Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(71)

—DarkRiver Security Log


TWO HOURS AFTER the attack and Alexei pulled on his favorite black sweater. He was already wearing a black tee, hadn’t needed the extra layer until his body began to cool down. Riaz’s strong and striking partner in life and love, Adria, had remembered to bring him down a change of clothes after she got assigned to the compound’s security team.

Alexei and that team had worked together with the cats to clear away every last sign of violence. Two brawny leopards had turned up with shovels and literally buried the blood that had soaked into the ground. Alexei had been concerned the Es would refuse to remain near the scene of such vicious aggression, but those of Designation E were tougher than they looked. Now that the first shock had passed, they were gritting their teeth and getting on with it.

“We can’t insulate them from the real world,” Ivy Jane Zen had said when she and Sascha arrived to deal with the fallout, her mouth bracketed by white lines. “Es have to be able to function around pain, around death.”

The two senior empaths were staying the night and had already spoken to the trainees one by one. Memory alone wasn’t on their list. Sensing her emotional stability, they’d roped her into distracting those Es who’d appeared particularly shaky—she’d done so by showing her charges articles from the Wild Woman magazines she’d found on a bookshelf in her cabin.

Oddly, all the Es—his lioness included—had appeared fascinated by the articles, their heads huddled together as they discussed certain points in great detail. Now, at last, the rest of the Es were all settled in their cabins and Memory sat on her porch, a tough-as-a-wolf princess in an airy skirt and sparkling shoes.

Except her eyes held infinite darkness when he reached her. “Do you think it came here because of me?” she asked, her voice haunted.

Alexei told himself not to growl at her. “It wanted the Arrows, not you.” The growl really wanted to come out. “Have you eaten dinner?” It was nearly eight-thirty at night.

When she shook her head, he clenched his jaw. “Tell me I can go into your kitchen.” He would not enter her territory without her permission.

She shrugged and propped her chin on her hands, elbows braced on her thighs. “If you want.”

He returned after heating up one of the ready meals stocked in all the cabins. Then he scowled at her until she glared back and took a bite. After watching her take another bite, Alexei did what he’d been itching to do all night and pulled out the band corralling her curls.

They exploded around her head.

Shooting him another death glare, she pointed her fork at him. “Who said you had those skin privileges?”

“You did. We had a deal, remember?” He was no sly cat, but strategy was his middle name. “You reneging?”

A narrowing of her eyes. “Fine. But don’t think this’ll get you kisses.”

Despite his earlier thoughts, Alexei felt exactly like a damn cat as he tugged and released and generally amused himself with the wildness of her hair . . . and the ache inside him, the constant throb since he’d stopped being near her, it began to ease.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Yet he couldn’t walk away. Not tonight. Not when Memory was so alone in her uniqueness. “I love your hair.” The words just fell out of his mouth.

Pausing mid-bite, she shot him a dark look from under her lashes . . . but her lips tugged upward. The entire day got better. Going back into her kitchen, he made them both a coffee, then came to sit beside her.

His thigh pressed against her. It twisted him up how badly he wanted to touch her, how much that small contact meant to his wolf, but he didn’t create distance between them. Neither did she, her skirt fluffing out over his boot. Finishing her meal in silence, she put it aside, then picked up the coffee he’d adulterated with hot chocolate after spotting the new container sitting on her kitchen table.

The heat from the mug seeped into Memory’s palms, but it was the heat of Alexei’s body that held her captive. Her skin tingled where his thigh pressed into her, and as for her scalp, it felt electrified from his earlier playing. He’d had such a wolfish look on his face as he touched her in a way she’d allow no one else.

“Do you think the intruder will come back?” she said, forcing herself to think about the danger rather than the pleasure of sitting with Alexei under a starlit sky. She couldn’t face the subject of Yuri and Abbot again yet, but they were there always, at the back of her mind.

“You said he was out of control, so yeah.” He stared out at the night. “What I don’t get is why the attempt to turn Arrows? Why not attack Es directly?”

Memory sipped at the coffee . . . and tasted chocolate, too. Her stomach grew warm, her toes curling in her shoes. “I don’t know if logic played a part.” Shadows drifted across her thoughts once more. “The attack was a thing of chaos.”

Alexei’s phone vibrated before he could reply. Taking it out, he glanced at the screen. “It’s Hawke.”

Whatever his alpha had to say to him, it had Alexei’s claws sliding out of his hands, his voice turning cold. His last words were, “Yes, I’ll tell Memory.”

Palms suddenly clammy, Memory wondered what fresh horror was about to descend upon them.

“You want to hunt Renault?” Alexei asked after hanging up.

The answer required no thought. “I want to destroy him, make it so he can’t hurt anyone else ever again.”