Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(52)

“I will take that secret to the grave.” He threw across two pairs of pants.

Alexei pulled on a pair because he knew Judd hadn’t quite got to the point where he could shoot the breeze with two naked changelings. Alexei’s wolf didn’t understand the other man’s reluctance—skin was just another kind of fur to a changeling—but what the hell, it was a small enough favor for a friend. The quick task completed, he sat down with his back against the tree.

Judd took a seat beside him, the warm body of Matthias’s wolf pressing against Alexei’s other side. “Fuck you, assholes,” Alexei said, his chest tight.

Judd handed him a beer.

Shifting at the same time, Matthias pulled on the other pair of pants. When he was done, the six-foot-six male built like a tank took a beer, reclaimed his seat, and said, “It’s almost tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” The first anniversary over and done with . . . and it hadn’t been an awful day. His eyes returned to the glow of the compound. “Did you hear about my E?”

“Uh-huh.” Matthias stretched out his arms. “Eli went up with Hawke to check out that bunker. Said she attacked you.”

“Sienna mentioned that your E put her in mind of a small tornado,” Judd added, his voice cool—but that meant nothing, a leftover habit from his time in the squad. “All fury and untamed strength.”

“I like her already.” Matthias grinned. “You think she’d be into a large wolf who resembles a bear?”

“She’d kick your beary ass.” Alexei felt his lips tug up at the thought of Memory poking at him, ignoring his threats to bite her.

“From what I’ve heard, she’s tough,” Judd said quietly. “A lot of will in a small body.”

Matthias yawned. “I like little things.”

Well aware the big male was messing with him, Alexei narrowed his eyes. “Want me to tell Nell you’re on the prowl?”

“I can wring your scrawny neck without breaking a sweat,” Matthias muttered while Judd fought and failed to hide a grin.

“Try it and lose your fur,” Alexei said, conscious that slender and steel-willed Nell was Matthias’s weak spot.

The other man had been trying to court her for over a year, but she was having none of his rough charm. Possibly because she’d seen Matthias charm many a woman out of her panties. Between his mom and his dad, he had ancestry from the Far East, Spain, and Tanzania; it had left Alexei’s friend with smooth dark skin and one hell of a face. A lot of women took one look at that face and were ready to follow him into a bedroom. Matthias hadn’t ever been shy about accepting the offers, either.

“You’re still celibate?” Judd asked before Alexei could broach the topic of Matthias’s itchiness under the skin.

“Damn woman is going to drive me to insanity.” He glared into his beer after shoving a hand through the shaggy brown-black of his hair. “I brought her a bunch of flowers today. Actual wildflowers I picked myself like some romantic schmuck. You know what she did? Put them in a glass of water.”

Judd raised an eyebrow. “Shocking.”

“Yeah, real hardcore stuff.” Alexei was trying not to laugh at his poor friend’s morose expression, but it was hard.

“Then she gave the glass of flowers I picked for her to Lara, who was passing by.” Matthias’s voice was all grumble now. “Why is she like that?”

Alexei’s grin cracked his face. “Maybe because you two were in the same classes in school and she saw you work your way through the girls like a multicourse buffet?”

“Even I’ve heard of your teenage exploits,” Judd put in. “Weren’t you once discovered in bed with an entire team of cheerleaders?”

Matthias groaned. “I was sleeping. It just happened to be the only open spot.”

“Right.”

“Screw you, Sexy Lexie.” Matthias punched him on the shoulder. “One time, at a high school party, Nell saw me chatting up a girl, being all smooth and charming. She raised her eyebrow and told me my zipper was undone, then left.”

Alexei snorted beer out his nose he was laughing so hard, and even Judd gave it up. Matthias threatened to pulverize them both. But Alexei’s shoulders didn’t stop shaking for a long time. His wolf was wildly amused by the thought of a teenaged Matthias’s ego being so swiftly deflated by razor-sharp Nell.

It felt strange to laugh on this day, but afterward, he raised his beer to the night sky and said, “Fuck you, Brodie. I hope Etta is kicking your ass every damn hour of every damn day.” Shifting his gaze to the compound below, he thought of the woman who’d made this day far better than it should’ve been.

Sleep well, lioness. Dream of wolves. He scowled. Scratch that. Dream of this wolf.





Chapter 24


Progress is being stalled by the heavily encrypted protections on a large percentage of historical data. Considerable data also appears to have been scrubbed from the system, creating holes that are impossible to fill with any accuracy.

—Report to Ruling Coalition from Research Group Gamma-X, Silence & Outcomes


AS MEMORY FELL into sleep surrounded by the primal scent of a golden wolf, another Psy mind shrugged off the last of its decades-long sleep and came fully awake. The waking had been happening in fits and starts ever since the fall of Silence and the creation of the Honeycomb. It had worried him at first, his intense discipline integral to his sense of self—he’d believed the sudden influx of emotion into the PsyNet was subverting his mind.