Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(47)

Grandfather. Father. Brother.

Hell of a family history.

Then the E who kept on derailing his thoughts poked him in the biceps again. His wolf growled, wondering if it really should bite her. Just a nip to warn her not to aggravate peaceful wolves. “What?”

“You went into a dark place,” was the stark answer. “It’s not good for you.”

“Empaths,” he muttered instead of snapping at her, because snapping at her for sensing his emotions would be like her yelling at him for scenting her fear or pleasure. “Can’t even let a man brood in peace.”

But Memory, as he’d already learned, had a steel core to her; she wasn’t about to be distracted. “What’s wrong?”

Alexei’s jaw grew hard, as hard as he wished his fucking heart would become. He was ready with a flip answer when he glanced at her and saw that she was holding herself very still, her eyes staring out the rain-splattered windshield with fierce concentration. Though he was no empath, he knew that she expected to be rebuffed, expected to be treated as if she didn’t matter.

Fuck that.

“My brother died a year ago today.” His blood boiled, his skin hot. “The bastard’s in the ground and I can’t fucking kick his ass for being gone.” He couldn’t even bring himself to visit the place where he’d buried Brodie. No marker, no headstone, as was the SnowDancer way, wolves simply returning to the land that was their heart.

Some chose to be scattered on the winds, others to rest forever beneath ancient trees.

Alexei had chosen an outlook above a breathtaking drop Brodie would’ve loved to rappel down while Etta watched proudly and took photos. Brodie had always shown off for his mate, like a young boy trying to impress a girl. The two of them had been inseparable despite the fact Etta was as calm as Brodie was wild.

Packmates who’d visited the couple’s resting spot in spring had told him that tiny flowers had bloomed in the grass. It didn’t matter. Alexei knew Brodie wasn’t really there in that beautiful place; he hadn’t been there since the day he went rogue. Hawke had executed a broken shell, not Alexei’s fearless big brother.

And Etta . . . she’d gasped out her wish to be buried with Brodie with her last bloody breath, well aware that her mate would be executed. The pack had no other option. Not when he’d attacked his beloved Etta. Her family had accepted both her choice and Alexei’s suggestion of burial site, but she wasn’t there, either. Her sweet spirit was long gone.

“It hurts all the time when you lose someone, doesn’t it?” Aged pain in Memory’s quiet voice. “It gets old, the pain, but it never stops.”

Alexei thought of a tiny girl watching her mother’s brutal murder, only to find herself in the hands of the murderer. No time to mourn as she fought to survive and stay sane. No loving arms to rock her when the nightmares hit. Alexei had been so fucking angry after they put Etta and Brodie in the earth, had refused all offers of comfort. Hawke had found him nonetheless, and they’d fought. Tooth and claw and blood. Until Alexei could think past the haze of fury. He couldn’t cry, not then, not now, but he was functional again.

“Yeah,” he said, brushing his knuckles against her cheek. “It hurts like a bitch.”

The slightest movement against his knuckles before he dropped his hand, his E accepting the comfort offered.

“What was it like,” she asked, “having a sibling?”

“He was my big brother.” A constant presence in Alexei’s life. “I never knew what it was like to not have a brother. He was the first person I told all my secrets and dreams.” It was Brodie who’d broken their childhood trust, Brodie who hadn’t confided in Alexei when the demons began to howl.

“On human comm shows, siblings fight. Did you?”

His lips kicked up. “Not much. Most of the time, I was his loyal minion in many a scheme.” A faithful lookout while Brodie tried to climb an out-of-bounds tree, a small helper when Brodie decided to build a catapult to launch himself across a waterfall, a staunch ally when they got caught.

“Brodie was the one who came up with the plans, but we’d make it happen together.” Alexei looked back into the sepia-toned past, saw two wild boys running through the trees. “When I got made lieutenant, then assigned to my own den, Brodie packed up and came with me.” So Alexei would have family nearby if he ever needed to decompress and not be a lieutenant, just a wolf kicking back.

“You aren’t based here?” Memory asked, a tone to her voice he couldn’t quite decipher.

Alexei shook his head. “Three-month secondment.” Ensuring its senior members rotated every so often to a different section of the territory was part of how SnowDancer kept its sprawling pack united. It was also good for Alexei to experience what it took to run the large main den at his alpha’s side—should Hawke ever need him to switch dens or temporarily take over for another lieutenant, he’d be ready.

“Brodie would’ve probably swung by for a visit by now if he’d been around.” Checking up on Alexei, making sure he was settling in okay to a more senior lieutenant’s duties. “He was a good big brother.”

Memory folded up the empty granola bar wrapper and put it in her pocket. “That’s why you’re sad and angry. It wouldn’t hurt so much if he’d been a bad one.”