Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(77)

On the other side of the street stood a knot of young males, all dressed to the nines, with their black hair slicked back; they laughed and talked as they shared a packet of sweets. A group of women around Memory’s age wearing matching cheongsams—maybe a performance group of some kind—smiled coyly at the youths as they passed.

A quick-thinking boy offered them a sweet, and the women’s bright laughter sparkled in the night air.

Memory moved on. She didn’t know where she was going. It wasn’t as if she could outrun her own disgust with herself. She’d never been like those laughing young women, never walked hand-in-hand with a man through the city streets, never been clean and shiny and new.

How foolish to have imagined that she could have Alexei for her own.

He was a creature of this world, of light. Memory was a nightmare.

When the couple ahead of her turned off on a side street, she didn’t follow them. Their happiness made her feel even more hollow inside. Tonight, however, she couldn’t avoid the happy couples and the smiling groups out for a joyous night. They were everywhere.

At one point, her eye caught on the lone figure of a man who sat in a chair on a porch just up from the sidewalk. He looked as alone as she felt, his gnarled hands clasped on his cane and his gaze on the endless night. Then the door opened beside him and another man emerged with two mugs. A smile lit the seated man’s seamed face.

Hugging Alexei’s jacket closed around her body, her heart a block of ice, she kept on walking. Renault wouldn’t come after her tonight; his telekinetic power had to be close to flatlining. As for any other psychopaths who might be walking the streets, she could block any connection they attempted to make. The nothingness wouldn’t suck her under.

But what if that’s your destiny? whispered a tormented piece of her soul. What if all this, trying to live a life, that’s the illusion?

Eyes hot, she ducked her head and continued to put one foot in front of the other, and when she scented salt air, she went in that direction. The wharf she found was bustling with stalls all open for the night. People milled around her, having conversations in so many languages that it became music in the air. She smelled things she’d never before smelled and her stomach finally woke up, rumbling in expectation. But she had no money, wasn’t used to being out in the world and needing it.

That seemed appropriate for a woman who didn’t exist.

Walking past the crowded area, she found a quiet spot on the sidewalk and, bracing her arms on the railing, stared at the silken dark glide of the water while her mind churned and guilt gnawed at her insides.



* * *



? ? ?

ALEXEI’S wolf had snarled when he realized Memory had slipped out of the hospital, but he hadn’t griped at Clay, even though the other man had been annoyed at himself for not keeping a closer eye on her. Alexei knew all too well that Memory was a woman who made her own decisions. If she’d decided to go, Clay couldn’t have stopped her.

“I’m sure Vashti’s dad said something to your E,” Clay’d told him, a muscle working in his jaw. “Man’s not in a good headspace.”

And Memory was a handy target.

Leaving Vashti under the cats’ more-than-capable watch, Alexei had headed out after his aggravating E who needed to be held, not walking the streets alone. He’d been planning to tease her into letting him cuddle her after he got back from the café. Prior to that, he’d swept the hospital for any sign of Renault in the company of another DarkRiver soldier while Clay kept watch outside the operating room.

His wolf grumbled the entire way to her, the wildness in full agreement with the human side of Alexei: he was allowed to growl at Memory this time. At least she wasn’t difficult to track—her scent was embedded inside him, until he sometimes thought he could scent her on his own skin.

But now, as he stood half a block away from her, any thought of growling at her disappeared. All he wanted to do was hold her. Head bowed and shoulders slumped for the second time that day, she looked so desolate and alone that it infuriated him. His Memory was a determined fighter, a tiny woman with the heart of a lioness.

Nothing defeated her. Not even a lifetime of captivity.

Striding across the distance between them, he put his arms on either side of her own on the railing, and pressed his chest against her back.

She stiffened. “Go away.” Instead of her usual defiance, he heard tears perilously close to the surface.

“Not a chance.” Closing his arms around her, he rubbed his face gently against her temple, a wolf attempting to give comfort.

Biting back a sob, she twisted; he thought she was trying to get away, but she turned and buried the side of her face against his chest. Holding her tight, he nuzzled her curls and tried not to act the enraged wolf at seeing her in such pain. “You saved a life today,” he reminded her roughly. “We would’ve never found Vashti without you.”

Hands fisting at his back, Memory said, “Renault only took her to get to me.” The words trembled. “I’m the reason she was taken.”

Alexei couldn’t hold back his growl this time. A couple of nonpredatory changelings nearby decided they’d prefer to walk on the other side of the road. The woman in his arms, however, smaller and far more bruised inside, looked up at him with a dark flash in her eyes. “Don’t you growl at me. I’m crying! You can’t growl at me while I’m crying!”