Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(16)

“Eat first,” the wolf said, his not-human eyes watchful. “The talk can wait until you’re not in danger of disappearing.” The growl had returned. “I think a bird could take you on right now and win.” A pause, then, “Not a predatory bird. A sparrow.”

Memory scooped up a big bite while staring at him.

Eyes shifting to pure amber, he leaned across the table and whispered, “Stop taunting the big, bad wolf, little E.”

That was another thing—why did he keep calling her an E? She knew about the newly rediscovered designation, had watched the comm reports with fascination, but she wasn’t one of them. The Es were healers of the mind, and Memory was no healer. She was a monster.

The bite she’d taken threatened to get stuck in her throat, but she made herself swallow. She had to become strong so she could tear Renault to pieces. Her one vulnerability was gone. She’d buried her affectionate Jitterbug under the open sky as she’d promised. Renault had nothing to hold over her anymore, no living creature he could threaten to harm when she got too intransigent.

“Renault,” she managed to get out past her ugly distaste. “His name is Erasmus David Renault and he is a murderer who likes to slowly strangle his victims to the edge of death, then bring them back, only to do it over and over again. When their brains finally shut down, their hearts dead, he hacks off a piece of their hair as a souvenir.”

The golden wolf had gone motionless at her first words. “How do you know?”

“He told me,” Memory lied, because while shut up in her cage for months at a time between Renault’s “outings,” she’d grown and educated herself. At first, she’d done so by using the teaching programs Renault had given her. He’d needed her functional and unremarkable when they were in the world, with the expected knowledge for a girl—then woman—of her age and apparent status.

It had grated on Memory that she was falling in line with his plans, but even as a child, she’d understood that education was a weapon she might one day be able to turn against her captor. Her mother had always said, “Study hard, Memory. The more you know, the more control you have over your future.”

So she’d knuckled down and gone through program after program. She’d also watched everything she could find on the comm about the outside world, read every book she could download. Renault had cut off her ability to contact anyone outside, but he hadn’t monitored her reading or entertainment-comm accounts—which he’d set up because he was clever enough to know she’d go insane if left with no outlet for her mind.

Her murderous captor had needed her sane.

As a result of her compulsive drive to prepare for a freedom she’d never given up on attaining, Memory knew how normal people behaved. She also knew one thing for an unqualified truth: Alexei the golden SnowDancer wolf had helped her because he thought she was a victim.

She couldn’t reveal that she was a nightmare.





Chapter 7


Breach detected. Alert in progress.

—Security Log, SNM: Owner EDR


E. DAVID RENAULT, known to his associates as Renault, had been in a meeting he couldn’t leave without causing uncomfortable questions when the alert hit his wrist unit. The sleek unit didn’t light up or broadcast a disruptive ping; it simply buzzed against his skin in a highly specific pattern.

The bunker had been breached.

Memory’s mind slipped from his grasp at nearly the same instant.

Renault had forced himself not to move, not to stiffen, though his own mind raced. He’d had no way to wire the bunker to alert him to a rogue teleporter—Memory’s presence and that of her geriatric cat would’ve constantly set off the system. Given that he was ninety-nine percent certain he was the only Psy alive who knew the location of the bunker and had visual coordinates for it, he’d decided to focus on the only other possible threat.

The bunker was in SnowDancer territory. That it hadn’t been found for decades didn’t mean the possibility was negligible. The wolves were highly territorial—no pack rose to be as powerful as SnowDancer without aggressively protecting what they owned. He couldn’t discount the idea of a patrol stumbling on the bunker.

He’d wired the bottom of the trapdoor.

The device was tiny and difficult to spot in dim light, and had a battery-powered transmitter. The latter had been a calculated risk, but as it was designed to only send a signal in the event of a breach, the risk was minor. Secrecy no longer mattered if a wolf was already inside the bunker.

As the endless meeting carried on, Renault’s hand curled over the end of his chair arm, the brown of his skin stretched tight over his knuckles.

He was a Gradient 8.7 telekinetic with teleportation capabilities. He’d also based his head office as close to the bunker as possible while remaining under the radar—it meant he was in no danger of burning out his psychic strength even if he had to make back-to-back trips to the bunker within a single day. He’d been confident of his ability to teleport in on the heels of an alert, grab Memory, and teleport out before anyone actually got through the bunker door.

The one thing he hadn’t planned for was that the breach would occur during a critical meeting with already nervous investors who would not forgive any disruption.

The discussion finally ended after night had fallen.