Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(65)

Even Lara had gotten into the act—and she had a newborn pup who’d decided he enjoyed being awake all hours of the day and night. Walker, the healer’s mate, had become a familiar sight in the corridors at night, as he paced quietly up and down with their pup cradled against his chest—in hopes that the irritable little guy would decide he actually wanted to behave like a sensible newborn and sleep now and then.

Hawke had pulled alpha privilege and taken the week-old baby with him for a night shift the other day so the couple could get uninterrupted hours of sleep. Alpha and newborn had apparently had a grand old time, but so soon after birth, the pup was too little to spend much time apart from his parents with anyone other than his alpha, so the rest of the pack had to contain their champing-at-the-bit desire to pupsit.

As for Lara, she was radiant. She’d kissed Alexei on the cheek when he went to visit, and, with a straight face, requested he bring her his special wolfy chicken soup. Toby, the now-teenaged cardinal she’d claimed as her own with fierce maternal love when she mated his uncle, had protested innocence when Alexei accused him of bringing the news to her ears. The kid was a fucking terrible liar. It was a good thing Alexei’s wolf liked him.

His own second-in-command, Ember, had picked Memory for the eventual winner in the game.

“I’ll remember this,” he threatened when they spoke over the comm, only for her to laugh and ask him to send her a photo of his E.

“She’s not my E.” Could never be his anything if he wanted to keep her safe.

But when he went down to the compound toward the end of a glorious mountain sunset and spotted Memory sitting on the porch of her cabin with her shoulders slumped and her eyes on the ground, he had to grip the trunk of a tree to stop himself from striding directly to her. “What happened?” he asked Jaya; the young empathic teacher had been pacing in the trees when he arrived.

Fine lines flared out from the corners of her eyes. “You know Memory and Amara are continuing to work together?”

“Yes.” Alexei wasn’t exactly happy about that, but Memory needed to practice cutting the feed, and Amara was the safest suitable option.

Not that anyone trusted Ashaya’s twin an inch. Memory always had backup, Alexei included. He just remained out of sight, ready to offer a physical assist if Sascha called for it. “She disengaged Amara on her own yesterday.” Pride burned in him, as hot and dark as it had while he stood with his back to an external wall of the old cabin and listened to her gasp at her own success.

He’d lost the battle to leave a congratulatory gift at her door.

He wondered if she’d thrown the colorful beaded necklace in the garbage. Word from the wolves who ran patrols along here was that Memory now gave the death stare to any wolf who crossed her path. His packmates blamed him for making a pretty woman mad at them, while Alexei’s wolf fought not to eviscerate the assholes for attempting to flirt with her.

He couldn’t stop looking after her, but he wasn’t going to be the dog in the manger. Memory deserved to be loved, deserved to be adored. If Alexei couldn’t do it, he had to let her choose another man.

His claws sliced into the tree trunk. “Did Amara hurt Memory?”

“No, it’s not that.” Jaya slid her hands into the pockets of her jacket, her lilting voice holding the cadence of her homeland, lush green atolls set in turquoise-blue lagoons. “Memory’s phenomenally powerful. She won’t have her new Gradient tests until she’s had a bit more training, but it’s obvious she’s over a 9. And there’s so much stubborn will there. I’ve never seen her give up. She just gnaws at a problem until she figures it out.”

That was his E with the heart of a lioness. “Then why does she look like that?” She’d hunched her shoulders forward under a bright pink top with glittering silver shoulders, and bowed her head; her exuberant curls were restrained with a thick black hair tie.

“It’s her psychic scent.” Lines of strain marked Jaya’s normally smooth skin. “She comes back smelling ‘wrong’ after every session with Amara, as if she’s a different and far colder person under the skin. It’s eerie and it makes the other empaths react badly.”

Alexei thought of that night in the substation when she’d screamed and screamed and he’d caught a hint of a scent on her that wasn’t her own. A dark and ugly scent. It had happened again that first session with Amara, but he’d shrugged it off as an artifact from Amara herself, an imprint left behind even though the scientist had departed the cabin.

“Are they isolating her?” His claws dug deeper into the tree trunk. “She needs people.” His lioness had spent too long alone, was never happier than when surrounded by others.

Riaz was enjoying laughing at Alexei at present, but his fellow lieutenant also let Alexei know how Memory was doing during the times she interacted with him. “She’s hardly ever alone,” the other man had said after a recent patrol shift. “The others gravitate toward her porch and my wolf can feel her delight in their visits. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was part-changeling.”

Alexei had seen the same on his own visits, had found himself thinking that she’d love living in a wolf den. She’d probably join up with the maternal cabal and delight in sweetly interfering in the lives of her packmates. He’d made a bet with himself that Memory not only sushi-rolled her towels and put rose petals in with her clothes, she did the same for her friends.