Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(26)

So no one would hear a psychic cry for help. “Did he do that to you, too?”

Alexei’s claws scraped the inside of his skin when Memory nodded.

“He knew she always picked me up at that time, that I’d be with her. He told me if I screamed or made any kind of a disruption that attracted attention, he’d cut my mother into tiny little pieces, but that if I was quiet, he’d let her live.” The flatness broke, but not into tears. Into a red-hot anger. “That psychopath is not my father. He stole my life. He will not steal my identity. My name is Memory Aven-Rose. My mother’s name was Diana Aven-Rose. She named me Memory because I was her most important one. The only memory that mattered.”

According to the records SnowDancer had unearthed, Memory had been adopted at eight years of age, in the aftermath of her mother’s death. Those records had said nothing about the circumstances of her mother’s death, which wasn’t surprising—Diana Aven-Rose had been murdered while the Psy Council was in power, and it wasn’t to the Council’s advantage to have their people aware of the psychopaths who walked among them.

Silence, after all, was meant to have fixed the insanity and violence that stalked the Psy race.

“I believe you.” No one could fake such anguish, such gut-deep anger.

Memory’s gaze searched his face, her body yet rigid. “Will your pack?”

Alexei considered how to answer that. “Psy,” he said at last, “have harmed SnowDancer multiple times over the years.” It had never sat right with the Council that the wolves were so independent and had so much power. “We have Psy packmates and allies now, and no longer see your race as a single entity, but trust with unknown Psy is still a tough road. You’ll have to earn it.”

Memory looked away and out into the misty gray dawn, tiny droplets of water beaded on her eyelashes. “I’m going to hurt Renault, stop him before he takes another child. He taunted me that he would, that he’d find a replacement. I won’t let him do that to anyone else ever again.”

A slam of ferocious anger.

Alexei clenched his jaw. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought it an attack. “Memory.”

His growl had her snapping, “What?”

“Before you turn rampaging Valkyrie,” he said with a slow smile designed to infuriate her, “you’ll have to learn to shield your emotions.”

She blinked before he caught a sudden glow in her cheeks that he was sure was a blush, hidden though it was under the rich hue of her skin. Ducking her head, she closed her eyes and fisted her hands. The anger retreated, but it wasn’t gone; he could sense it lapping at the edges of his consciousness. “Thanks,” he said, and took a sip of the coffee. “I like your claws, lioness.”

Memory flexed her fingers and stared at them. Alexei could almost hear her thought processes—she wanted claws like a wolf’s. So she could shred her captor into tiny, bloody pieces.

Alexei’s wolf watched her in primal approval, intrigued by this little E with bloodthirsty vengeance on her mind. He didn’t, however, have much longer alone with her. A minute earlier, he’d caught a distant howl on the wind that would’ve been inaudible to Memory’s ears: his alpha was on the way.





Chapter 13


Until the next life, my love.

—Tristan Snow’s final words, spoken to his mate, Aren


HAWKE HAD RUN up to the substation, his skin itching with energy. Sienna was with Lucy, the two of them driving up in an all-wheel-drive vehicle that held a medical kit. Sienna was fast, but she couldn’t keep up with Hawke when he ran at full alpha speed. He stayed in human form today, but he was as much wolf as man as he flowed through the forest on predator-silent feet.

The moisture-laden mist felt good on his heated skin when he stepped out of the trees.

He spotted Alexei at once. The lieutenant was seated on a large mossy rock next to the substation door, his legs sprawled out in front of him, and his back leaning up against the wall of the substation. His hair glinted gold even in the dull light, and from his pose, you’d have thought he was asleep.

A small woman who burned with anger paced back and forth not far from Alexei. Her movements were like a clockwork toy’s at times, jagged and uncoordinated, while at others, they smoothed out. As if her brain was short-circuiting between one step and the next, then starting again.

A sudden jerking halt, her head whipping toward him.

Hawke lifted a couple of fingers to his temple in a casual salute. Interesting that she’d picked him up from so far away. He knew one empath very well, and Sascha Duncan made a point of staying out of people’s emotions except when they were too close for her to ignore—as a wolf picked up scents, an E picked up emotions.

This E had to be wide open if she’d sensed Hawke from all the way across the clearing. Either she was scanning the area on purpose, or her shields were paper-thin. The latter would make it difficult for her to survive around a large group of people, while the former would be another strike against her status as an innocent victim.

Then there was Alexei’s report about her ability to impact changelings with potent emotional broadcasts. A weapon? It was a possibility Hawke couldn’t discount, not when pockets of the Psy race remained violently opposed to the Ruling Coalition’s progressive decisions—including the decision to sign the Trinity Accord. To those Psy, changelings remained an inferior race that had to be brought to heel.