Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(99)

The wolf took off to the west.

“Follow me,” the woman said. “I’ll show you how to confuse your trail so it’s not the most powerful of the three scent trails.”

Memory went, taking mental notes as her guide ran through a list of pointers. They ended up at a rocky section of land.

“Stones don’t hold scent as well,” she was told. “Breeze is also going in the wrong direction to help Lexie.” Another grin that lit up the dark of the woman’s eyes. “Good luck.”

“Thank you.” Memory’s heart began to race again. “Wait, what’s your name?”

“Sing-Liu, and if any asshole wolf tells you to call me China Doll, stab them for me. Except if the wolf’s name is D’Arn. Him, I’ll handle privately.”

Then the two of them were separating, Sing-Liu going in the direction where the wind would carry the scent to Alexei, while Memory went the opposite way.

The game was back on.



* * *



? ? ?

ALEXEI bared his teeth when he scented Riaz’s path intersecting with Memory’s. His fellow lieutenant should’ve known to leave her alone. Alexei had made sure to rub up against her until no one could mistake that she was his; the scent wasn’t deep enough to hold through a shower, wasn’t in her skin as it would be if they exchanged intimate skin privileges, but it was enough to warn off other wolves.

The only thing that kept his annoyance down to a slight grumble was that Riaz was devoted to Adria and would have no interest in Memory as a woman. So why the fuck had the two of them headed off together? He’d strangle Riaz if the other male had scared Memory.

What the hell? Now Sing-Liu was in this, too. He growled as he circled the area to see their next step. The trail split in two.

Oh.

Alexei’s jaw fell open in a wolfish laugh.

His packmates were helping Memory.

Fair.

The human part of Alexei agreed with the wolf’s determination. Memory had done a good job of slowing him down by walking in the stream, but she had no training in eluding a hunter.

Regardless of Riaz’s and Sing-Liu’s entrance into the game, Memory’s scent was a luminous beacon to him, fresh and luscious and warm. He tracked her to the stony area where he’d often played as a trainee soldier. That was where it got interesting. The scent split again, then disappeared over the stone. Alexei retraced his path, went back over the stone step-by-step.

Stubborn, defiant, strong.

Teeth bared, he followed the scent of his E. But his packmates were clever. Riaz and Sing-Liu had doubled back and circled and overlapped the scent trails until he had difficulty telling which one was of Memory alone—or if she’d decided to be tricky and head off with one of the others to confuse him.

He threw back his head in a joyous howl, delighted with this game. Delighted, too, that his packmates were playing with her. That wasn’t an expected thing; Riaz and Sing-Liu were powerful and high-ranking members of SnowDancer, and Alexei hadn’t made a public declaration about Memory . . . except for all the food gifts he’d been leaving at her door, and the way he’d brought her deep into SnowDancer territory for this game.

As one distant packmate then another responded to his howl with their own, he ran on under the moonlight, on the hunt for an empath who retaliated against him by drowning him in rainbows and sparkle and delight. The wolf snorted. She was about as scary as a pup. And both parts of him adored her.

He couldn’t wait to catch her.





Chapter 46


Intimate skin privileges are a gift never to be taken lightly.

—From the June 2079 issue of Wild Woman magazine: “Skin Privileges, Style & Primal Sophistication”


MEMORY DIDN’T KNOW what warned her that she was in the crosshairs of a wolf. Perhaps her empathic senses had caught Alexei’s wildness on the wind, a whisper so subtle that only her instincts understood. Those instincts told her to run or hide.

Pulse a staccato beat, she ducked down behind a large bush, and tried to stay very, very still. As far as she could tell, the breeze was working against him; it was possible he’d pass by without spotting her.

No sound but the boom of her heart.

Then the rustle of a wolf loping away.

Memory waited several more minutes before beginning to rise to her feet, her intent to run in the opposite direction. Most of the way up, she peeked over the bush . . . and came nose-to-muzzle with a wolf.

Crying out and laughing at the same time, she turned and ran. The wolf jumped the bush to come after her, and she was laughing too hard to get much farther before he caught up and ran around her to face her. He snapped his teeth at her. She snapped back. And then was laughing again as she went down to her knees.

Nudging at her with his head, he tumbled her to her back on the pine needles. The air fractured with light without warning. She froze, her eyes huge . . . and a man with wind-tumbled golden hair and eyes that glowed in the darkness was braced over her where the wolf had been. “Good game,” he said, his voice so rough that she knew the wolf remained close to the surface of his skin.

Placing her hands on his shoulders—his skin was so silken and hot—she luxuriated in his closeness, his scent darkly masculine and his heat a blanket. “I’m going to get better.”

He grinned and altered position so that his entire body covered hers. His lower half pressed into hers, while he used his forearms to keep his upper body off her. “I’ll teach you how to trick me,” he promised before dropping his head to her throat and nuzzling.