Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
She retrieved the weapon from her pocket, her eyes shining in a way that was surprisingly adorable. “Can I shoot now?”
“Let’s go through the settings first.” Once they had, he told her to choose the lowest. “It’ll give you experience with the smaller recoils before trying to handle the big one.”
After doing as he’d suggested, she took the stance he’d taught her, sighted down the barrel as they’d practiced…and shot.
The beam hit the wall of the bunker behind the sign.
Her face fell.
He wanted to cuddle her, the response instinctive. “You singed your target,” he said, while reminding himself more harshly that he couldn’t take anything about Auden at face value. Even if it was fucking hard to remember that with her looking so dejected. “That means you’re two meters closer than when you started out.”
Walking over to the target, she peered at the left edge, her eyes in a squint. “You’re telling the truth!” She turned with a lightness to her step, appearing so young and innocent that it punched him in the gut that she hadn’t even hit her mid-twenties. He’d still been racing cars and battling to control his screwed up emotions when he was her age.
Six years and a lifetime ago.
Auden pointed at the spot with the singe mark. “I almost hit it!”
Remi’s leopard huffed on a surge of affection strong enough to bypass his wariness. “Almost,” he agreed, though that was the most generous interpretation of the word he’d ever heard.
“Let me try again,” she said, that new brightness lingering in eyes that had shifted back to a luminous blue during their lesson.
Then, as if forgetting she wasn’t alone, she stroked a hand over her stomach to cradle it, a faint curve to her lips as she looked down at her bump. The love and tenderness in her expression? He’d stake his life on it being genuine.
Who was the real Auden Scott?
Chapter 12
PsyNet disintegration has picked up speed at levels we can’t explain, given known factors. The time remaining has compressed to six months—but if the compression is cumulative, that estimate is useless.
—Report to the Ruling Coalition and EmNet from PsyNet Research Group Alpha (1 September 2083)
THE STATE OF her brain aside, the Auden with whom Remi spent the next half hour was the same one who’d come to him in the trees and spoken to him of his mother with an openness that was raw and without sophistication.
She was a wild and quixotic creature who argued with him over millimeters when he eyeballed how close she’d come with a shot, and who—at one point—asked if it hurt if someone stepped on his tail while he was in leopard form.
“I’m too fast for that to ever happen,” he growled back in insult.
A sly look. “I bet I could do it. Not step on it. Catch it.”
Remi stared at her. “Are you daring the alpha of a predatory changeling pack?”
“No.” She took aim. “Just making a statement.”
She fired.
This Auden, Remi realized with a sense of the portentous hanging over his head, could be far more dangerous to him than either of the avatars he’d previously met.
The question was, was she real…or a mask created with him as a target in mind? “I have to head back,” he said and it wasn’t a lie. He also, however, needed space to think.
Her face fell. “Of course.” The quicksilver faded. “Thank you for the lesson.”
Remi found himself hesitating, once more viscerally conscious of her aloneness. “I can help carry the target inside for you. Might rain overnight.”
“No.” A stiff look, the corners of her soft mouth pinched. “No, I prefer to do it myself.”
Remi thought of her fingers on his comm device, the way she’d clutched at her abdomen as she whimpered that it hurt, and realized he had no idea how her psychometric abilities impacted her daily life. But from the guarded way she was looking at him, she didn’t plan on sharing anything with him on the point.
He could’ve left it, but that didn’t sit right, especially when her reticence was going to roadblock things he could do to help her. “Psychometric stuff?”
A rapid blink, a long pause.
“I have friends in the PsyNet,” he added. “Rumor is you’re a Ps-Psy, and I know that’s right because of what you did with my comm. No one knows your Gradient, but guesses are 7 or higher, because of your parents.” Remi made a face. “I don’t get grading people that way, but I guess it works for the Psy.”
Narrowed eyes, the stiffness eroding under a flash of irritation she couldn’t conceal. “From what I know, changelings do the same.”
It was his turn to scowl. Folding his arms, he set his feet apart. “You’ll have to explain that to me, Deadshot.”
She folded her own arms, and held his gaze with the moonstone blue of her own. “Your grading scale goes from dominance to submission.”