Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(110)

“Think, Memory,” she whispered. “Think.”

The chaos of her thoughts narrowed down to the glint of a spoon inching its way across a table.

. . . nothing is useless if you know how to utilize it.

Stopping her struggles, Memory focused on the knot in the rope that bound her right wrist to the chair arm and reached for the tiny droplet of Tk power inside her, the one that couldn’t even knock a knife from Renault’s hand.

She began to nudge at the knot with her mind.



* * *



? ? ?

ALEXEI turned left into the Embarcadero, the pull of the mating bond a dull throb in his entire body as he drove on through the darkness that had fallen, onyx curtains eclipsing the light. Surely Renault wasn’t arrogant enough to bring Memory into the heart of DarkRiver territory? One glimpse of her and Renault would be overrun by leopards.

The busy public piers passed, followed by the more utilitarian ones, the buildings hulking shadows against the night sky. And still he was pulled forward. All the way to a section of the city that held a number of large business warehouses. The tug became blindingly powerful, encompassing all the warehouses in the area and driving his wolf to a feral edge.

Parking the Jeep, he got out and took several deep breaths.

As with any city, a thousand, a million strands of scent lingered in the air, but Alexei was a wolf, designed to sift through those strands without becoming overwhelmed. Underneath the heavy mix of the city’s buildings and residents, he caught faded scents of cats and wolves.

None of those scents were fresh, however, and he needed backup. Renault was a teleporter and—“You idiot, Alexei.” Hauling out his phone even as he began to prowl through the area on the hunt for his mate, he called Judd. “Can you teleport to a location in San Francisco?”

“Yes. I haven’t exerted much telekinetic energy lately. Send me a visual.”

Alexei took a shot of a doorway festooned with creative graffiti, sent it through. When Judd arrived next to him, he was wearing a sweaty black T-shirt and workout pants, his feet in black sneakers bearing dark green stripes down the sides. “I heard about Memory. What do you need?”

“Fucker’s teleported her somewhere here.” Memory’s presence was a song inside him, calling to wolf and man both. “I need you to hold him if he tries it again.”

“Doable,” Judd said. “I need a missile of some kind.” After a quick search, he picked up a rocky piece of debris from a construction site where a new warehouse was being put up. “I can interrupt the teleport long enough for you to get to him.”

“You pick up anything?” Judd had Gradient 9.4 telepathic abilities.

“Nothing useful. Too many minds scattered around to zero in on a particular suspicious set.”

Alexei froze, his nostrils flaring. “Renault passed through here.” The cold metal twined with a hint of acidic sweat, that was the hallmark of Memory’s abductor.

He tracked the scent with icy focus, coming to a halt near a doorway cloaked in murk. The street lamp had been smashed, but Alexei didn’t need it to see. The scent was thick here. As if Renault had stopped for long enough to spill the scent like water.

“Hey, I don’t want no trouble.” The hoodie-wearing dealer in the doorway held up his hands. “I follow the rules. I don’t sell to no cats or wolves or kids. Even leave the fucking Rats alone—their alpha’s a bad mofo. I don’t need that kind of trouble in my life.”

The man was human, Alexei judged. A predator preying on his own kind. There was only so much DarkRiver and SnowDancer could do to protect people in their territories—those who hungered for poison would find it. Brodie had found it as a teenager, only Hawke’s immediate and personal intervention stopping Alexei’s brother’s slide into addiction and oblivion.

Controlling his rage at the heavyset bearded male, who was unlikely to have ever met his brother, he pulled out his phone and brought up an image of Renault. “You make a deal with this guy recently?”

“Yeah, but the asshole don’t look so swish now.” A curl of the dealer’s lip. “He nearly broke my arm when he used his telekinesis shit to throw me against the wall. Stole a whole bunch of my merchandise.” He spat to one side of his alcove. “I put out the word among my people on the street. Psy parasite’s dead if he shows his face again.”

One human against a Tk had no real chance, but many violently inclined humans who knew to approach their target with stealth? Yeah, they could win. “Which way did he go?”

The dealer nodded to Alexei’s right with a grin that revealed a missing tooth and a gold one, side by side. “Hope you tear out his guts and use them as a noose!” he yelled out after them.

Alexei followed Renault’s scent in the direction the dealer had indicated. It wove in and out of the district, intersecting with itself several times—either Renault was being clever and laying multiple trails to confuse anyone hunting him, or he’d been searching for drugs for a long time before he’d finally found the dealer.

Alexei hoped to hell that meant Memory had been safe from the bastard the entire time. I’m coming, lioness. You hold on.





Chapter 52


Never underestimate an empath.

—Author’s Note, The Mysterious E Designation: Empathic Gifts & Shadows by Alice Eldridge (Reprint: 2082)