Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(30)

Muscles so tense it was almost painful, Alexei stared at Memory’s back, willing her to turn. His alpha was right. Alexei had to be rational and cold-eyed about this, no matter how much his wolf was coming to respect his lioness of an E.





Chapter 14


Further photographs of the E with Renault just discovered by the tech team. Attached. My contact in the Net has also unearthed her original adoption papers—stamped by a telepath in the former Council superstructure. The Tp held too much rank to be involved in something this mundane unless he was doing it as a favor. We can’t ask him about it though; he suffered an unfortunate accident two months after the adoption went through.

—Message from Judd Lauren to Hawke Snow


MEMORY KNEW THEY were talking about her. She couldn’t hear them, but she knew. The wolf with the pale, pale blue eyes and hair of silver gold, his presence a pulse of power, could be deadly to Memory. She knew Alexei would follow the dictates of his alpha, even though—as the growling, infuriating wolf himself had pointed out—he’d saved her.

The alpha wolf, however . . . She shivered. He didn’t know her except as images on a screen, except as words on a piece of paper. How could she possibly explain to him what it was to be a prisoner who walked the world and yet couldn’t cry out for help, could never scream?

Today, she threw back her head and screamed up at the sky.

Startled birds flew out of the trees and she knew the two men—as well as the others who waited in the trees—must think she was insane. She didn’t care. She was a little insane. And she missed Jitterbug. And everything hurt.

It didn’t hurt when Alexei held you.

She paused, blinked, her breath uneven. She hurt all the time, as if tiny knives stabbed constantly at her skin. But the stabs had stopped when Alexei wrapped her up in his arms. Not just today, but in the night, when he’d tucked her against the hot silk of his bare chest. She was so used to the pain that the idea of a growling wolf banishing it had her shaking her head in mute disagreement.

One of the others she’d sensed in the trees walked out at that instant, a small rucksack on her back. She was of medium height and average build, her blonde hair in a ponytail that brushed her nape; her emotions were calm, without jagged edges, though a familiar wildness prowled under her skin.

Memory turned to watch her come closer.

The woman smiled at the alpha wolf and Alexei, but headed directly to Memory. “I’m Lucy.” A cheerful smile. “Nurse from SnowDancer. I’m meant to do a physical, make sure you’re healthy and don’t have any deficiencies or injuries—but it’s your call. Except in emergencies, healers don’t go where we’re not invited.”

Memory’s entire body, which had stiffened when Lucy first spoke, now began to relax. She didn’t like the idea of a stranger touching her, but she had questions about her health. She’d seen the way Alexei moved, the way Lucy had walked across the snowy field, the way the deadly alpha flowed with predatory grace.

Memory’s body didn’t function the same, hadn’t done so for the past year. She was uncoordinated and imprecise at times, her limbs not obeying the dictates of her mind. She hated the idea that Renault’s psychic assaults had permanently damaged her, but she had to know.

“Can we go inside?” The words came out husky, her throat rough from the scream.

“Of course.”

Memory led the nurse inside without further words. She was aware of Alexei and the alpha wolf coming to stand in the substation doorway— which they propped open—and knew it was because they didn’t trust her with Lucy. It hurt her under her simmering anger at the world, but paradoxically, she was glad of their presence.

She had no way of knowing what Renault had planted in her head. She’d been his puppet for fifteen years. He’d dug around in her brain as if it were his personal playground—the only thing that had put any kind of a limit on his invasions had been the risk of permanently injuring her ability.

He needed what she could do. He needed her darkness.

Once inside the bedroom, she cooperated with all of Lucy’s tests, even when the other woman asked to take a blood sample. “I want a copy of your results,” she said to Lucy. “I need to know myself.”

“Standard procedure,” Lucy assured her, taking the blood sample with gentle competence. “Just so you know, changeling healers kind of sit outside the power structure of a pack.” She put the sample away in a special case. “We don’t get involved in politics and we ignore the rules, except when it comes to the safety of the pack. Our priority is the patient.”

Memory wondered if she’d fall under the single caveat. Would her blood show a risk to the pack? She couldn’t see how. Renault’s abuses and manipulations had been mental. It was her own private darkness that lived in her blood, a secret ugliness she could never expose to the world.

“Done.” After putting away her tools, Lucy opened up another compartment in her rucksack. “You’re underweight and slightly malnourished, but not enough for it to be dangerous. Especially if I get you on a replacement routine.” She passed over a small, sealed box. “One sachet into a glass of water, mix, and drink with every meal.”

The box had the markings of a commercial health firm and appeared to be nothing but a potent mix of vitamins and minerals. “Thank you,” she said to this wolf who had been nothing but kind; her throat felt thick, her eyes hot.