Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(17)

He teleported out the instant he was behind the closed door of his personal office.

Given the delay, he’d considered not responding to the alert. He had no desire to face off against a SnowDancer. The wolves had a well-earned reputation for being vicious—their motto was rumored to be shoot first and ask questions of the corpses. But he had to know. Memory was his most critical asset. He’d never found anyone else who could replicate what she did for him, and he didn’t plan to lose access to her.

He chose the safest lock image he had, one that would give him visibility but obscure his body enough to guarantee he wasn’t a sitting target.

A fraction of a second of disorientation and he stood beside Memory’s wardrobe. No Memory. No cat. He took extreme care as he stepped out into the hallway . . . and found himself staring at a door that had been ripped off its hinges. He snapped his head right, then left, but sensed no movement. He kept his guard up regardless as he walked into the living area—wolves were premier hunters and could stand motionless in wait for prey.

As for Memory, she knew how to be quiet. He’d trained her to be quiet.

The feline, he didn’t worry about. It had to be dead or very close to it by now. One kick and Renault would collapse its rib cage. Memory was lucky he hadn’t done that after her pet had scratched him soon after she’d adopted the mangy thing. Overall, it had been a good decision—the creature came in useful as a leash to control her.

The living area was empty.

It didn’t take long to sweep the rest of the bunker and walk out in the direction of the trapdoor. He used the light from his phone to navigate and saw that the hatch was closed. A chair sat fallen to its side on the ground, the dirt disturbed. If it had been a wolf that had entered, that hatch was probably weighed down or locked.

Not that Renault was stupid enough to crawl out into wolf territory.

Turning on his heel, he did another sweep, but he didn’t find anything new. The door torn off its hinges told the whole story. As a high-Gradient Tk, he could’ve wrenched the door off its hinges, but he didn’t believe another one of his kind had been down here. Logic stated it must’ve been a wolf.

Renault’s mind worked with cold precision. Given her lack of compliance and continued rebelliousness no matter what he did to her, he’d considered that Memory might one day escape and had laid the necessary foundations to recover her. All he had to do was wait, and she’d be returned to him. Except . . .

He’d always worked on the premise that she would escape while outside with him.

A SnowDancer wolf, however, that altered things.





Chapter 8


Empaths are now the most critical Psy in the world. We all fall if the Honeycomb falls.

—Editorial, PsyNet Beacon


ALEXEI WAS CONSCIOUS of the E staying motionless in the lower bunk, could all but feel her wary attention burning through the bottom of his bunk. He’d assigned her the lower berth because her movements, while better than when he’d first found her, remained uncoordinated, and he was afraid she’d wake disoriented and tumble out of the upper one.

His own reflexes were fast enough that he could be on the floor a heartbeat after hearing or scenting any sign of a threat. But he didn’t say that aloud—not when he could taste the acrid scent of her fear in the air. The idea of being helpless with a predator in the room was crushing even her lion’s heart.

Claws slicing out to dig into the mattress, Alexei focused on ensuring his breathing was deep and even, of a man who had fallen into slumber. The rustle below was a long time coming. He guessed she was curling up onto her side. Her breath fell into the rhythms of sleep not long afterward, her will to stay awake no match for her exhaustion.

Alexei, in contrast, stayed awake for some time, his eyes locked on the ceiling but his mind on that bunker. He didn’t have to be a psychologist to know that Memory was far better socialized than she should be if she’d spent years as a captive. She not only interacted with him, she reacted in appropriate ways—anger included. She’d definitely been ready to stab him with her fork when he’d poked at her about her bird-sized portions. A bit of deliberate provocation on his part to get her to eat—if only to shut him up.

Even a woman of her petite size needed more fuel than she’d been taking in.

So yes, Memory’s reactions had been about what he might’ve expected—in a woman who hadn’t been caged for a long period. On the flip side, the too-small clothes he’d spotted in the wardrobe hadn’t lied. He’d seen no signs of a second captive, so those clothes had been Memory’s at some point in time.

The two facts didn’t mesh.

A woman held captive since childhood shouldn’t be as functional as Memory.

The mystery followed him into sleep, his rest the shallow one of a soldier on watch.



* * *



? ? ?

A scream pierced his mind. He reacted to the terror in the sound before he was awake enough to think conscious thoughts. Moving with predator speed, he jumped off the bunk to land in a crouch on the floor, his shirtless back to Memory’s bunk and his attention on the door.

That door was open, as he’d left it because Memory didn’t respond well to small, enclosed spaces. Nothing moved beyond . . . but there was an unknown scent in the air. A dark and coldly metallic scent that made his wolf’s fur stand up and its upper lip curl—he knew that scent, had tasted it in the bunker.