Page 4 of Remington’s Mate

She added wickedly, “Give Uncle Rafe a kiss for me.”

He laughed as he got up. A second later she heard loud kissy noises from off-camera, and then Rafe’s voice yelling, “Stop! Help! He’s feeling my man boobs!”

Emma moved to take over the camera while Jaeda giggled. “Nice to know some things never change,” Jaeda said.

Emma lowered her voice. “He worries about you.”

“I’ll be fine. Kicking corporate ass, remember?”

“I have no doubt,” Emma said. “You have your dad’s organizational and leadership skills.”

That pleased Jaeda. She looked up to both her parents, so their respect meant a lot to her. “Yeah, but I got my badass from you.” She added, “Don’t tell Dad I said so.”

Her dad yelled from the background, “I heard that. I am badass as fuck. I’m a damn alpha!”

Jaeda giggled again. Emma called to the men, “You two go away and drink or something. This is girl time.” There was the sound of a door slamming, and Emma shook her head, but she was smiling as she turned back to the camera.

“Your dad tried so hard to make you feel like part of the pack,” she said to Jaeda. “He hates it that he couldn’t.”

“I know.” A lump came into her throat. Jace had never made her feel like she was less than, but he couldn’t give her an animal she didn’t have.

Emma added, “You always have a home here, you know. You’re one of us, whether you believe it or not.”

“I know you want me to feel that,” Jaeda said. “But it’s different for you. Your bond with Dad makes you part of the pack bond. Hell, it’s the foundation of the pack bond.”

It was true. Back when the Silverlake pack was just starting out, finding his fated mate—Emma—and bonding with her had given Jace the magic to bind the pack and the territory into one. Her parents’ bond was the pack’s strength and its heart. Even though she wasn’t a shifter, Emma was at the center of that.

But Jaeda wasn’t. “I’m not anybody’s mate, and I’m not a wolf.”

“You’re not completely human, either,” Emma reminded her. “All the tests show you have shifter potential.”

As a child, Jaeda had been repeatedly tested by shifters with special mental powers, who could sense the animals inside other shifters. She had the potential for an animal, but none had ever manifested.

“Yeah,” Jaeda said. “Brock Reilly and Tristan Barnes say I have an amorphous blob of energy inside me that should be an animal, but isn’t. I’m basically an amoeba shifter.”

That made her mother laugh. “If you are, we’ll love you just the same.”

“Hah. You say that now. But if I ever Change to my amoeba form, I’ll probably be like that old movie where The Blob falls from space and rolls around killing people by absorbing them. I’ll be an unstoppable monster. How did they even kill that thing, again?”

Emma was laughing harder now. “No fucking clue. I’m just trying not to interrupt your drama.”

“Fire extinguishers,” came Rafe’s voice. “They froze it to death.”

It was Emma’s turn to glare at him over her shoulder. “What part of ‘get the hell out of our girl time’ did you not understand?”

“I needed another beer.” Jaeda heard the refrigerator door open and close again, and then Rafe called, “Love you, Jaeda! Stay away from the extinguishers!”

Jaeda was giggling again. “Remind me not to date any firefighters.”

“I’ll have your dad put it on the list.”

“I miss you, Mom.”

“Miss you too, Baby. Let us know how it goes tomorrow.”

“I will. Bye.”

She ended the call. Talking to her mom and dad always made her feel like she could do anything. She was going to kill it on this job. She’d gotten a lucky break, and she was going to pour everything into making it pay off.