Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(54)

Growling, Alexei packed up the very useful item he’d chosen for Memory, then left the den.

The Arrows didn’t stop him when he walked into the compound and up to her cabin. He could scent her inside . . . could scent himself, too. Frowning, he glanced to where he’d left his clothes and boots; no rain fell to blur the darkness, the landscape clear to his night vision. His clothes were gone. A slow smile curving his lips despite himself, he put her gift beside the doorway, then stepped away and made his way back to the den. He’d just walked inside when his phone buzzed.

It was Brenna, Judd’s mate and part of the den’s tech team. “You said to let you know when we tracked down this Renault psycho.”

Alexei altered direction, aiming himself toward the tech center. “What’ve you got?” Brenna’s focus was meant to be on cutting-edge research, not computronic tracking, but Alexei knew the dark reason why she’d thrown her considerable brain power behind the search for Renault.

“An address beyond his official business or residential ones,” she told him. “You know the cats checked out those addresses for us when you first sent us the name? Bastard was gone by then.” Brenna’s voice held the urge to slice and dice the man who’d kept Memory prisoner, her wolf fully on Memory’s side despite having never met her.

“Yeah. Hawke told me.”

“Well, E. David Renault laid an excellent false trail,” she continued. “I’m finding signs of serious long-term planning. I’ll say one thing—the psycho is intelligent. He exists on a superficial level, but dig below the first two layers and it’s all smoke and mirrors.” A pause before Brenna said, “Will she be all right?”

Having reached the tech center by then, Alexei entered and made his way to her. “She’s like you,” he said to this packmate who’d survived her own monster. “Tough as nails.” Brenna let him run her ponytail through his hand, the silky blonde strands dipped in pink at the bottom. “She has plans to get strong, then chop Renault into small pieces.”

“Tell her I’ll carry her knives for her.” The pinched look faded from Brenna’s extraordinary eyes, the dark brown of her irises shattered by arctic blue shards. A scar she’d turned into a badge of survival. Those eyes were innocent as she said, “Did she really accuse you of being a chicken?”

Alexei growled. “Was it one of the asshole cats prowling around the compound? It was, wasn’t it? Tell me. I need to know who to kill.”

A giggle from the packmate next to Brenna’s workstation, while Brenna herself rose and kissed him on the cheek, her own cheeks creased in a smile that lit up her whole face. After that, it was all business.

Brenna told him that her team had already ruled out two locations—one in Arizona, one in Nevada—that had earlier come up as Renault’s secret home base. She’d gotten a couple of the WindHaven falcons to fly over and double-check their assessment. “Falcons confirmed both were basically shells with some window dressing. No signs of actual habitation.”

This third address was in the heart of San Francisco.

His wolf stirred.

Alexei had asked Judd how far Renault could teleport regularly given his official Gradient level. The San Francisco location was well within his range if he needed to go back and forth to the bunker. Not only that, according to the financial records Brenna had hacked, the bills paid for this property for consumables such as energy fluctuated through the seasons—as they would for a household in use.

“One of his few mistakes,” Brenna said after bringing up the bills. “That, or he believed these records couldn’t be hacked.” A snort. “I could hack the PsyNet if only I could find a way to jack in.”

She used deft movements of her right hand to manipulate the large screen. “Last automatic upload to the billing server was eight hours ago—and someone was doing things at that address that required energy. Arrogant bastard could be hunkered down there—maybe he wants to be nearby so he can try to grab Memory again.”

Alexei pressed a hard kiss to her jaw. “You’re a fucking queen. Send any updates to my phone. We’re going to move.”

It took him less than ten minutes to put together an assault team.

Hawke was a given—he needed to question Memory’s captor about the bunker. Matthias because he was an extra body in the den whose absence wouldn’t cause a hole in their defenses. Judd because having a Tk along seemed a good move when they were dealing with another Tk.

The fifth member of their team was Sing-Liu. D’Arn’s deadly human mate could climb and move as quietly as any cat and throw a knife with pinpoint accuracy. She could also appear small and curvy and harmless, and was willing to play “simpering damsel,” if necessary, to throw Renault off the scent.

“I’ll take the humiliation out of your hide later,” she warned Alexei.

Prior to leaving the den, Alexei called and asked to be put in touch with the leopard on patrol in the area around Renault’s home. He got Emmett Schaeffer, a rough-hewn soldier with sharp eyes, who promised to keep the townhouse under surveillance and follow anyone who came out. “Can’t follow a teleporter,” he pointed out. “But he’s probably asleep—no movement that I can see. External security lights are on, but nothing inside.”

Had Emmett said Renault was there and active, Alexei would’ve swallowed his need to personally haul Renault in for Memory’s vengeance, and asked the leopards to go in. “If that changes, you let me know.”