Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(15)

Those Psy would crumple where they stood, death smashing into them in a wave of agony as their minds gasped for a link that simply wasn’t there anymore.





Chapter 6


SnowDancer Wolves: Tough, territorial, and perennial favorites for our “Scary but Sexy” column. DO NOT ENTER THEIR TERRITORY WITHOUT INVITATION OR YOU WILL END UP FERTILIZER. Ahem, where were we?

—From the “Pack Cheat Guide” in the March 2082 issue of Wild Woman magazine: “Skin Privileges, Style & Primal Sophistication”


THE BIG GOLDEN wolf who kept growling at Memory while pushing food in her direction was a young god, his bone structure clean and symmetrical, his skin holding that sunshine color that said he was a creature of the light. Though his hair was damp right now, she knew it would shine like strands of pure gold when dry.

He was beautiful.

That didn’t mean much to Memory. The man who’d clawed into her mind and kept her prisoner for fifteen years was beautiful, too. In the times when he took her outside and into the world, she’d met others like him—people with symmetrical faces and pristine skin, their clothes without a wrinkle and their hair flawless.

She’d learned long ago that beautiful people could be evil as easily as anyone else. She’d felt the cold wind of their presence in her bones, her stomach revolting against the nightmares they carried within. Nightmares meant for others. Blood and death meant for others.

Beauty meant nothing to Memory.

She’d followed the bad-tempered wolf with powerful shoulders not because he was beautiful but because he didn’t have the voracious black hole of nothingness inside him. No cold wind chilled her in his presence. No abyss howled open at her feet at his touch.

The wolf carried with him an essence far more primal.

She’d run across other changelings during her time as a prisoner who couldn’t scream for help, and caught a hint of the wildness under the skin that meant she’d never mistake a changeling for human, as her captor often did—but never had she sensed anything this potent. An untamed energy barely contained, a presence that filled the room and was a pulse against her skin.

Her rescuer was no ordinary wolf.

When he rose from the table to grab them bottles of water, it was with a prowling confidence—as if he was a wolf in human form. She’d known what he was before he told her. She’d watched shows about the outside world during the times her captor had buried her underground, and one of her favorites had been the channel that broadcast documentaries about nature.

After her captor let it drop that her prison was in the Sierra Nevada mountains, she’d watched and rewatched the episode about the wild wolves who lived in this region. She’d dreamed of being that strong, that ruthless. But mostly, she’d dreamed about being part of a pack that would fight for her as she’d fight for them. A fantasy that could never come true, but it had helped keep her sane.

The golden wolf put a bottle of water in front of her. “A five-year-old pup eats more than that,” he said, his scowl doing nothing to lessen his beauty.

Memory’s fingers tightened on her fork.

While she considered stabbing at his hand in pure aggravation, the wolf sprawled back in his chair and drank. His throat moved, his muscles and tendons strong. “You know the identity of the person who put you in that hole?” he asked after finishing two thirds of the bottle. The clear gray of his irises were edged with amber.

As if he was half wolf right now.

Memory focused on his primal nature as a renewed and enraged fear threatened to grip her throat and squeeze, squeeze. Renault had done that at times, deliberately cut off her air for no reason but that he could.

You can never win. A sinuous whisper that dug into her mind. I’m inside you.

She’d scrubbed and scrubbed in the shower before, but she didn’t feel clean. She wondered if she ever would. Or had the monster’s evil stained her forever, leaving an endless taint that would haunt her till death?

Plas cracked, water spraying out onto her hand.

Memory stared at the half-crumpled water bottle. She hadn’t realized she was clenching it so hard. Even now, her hand was locked around it like a claw.

“Imagining it’s his neck?” The growly edge in the beautiful wolf’s voice was back. “Can’t blame you. Personally, I prefer to just rip off the head. Blood’s a bitch to wash off though—the laundry team keeps threatening to throw out my clothes.”

Memory very carefully opened her fingers and flexed them. The bottle was losing water from the crack she’d caused, so she got up, found a glass, and poured the liquid into it before retaking her seat. Her movements were nothing as graceful as his, but she was in control of them. No one would ever again turn her into a marionette.

“Give me a name.” Eyes gone even more amber held hers, the quiet words a promise of retribution.

Memory parted her lips, but Renault’s name stuck in her throat, a jagged hardness that cut. Chest heaving, she gulped down half a glass of water. Her fingers clenched on her fork again afterward, the metal cold and hard in her grip. Her skin heated, her hair seeming to prickle with electricity under the towel she’d wrapped around the wet strands.

“Hate” was a hard word, a hard emotion. But Memory hated Renault with every fiber of her being. Even the idea of saying his name made her gorge rise. Yet that very hate was why she was alive. She’d survived while holding on to her own sense of self to spite him.