Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(67)

Memory had every intention of biting Alexei with those teeth.

“Here.” Alexei handed her his jacket.

About to snub the offer, Memory looked at his face and realized the obstinate wolf wouldn’t take her deep into the forest unless she agreed to this. And Memory needed to leave, to get some clear air. Also, it was cold now that the sun had set. Snatching the olive-green thing from him, she shrugged into it, then rolled up the sleeves with quick motions.

The two of them had just stepped beyond the tree line when a roar of sound hit Memory’s telepathic senses. Not an attack. A call for help, directed at her. “Yuri!” She turned on her heel . . . and a scream split the air, reverberating against the trees.



* * *



? ? ?

ALEXEI was moving even before he’d consciously processed Memory’s reaction and the chilling scream that followed. “Talk to me!” he said to her as the two of them ran back to the compound.

“Yuri yelled for help!”

Fuck! Yuri was the most senior Arrow in the compound. Why would a man of his lethal skills call for an inexperienced E? It had to be bad.

“Go!” Memory yelled, a sob in her voice. “I can’t keep up! Yuri’s mind is gone! I can’t reach him!”

Alexei pounded into a ground-erasing run, his heart punching against his rib cage. He could have a catastrophic medical emergency on his hands. Sascha had briefed him on the compound when he first took over Indigo’s oversight task, and one of the things he’d learned from her was that many newly emergent Es didn’t know how to protect themselves against dangerous surges of emotion.

If Yuri was dead as a result of violence . . .

Memory was still standing, he reminded himself. It gave him hope. Until he scented wet iron on the air. Blood.

His gaze snagged on a fallen body.

Yuri was down with a bloody wound to the head. A silent weapon, because Alexei’s acute hearing had picked up nothing of the attack itself, only the aftermath. Three collapsed bodies lay on the ground nearby, all of them twitching.

Empaths who’d overloaded at the close proximity to violence.

Other black-clad men and women were hauling Es out of danger. But what the fuck was the danger? Who had managed to not only invade this deep into predatory changeling territory, but take down an Arrow honed by decades of active duty? He dropped down beside Yuri’s body, felt for a pulse with no real hope. The senior Arrow’s face was awash in blood, part of his skull blown off.

Jesus!

“He’s alive!”

An Arrow Alexei recognized as a trained medic slammed down beside him, already tearing off her jacket to stanch the bleeding.

Memory’s voice crashed into him at the same instant. “Abbot!” She hit the edge of the chaos, her chest heaving from her headlong run and her skirt like air around her. “Alexei, it’s got Abbot!”

Alexei snapped his head toward where he’d last seen the Arrow with black hair and searing blue eyes. Abbot had been grabbing Es and ’porting them out of danger, but now he stood with his weapon in his hand, and that weapon was pointed directly at a dark-eyed empath with a lovely oval face.

Jaya.

Alexei began to move, but he was too far away. He couldn’t knock the weapon out of Abbot’s hand faster than the man could activate it. Jaya held out her hands, palms up. “Abbot, habibi”—soft voice, no hesitation—“this isn’t you. Fight it. Use the bond that ties us together and fight it. I’m your wife. Your Jaya.”

As Alexei watched, a vein began to pulse in Abbot’s temple, sweat dripping down his face. His jaw clenched . . . and the gun began to change direction. Toward Abbot. All at once, Alexei knew who had taken out Yuri.

He was close enough now to slam his body into Abbot’s arm, but Abbot was a strong Arrow, and Alexei was a split second too late. The weapon went off.

Blood sprayed the air.

Jaya screamed, “NO!”

Her terror was grating claws on his skin, Abbot’s blood iron in his nose.

Memory ran past him in the direction of another Arrow—one who only stepped in for the odd security shift to keep her skills sharp. Elsewise, Cristabel was one of the squad’s most respected trainers. Right now, Cris was standing there, looking confused, doing nothing aggressive at all, but Alexei trusted Memory’s instincts. She’d been right about Abbot.

He took off in her wake, quickly passing her.

Cristabel was just reaching for her weapon when Alexei got to her. He knocked her out with an uppercut to the jaw. He was careful to pull the punch because Psy bones were weaker than changeling. Cristabel went down, but she was very much alive.

“Incapacitate yourselves and each other!” he yelled at the Arrows. “You are the threat!”

The black-clad men and women were used to making split-second decisions, and they’d witnessed both Abbot’s and Cristabel’s inexplicable behavior. One by one, they took one another down until only one was left. Amin, who’d incapacitated multiple of his brethren with quick efficiency, nodded at Alexei to do the same to him. But his eyes changed even as Alexei moved, a strange blankness coming over them.

His weapon was in his hand a heartbeat later.

Rather than pointing it at Alexei, he pointed it at an empath crouched on the grass, her hands over her ears as she whimpered and rocked back and forth. Alexei had only one choice. To put himself in between Amin and the E. He did so without hesitation . . . just as Amin collapsed.