who it is.”

“You won’t be able to get to them on the psychic plane,” Auden said, anguish in her tone. For him.

“No, but I can shoot them in the head.”

Auden stared at Remi, the blunt violence of his answer a cold shock…but a good one. Because he could stop a psychic assault if she could get him to the right target. “People can attack on the PsyNet itself,” she said, “and that can be done from a distance, but I think with the baby’s life on the line, it’ll be up close so they can stabilize me after they take control. I’ll tell you. I promise.”

The warmth of his hand squeezing her nape felt good. Too good.

She had no right to it, or to the warm, happy, sweet feeling of being called “Cupcake” in that deep voice, but she held on to it all the same.

Her phone began to beep, the sound distinctive. When Remi looked at her, she nodded, and he grabbed it for her from where it sat on Finn’s workspace.

She glanced at the screen. “It’s Charisma. I’ll answer in the bathroom. There’s a faux-wooden wall that looks similar to the walls of my cabin. A white background will make her suspicious.”

And it was time Auden began to not only play this game—but lead it.

Chapter 33

Humans have no reason to trust the Psy, but this is a crisis of unimaginable size, with millions of lives on the line—and I am prouder than you can imagine to see how our people have reacted in the face of that terrible truth.

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