Page 90 of Primal Mirror

After a couple more minutes speaking to the nurse, he went to check in on Auden and Liberty. Their cube was quiet and dark, the only lights coming from Liberty’s incubator, and the soft night lights built into the skirting of the walls.

Auden was frowning and tossing in her sleep, her curls tied up in what appeared to be a silk scarf that looked like something Saskia would choose for herself. Since he’d briefed all the medical staff on Auden’s needs as a psychometric, it had to be brand-new and machine-made—Sass wouldn’t have risked giving Auden a used one. He had good people in his pack—and they appreciated a mother who fought for the happiness of her cub.

“Shh,” he murmured with a brush of his palm over her cheek, rumbling deep in his chest in the way he’d noticed she liked. “I’m here. I’ll watch over her.”

A sigh, her body turning into his.

He stroked her back until she was in a deep sleep, then turned to Liberty. He’d kept an ear out for the cub from the start, but she hadn’t woken. Now he touched her through the little circle in the incubator, and felt her in his heart. Strange, but it was almost as if she was blood-bonded to him, same as Finn and his sentinels.

A memory of the rich scent of blood, of a child born while her mother clutched at Remi’s hand and begged him to protect her baby. Of Remi’s claiming of the baby as one of his. Of a tiny life Remi could feel as he could feel every member of his pack.

“You’re mine, aren’t you, little one?” he said, certain beyond any doubt that Liberty was linked into the PsyNet through her mother and into RainFire through him. No one had to tell him if it was possible—he knew.

It was a long time later that the baby whimpered.

Aware by now how long she needed to spend in the incubator, Remi knew it was safe to take her out for a cuddle. “Hey, now,” he rumbled as he picked her up after tugging off his T-shirt so she’d have skin-to-skin contact. “What’s this, hmm?”

She settled the instant she was against his chest, her little hiccups adorable. Smiling, he nuzzled at her, felt her smile in his heart. And for a fragment of a heartbeat, he saw a glittering blue spiderweb in his mind, a creation lovely and eerie…and so real that he knew he hadn’t imagined it.

* * *

• • •

AUDEN lifted her eyelashes and smiled. A half-naked Remi was purring deep in his chest while he rocked Liberty, and her heart, it couldn’t bear it. Then she noticed the light, so blue and clear, and looked up to see the web floating above their heads.

Wonder filled her veins, spilled over her hands…and spread in a web across the infirmary floor in a slow sweep that made Auden frown. She was forgetting something important.

But the thought slipped out of her grasp as quickly as sleep swept her back under. And when she woke to the morning dew, she wondered at the surreal clarity of her dream. She might’ve been concerned about why she was dreaming of webs, but what was there to fear from a thing so lovely?

“Is it you?” she whispered to Liberty with a smile when she rose. “My little telepath dreaming big dreams?”

The baby slept on, her rest that of the innocent.

* * *

• • •

THE four-day window over, Auden stood beside the incubator dressed in a black shift dress with sharp lines that nonetheless allowed room for her body to recover at its own pace. To her joy, her milk had come in and she’d been able to feed Liberty four precious times. Today, she’d pumped what she could, then Finn had injected her with a medication that would stop her milk supply for the next eighteen hours.

She could do this five times in a row before the effect became permanent. Which meant she had to play this game to the end before then. She’d had too much taken from her—she wouldn’t allow her family to take this joy from her, too.

Auden touched her baby one last time.

Her eyes swam wet when she turned to a suit-clad Remi. He was big and handsome and when he closed his arms around her, she felt more safe than she had in her entire lifetime before him.

Hand on his chest, she pulled back only enough to look into his eyes. “I’ve heard Psy can survive in changeling networks,” she said. “From what I’ve picked up since waking, the PsyNet situation is getting more dire by the day. If the worst happens—”

Remi squeezed her nape. “You don’t have to ask, Auden. I’ll make sure Libby is safe.” He touched a fisted hand to his heart. “She’s bonded by blood to me, is one of mine, part of RainFire. No matter what, she’ll fall into the arms of her pack.” He gripped her chin. “And I expect you to follow. It won’t be difficult, not for you. Not when you’re mine, too.”

Auden’s heart hitched but she didn’t—couldn’t—give a direct answer until she knew who or what she had inside her. “Let’s go, or I won’t be able to leave.”

Rina, who’d been chatting to Finn, walked over at Remi’s signal. Her suit was identical to Remi’s in color—a crisp black paired with a white shirt—and cut to her body. Unlike Remi, she wasn’t wearing a tie, but both had tiny dot microphones on their collars that were all but invisible, paired with equally subtle earpieces, and Rina carried a sleek briefcase over her shoulder that held their security gear.

Mliss would be dropping off spare clothing for them at the gate.

The Arrow named Vasic appeared next to Auden a heartbeat later. He wasn’t, however, wearing the squad’s uniform. Instead, he wore jeans and a sweatshirt, the hood of which he now flipped over his head. The deep cowl of it effectively hid his features, but he’d further helped that along by wearing sunglasses.

Unlike when they’d been introduced, he wore a prosthetic arm that filled out the left sleeve of his sweatshirt. The hand was so realistic that she did a double take. From a distance and in the split second that he might be caught on camera if Auden was wrong about that particular part of the house not being under surveillance, no one would ever pick him as the only known true teleporter in the world. Especially after he eased his body into a relaxed slouch no Arrow would ever consider proper posture.

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