Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(4)

And a predatory changeling wolf of Alexei’s size and training was strong.

Far, far stronger than the Psy who’d probably built this thing.

Yeah, it could’ve been a changeling or a human who’d put this trapdoor in place, but he didn’t think so. Such a thing couldn’t be built in so small a space; it had to have been brought in, and no human or changeling could have ever traipsed through wolf territory carrying a trapdoor, or pieces for its construction, without being spotted. Not even at their weakest had SnowDancer let its borders fall to that extent.

Psy, then.

Nearly all Psy underestimated changeling strength by a large margin.

Only one problem though—there was no way to get leverage anywhere near the hinges. No gap through which to insert his claws. No twisted or warped area to provide even a minor entry point. He could leave it, ask his packmates to come up with tools, but he’d have to be a psychopath himself to abandon the E. Her crying had become quieter inside his head, even more lost.

She was breaking his heart and he wanted to growl at her to stop it, even knowing his response was irrational. Another part of him wanted to gather her in his arms while he growled at her—Es had that in common with changelings: they liked touch, hurt without it. So he’d promise to cuddle her if she’d just stop hurting.

Wiping away water from his face, he switched focus to the lock.

No way to open it, but the part where it was attached to the main body of the trapdoor was bolted down into rusting metal. Teeth bared, Alexei grabbed the entire lock mechanism and wrenched.

His biceps bunched, his abdomen clenching.

One pull. Two. Three.

A metallic groan as part of the attachment tore away from the base. It only took one more pull to break it fully off. Dropping the entire mass of cold and rust to the side, he inserted his fingers through the small warping in the iron where the lock had been bolted and used that grip to lift up the trapdoor.

It came away with a loud creak.

He halted, but the waves of emotion didn’t stop or blip. No audible alarms went off. No voices rose in a shout. And no new living scents hit his nose.

Opening the trapdoor the rest of the way, he propped it up against the opposite wall. He wasn’t afraid of it falling in. With the lock gone, he could push it open from the inside with only minimal effort.

Blackness greeted him when he first looked inside the space exposed by the opening. But his night vision didn’t let him down and he was able to confirm the floor wasn’t a dangerous distance for a jump.

He dropped down into the hole without further delay, landing silently in a hunting crouch.

A second later, a high frequency hum had the tiny hairs on his arms rising, his wolf flashing his canines. He shook it off, but made a note of what it represented: you didn’t get that hum with newer lights, only the old ones that occasionally flickered and failed. Dust drifted around him, the motes caught in the extremely faint light emanating from some distance away. He followed that light, followed the grief.

A door stood in his way, barred and bolted from his side, with iron padlocks at the end of each bolt.

A cage.

His wolf ready to kill by now, he looked at the door and saw it was wood. Heavy wood that would’ve stopped most people.

Alexei slipped his claws in under the hinges and pulled.

The first pull created enough space for true leverage. The second gave him room to properly grip the wood.

He wrenched.

The grief hitched at last. The empath had heard him this time . . . but there was no spike of fear, no terror, a worrying flatness under the grief. Not a lack of emotion. A numbness caused by constant pain.

Maybe he’d try not to growl at her. It’d be difficult since he’d been in a bad mood for twelve months, but scaring an E wasn’t a thing to be proud of—it’d be like stomping on a kitten.

Heat building in his muscles as he worked, Alexei kept going until he’d created enough weakness in the door that he could tear it off its hinges.

It hit the exposed stone wall of the tunnel with a hard thump.

Light poured out, muted and cold.

He walked in.





Chapter 2


Empaths are uniformly seen as good, but no sentient being is a two-dimensional caricature. We all have our light and our shadows—this truth is a core reason why I titled this book as I did. Because even Es aren’t without darkness. How can they be? They often deal with the grimmest and most violent emotions of them all.

—Author’s Note, The Mysterious E Designation: Empathic Gifts & Shadows by Alice Eldridge (Reprint: 2082)


SHE STARED AT him from where she sat crumpled on the floor, her tight black curls a wild and matted mass and her dark brown eyes huge and tear-reddened in a triangular face with a pointed chin and lush lips. Her skin was a pallid brown devoid of the glow that came from the heat of the sun, and her clothes hung off her frame: faded blue jeans, a large black sweater, and old canvas sneakers.

Her scent was soap and salt and an intrinsic bite he couldn’t name.

In her arms, she held the body of a gray cat from which Alexei could scent the tiniest edge of decay. Ragged thin fur, a sense of fragility—the cat had been old when it died. A creature that had gone when its time had come, not one whose life had been stolen. The E held it with infinite care, and when Alexei did nothing to approach or startle her, she bent her head over her dead pet and cried again, her grief like waves crashing against his skin.