Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(84)

Alexei let her hold him as he hadn’t allowed anyone to hold him for a long time. But he couldn’t cry, the tears locked up in concrete inside his heart, the hard substance formed of his anger and his pain.

“Just because this happened to members of your family, doesn’t mean it’ll happen to you.” Memory’s voice was fierce.

Alexei wished he could grab on to the hope, hold on. “There’s a stressor.” He spoke against her ear, the words coming out husky and rough. “My father never said much about his father, but as a child, I once overheard him telling my mother that, according to older packmates, my grandfather began to act strange prior to going rogue. Spending long hours in wolf form and becoming aggressive toward his mate when he’d always before been gentle.”

Sitting back so she could see his face, Memory frowned. “Did the same thing happen to your father and brother?”

“My father was always a little different from other changelings.” Not that Alexei had consciously known that as a child—to him his dad was just his dad. “We stayed out for weeks at a time in the wilderness, and I don’t think my father ever shifted back into human form except when my mother made him. I didn’t know that wasn’t normal.”

“So he was always predisposed to it? Then why are you worried it’ll happen to you?”

“After my father’s death,” Alexei said, “we had to know the truth. We asked our aunt.”

“Why not your mother?”

Alexei squeezed his eyes shut. “She couldn’t live with the horror of what he’d become. She took a massive overdose of sleeping pills right after he was executed.”

Memory felt a wave of fury roar over her, directed at a woman who’d permitted her own pain to overwhelm her duty to the two small souls who looked to her for hope, for answers, for love. Forcing the anger into a tight knot in her gut, she focused on Alexei.

“I was nine by the time we demanded the truth from Aunt Min, Brodie eleven.” Alexei’s voice was ragged, his muscles rigid. “She said our father’s DNA had been tested, but as with all rogues to date who’ve been examined, the scientists found no genetic red flags.”

Alexei’s claws slid out. “I knew there was more. I could tell. I asked and asked until she finally admitted that our father hadn’t begun acting the way he did—feral, secretive, just a little strange—until he mated.”

A sudden chill settled on Memory’s skin. She’d been around changelings enough by now to understand what mating meant to them. She’d also felt the intense power of that bond in the glimpses she’d caught during her mental sessions with Sascha.

Conscious that Memory had gaps in her emotional knowledge, particularly when it came to a healthy and loving relationship with a man, the cardinal had been very generous with her. Never revealing intimate details, but bringing Memory into her life, as if Memory truly was Sascha’s little sister.

Even when Memory was mad with Alexei and fighting with him, the idea of being bonded as deeply to him as Sascha was to Lucas, it had been her secret dream. “Mating is the stressor?” she forced herself to ask.

“Brodie and I, we made a promise to each other to never get mated,” Alexei ground out. “Then we grew up and began to forget, and Brodie fell in love.” A twist of his lips. “Etta was tall and slender as a reed, and as sweet and shy as Brodie was outgoing, and he adored her. When the mating bond called, he didn’t resist.”

Memory’s heart ached for a man and a woman she’d never met, would never know.

“The behavioral changes were subtle, but I’d known Brodie my entire life. I could see it happening, see him morphing into our father. He held on for three years before he surrendered to the wolf.” Alexei dropped his hands to the seat, his claws slicing into it.

His torment was a wild creature in his eyes.

Pressing her forehead to his, Memory cupped the side of his face, her first priority to comfort him any way she could. “You think the same thing will happen to you if you mate.”

“Starting with my grandfather, every male in my direct line has gone rogue after mating—my father lasted the longest, nearly ten years, but he was increasingly erratic for at least four of those years.” Alexei’s jaw turned to granite under her touch. “No matter how anyone tries to spin that, they can’t make it add up to any other conclusion.”

Amber eyes locked with hers, nightglow in the private dark of the Jeep. “I’m never going to be able to drop my guard enough to mate. I can’t, not if I want to survive.” Claws slicing back in, he gripped her nape, his next words a rough whisper. “And not if I want to protect the woman who’s mine.”

Memory had a hole inside her, needed to belong in the deepest way to her golden wolf. “Can you love without it being a risk?” she whispered.

“I don’t know.” Harsh words, but his hands, they stayed careful on her. “I’m not whole, Memory, not in the way you need.”

Heat in her belly. “You let me decide what I need.” Drawing back, she stabbed a finger into his right pectoral and said, “And I’m not certain I believe in your curse, either.”

“Memory.”

“Did your father spend years learning to be a disciplined SnowDancer soldier, then lieutenant? Did your brother?” It sounded as if, along with loving his mate, Alexei’s beloved older brother had been an adrenaline junkie who liked breaking the rules. “You growl and snarl, but you’re always in control.” Not once had he so much as scratched her with his claws.