by Nalini Singh
“Hard day.” Alexei’s voice vibrated in her bones.
Soaking in the intimate sensation, she lifted her lashes and looked out at the falling night. Time had passed quickly in the cabin. At one point, Alexei had left to bring them food. The leopard outside had stayed, keeping watch while appearing to nap like a giant kitten.
“I feel as if I’ve traveled a thousand miles in the space of a single day.” The Memory who’d entered that cabin was not the Memory who’d left. “Sascha insists I’m an E.”
“I guess you’d better get used to being in the Collective—word is, once you’re in, there’s no chance of parole.” Amusement in the statement. “Es hold on to their people.”
“I’m beginning to understand that.” Regardless, it’d take her time to process. Going from believing herself a monster to accepting the label of an empath was no easy matter. “Ashaya’s so . . . real, but Amara . . .”
“Yeah.” Alexei shoved his hair off his forehead.
Her attention shifted, snagging on the silky golden strands.
He shot her a highly wolfish look—a highly Alexei look. “Remember our deal. No touching unless I can touch back.”
Memory’s toes curled; she was nearly certain he wasn’t just talking about hair. The idea of his rough-skinned hands moving from her nape to lower down her body . . . Her abdomen tensed, the strange, fluttery feeling returning. It almost made her forget the state of her hair.
Lifting her hand to her matted curls, she shook her head. “Not yet.”
Alexei jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I picked up a few things from your list when I went to grab food. No talk of debt, lioness. It’s a ‘welcome to the territory’ gift.”
Memory went quiet. No one since her mother had ever just given her something with no expectation of a return. Renault had only fed her so she’d be strong enough to drain. He’d given her access to education only so she could pass for normal when he had use for her in the world. Even Jitterbug’s food had a catch attached—Renault had brought it in only so he could use her pet to control her.
Alexei wanted absolutely nothing from her in return for the items in the box on the backseat—or for the food he kept giving her. Her heart felt too huge in her chest, her skin not enough to contain it.
“It doesn’t hurt to let someone help you,” Alexei grumbled, his hand tight on the steering wheel.
Memory wanted to open her mouth, explain to him—but how could she explain her overwhelmed reaction to a wolf who’d grown up surrounded by pack? She’d felt Alexei’s intense loyalty to his alpha—and she’d felt the same loyalty coming from the other direction. He could have no comprehension of what it was like to grow up with only a psychopath for company.
He growled into the silence. “I saw you not eating most of your food, by the way.” Shoving a hand into his pocket, he dropped another bar in her lap. “Granola. It’s good.”
Beware of wolves bearing food.
Sascha’s amused voice echoed in her mind; the cardinal had made the comment when Alexei returned with their meal. He’d winked and told “Sascha darling” that she was safe. At the time, Memory had taken it to be a wolf-leopard joke, but she was no longer so sure. Narrowing her eyes, she said, “Does it mean something if a wolf brings you food?”
Alexei’s eyes gleamed when he shot her a look. “In this case it means I was brought up to look after tiny starving Es who think they’re lions.”
Gritting her teeth, Memory reached out and poked him in the arm again. He didn’t threaten to bite her, just sent her an amber-eyed glance that said her punishment would keep. Her breath caught, her toes curling inside her shoes.
“If you don’t like the granola bar,” he said after returning his gaze to the forest track, “tell me what you will eat and I’ll make sure you have it.”
Since the only reason she’d picked at her earlier meal was because it had been too close to her encounter with Amara, her stomach slightly nauseous, she opened the granola bar and took a cautious bite. Her eyes widened at the mix of sweet and salty, richness and nuttiness. Examining the wrapper, she saw it was a flavor called “Salted Caramel Almond.”
The wolf in the driver’s seat made a pleased rumbling sound in his throat when she devoured half the bar in a matter of seconds. Memory couldn’t even be annoyed with him, not when he’d blessed her taste buds with this divine deliciousness. “Do you always have these in your pockets? I’m going to rob you if you do.”
A sharp grin that made him beyond beautiful. “Heart-stopping” might be the better description. Memory wanted to sit on his lap and trace that grin with her fingers, just drink it in. Probably he’d bite her if she got her fingers that close to his mouth.
She squeezed her thighs together against a sudden deep ache low in her body.
“I usually grab a couple of different bars from the boxes the kitchen puts out. That’s from yesterday. Flavor the day before was peach with dark chocolate, another day it was dried cherries and walnuts.”
“Will you bring me more?” she said on a wave of wild joy in this moment with her golden wolf . . . and felt her spine lock. As an adult, she’d made it a point to never ask Renault for anything—it had only ever meant humiliation. Only for Jitterbug had she broken her rule, taken the abuse. But Alexei wasn’t Renault.
He said, “If you promise to eat them.” A dark look. “No granola bars if you’re determined to stay a skin-and-bones lioness.”
Memory glared at him. “I’m eating this, aren’t I?” She took a big bite for good measure. “And why do you keep comparing me to a lioness? I’m Psy.”
“You have the ornery temper and mental roar of a she-lion,” Alexei said with a mock wince that earned him another glare. What he didn’t add was that she had the heart of some big, wild creature, too; Memory was a survivor, a fighter, and he liked being around her, aggravation and all.
His fingers flexed on the steering wheel on a sudden wave of guilt. How could he grin on today of all days? Brodie had been fucking executed a year ago today. Twelve months without his brother and his sister-in-law. Three hundred and sixty-five days since the second-to-last remaining member of his direct paternal line went rogue.
Grandfather. Father. Brother.
Hell of a family history.
Then the E who kept on derailing his thoughts poked him in the biceps again. His wolf growled, wondering if it really should bite her. Just a nip to warn her not to aggravate peaceful wolves. “What?”
“You went into a dark place,” was the stark answer. “It’s not good for you.”
“Empaths,” he muttered instead of snapping at her, because snapping at her for sensing his emotions would be like her yelling at him for scenting her fear or pleasure. “Can’t even let a man brood in peace.”
But Memory, as he’d already learned, had a steel core to her; she wasn’t about to be distracted. “What’s wrong?”
Alexei’s jaw grew hard, as hard as he wished his fucking heart would become. He was ready with a flip answer when he glanced at her and saw that she was holding herself very still, her eyes staring out the rain-splattered windshield with fierce concentration. Though he was no empath, he knew that she expected to be rebuffed, expected to be treated as if she didn’t matter.
Fuck that.
“My brother died a year ago today.” His blood boiled, his skin hot. “The bastard’s in the ground and I can’t fucking kick his ass for being gone.” He couldn’t even bring himself to visit the place where he’d buried Brodie. No marker, no headstone, as was the SnowDancer way, wolves simply returning to the land that was their heart.
Some chose to be scattered on the winds, others to rest forever beneath ancient trees.
Alexei had chosen an outlook above a breathtaking drop Brodie would’ve loved to rappel down while Etta watched proudly and took photos. Brodie had always shown off for his mate, like a
young boy trying to impress a girl. The two of them had been inseparable despite the fact Etta was as calm as Brodie was wild.
Packmates who’d visited the couple’s resting spot in spring had told him that tiny flowers had bloomed in the grass. It didn’t matter. Alexei knew Brodie wasn’t really there in that beautiful place; he hadn’t been there since the day he went rogue. Hawke had executed a broken shell, not Alexei’s fearless big brother.
And Etta . . . she’d gasped out her wish to be buried with Brodie with her last bloody breath, well aware that her mate would be executed. The pack had no other option. Not when he’d attacked his beloved Etta. Her family had accepted both her choice and Alexei’s suggestion of burial site, but she wasn’t there, either. Her sweet spirit was long gone.
“It hurts all the time when you lose someone, doesn’t it?” Aged pain in Memory’s quiet voice. “It gets old, the pain, but it never stops.”
Alexei thought of a tiny girl watching her mother’s brutal murder, only to find herself in the hands of the murderer. No time to mourn as she fought to survive and stay sane. No loving arms to rock her when the nightmares hit. Alexei had been so fucking angry after they put Etta and Brodie in the earth, had refused all offers of comfort. Hawke had found him nonetheless, and they’d fought. Tooth and claw and blood. Until Alexei could think past the haze of fury. He couldn’t cry, not then, not now, but he was functional again.
“Yeah,” he said, brushing his knuckles against her cheek. “It hurts like a bitch.”
The slightest movement against his knuckles before he dropped his hand, his E accepting the comfort offered.
“What was it like,” she asked, “having a sibling?”
“He was my big brother.” A constant presence in Alexei’s life. “I never knew what it was like to not have a brother. He was the first person I told all my secrets and dreams.” It was Brodie who’d broken their childhood trust, Brodie who hadn’t confided in Alexei when the demons began to howl.
“On human comm shows, siblings fight. Did you?”
His lips kicked up. “Not much. Most of the time, I was his loyal minion in many a scheme.” A faithful lookout while Brodie tried to climb an out-of-bounds tree, a small helper when Brodie decided to build a catapult to launch himself across a waterfall, a staunch ally when they got caught.
“Brodie was the one who came up with the plans, but we’d make it happen together.” Alexei looked back into the sepia-toned past, saw two wild boys running through the trees. “When I got made lieutenant, then assigned to my own den, Brodie packed up and came with me.” So Alexei would have family nearby if he ever needed to decompress and not be a lieutenant, just a wolf kicking back.
“You aren’t based here?” Memory asked, a tone to her voice he couldn’t quite decipher.
Alexei shook his head. “Three-month secondment.” Ensuring its senior members rotated every so often to a different section of the territory was part of how SnowDancer kept its sprawling pack united. It was also good for Alexei to experience what it took to run the large main den at his alpha’s side—should Hawke ever need him to switch dens or temporarily take over for another lieutenant, he’d be ready.
“Brodie would’ve probably swung by for a visit by now if he’d been around.” Checking up on Alexei, making sure he was settling in okay to a more senior lieutenant’s duties. “He was a good big brother.”
Memory folded up the empty granola bar wrapper and put it in her pocket. “That’s why you’re sad and angry. It wouldn’t hurt so much if he’d been a bad one.”
“Wise little lioness,” he said, because it was all getting too deep, and soon she’d have him talking about the terrible history of the Harte/Vasiliev family and what it meant for Alexei.
Just as well that they arrived at the compound a bare minute later. The only ones up and around under the wet sky were the Arrows. “Home sweet home.”
Home.
Memory didn’t know what that meant anymore.
Light glowed from the windows of the cabins around Memory’s. Inside those cabins were empaths. Memory’s peers. Normal people who hadn’t grown up in a cage.
Her fingers curled into her palms just as Alexei came around to open her door. Leaning both arms up against the top of the car, he looked at her . . . and his eyes, they glowed slightly in the dark.
“Oh,” she whispered, her fingers rising of their own volition.
She jerked them back the instant she realized what she was about to do, but then Alexei deliberately lowered his head, just far enough that she could reach. And Memory found that she was weak where a certain golden wolf was concerned. Heart tight, she ran her fingers through the heavy silk of his hair.
It was cool from the misty rain and slipped like water through her fingers. She didn’t stop with one stroke, caressing him in the same way Sascha had caressed her mate that morning. “I like petting you,” she said, because hiding it was impossible.
When he made a rumbling sound in his chest, she found herself exerting more pressure, and running her nails along his skull. The eyes that met hers were pure amber now, the look in them distinctly feral.
Memory shivered, but didn’t stop the touch. Moving one hand, Alexei brought it to her face; her pulse kicked, her breath became shallow. He cupped the side of her face, ran the pad of his thumb over her lower lip. That lip immediately felt plumper, more sensitive.
“You have very kissable lips,” he murmured in a voice that wasn’t wholly human. “But I would be a very bad wolf if I took advantage of you today.”
Memory fisted her hand in his hair, suddenly full of hot, burning energy that pumped her veins with fire. “I’m not a weakling to be taken advantage of,” she said, her voice hard. “Not a child to have my decisions made for me.” Twisting in her seat so that her feet hung out over the edge of the vehicle and she was face-to-face with Alexei, she went to kiss him to show him that she was the one making the decisions . . . and realized that she had no idea what to do.
Watching comm shows on which people kissed, it turned out, didn’t prepare you for the reality of such intimate physical contact. A thick, dark heat began to creep over her skin, a far different thing than the fury that had erupted inside her on the heels of his words. Then Alexei rubbed the pad of his thumb over her lower lip once more, scrambling her thoughts all over again.
“If I get in trouble because of this,” he drawled in a gritty voice, “I’m going to punish you.” His hand slid from her cheek to her nape, the subtle pressure he exerted telling her exactly how to angle her head to put herself in perfect position for his kiss. She was in no way prepared for the brush of his lips against her own.
Sensation jolted through her, a thousand lightning bolts.
Breaking away, she sucked in a breath. Amber eyes watched her, predatory in a way that made every tiny hair on her arms rise in primal warning and her thighs clench. The tight, pulsing feeling between her legs ached and felt good at the same time.
When she didn’t make any move to take her hand from his hair, or to get out of the vehicle, he smiled slow and dangerous. “More?”
“More,” she rasped out, suddenly aware that he could get away with a whole lot if he aimed that smile in her direction. She’d be putty in his strong hands . . . and under his mouth. This time, he held the contact longer, the pressure warm and firm and causing sensations in her abdomen that had her twisting in her seat. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear it any longer, he closed his teeth gently over her lower lip and tugged.
Memory jerked back, bracing both hands on the seat as she gasped in gulps of the cold night air.
The wolf who’d just kissed her smiled. “Teeth are a known hazard when tangling with wolves.”
Chapter 22
Unlike big, burly bears with their adorably soft hearts that us wild women have to be careful not to bruise, wolves have egos that are titanium over iro
n. It takes a great deal to insult a wolf, so if you manage it, kudos to you. He’ll probably give you ten thousand orgasms in revenge. You poor, poor thing.
—From the December 2079 issue of Wild Woman magazine: “Skin Privileges, Style & Primal Sophistication”
HIS E LOOKED delicious. All huge eyes and plump lips that he wanted to devour. It had taken incredible willpower on his part to keep the kiss so gentle—and even then, he hadn’t been able to resist that playful bite at the end.
He was a wolf, after all.
He should’ve felt bad for kissing a woman so recently out of bondage, but as she’d said, she wasn’t a child to have her decisions made for her. Memory was a survivor. A fighter. A woman who looked him in the eye and dared him to make anything of it. And she’d definitely wanted to kiss him. Her arousal was a sweet, sexy musk in the air . . . but her eyes were lost now, her fingers clutching at the leather of the car seat.
She’d chosen to kiss him, but she was having difficulty processing the aftermath. As for Alexei’s own arousal, it would have to remain a frustration. It still made his wolf smug to know that he’d been her first kiss, but that was where things would stay until she was ready for more.
What if your fierce lioness chooses someone else?
That a buried part of him had even asked that question had him pushing away from the door. “Let’s get you inside.” He held out a hand because, bad for his control or not, he’d noticed she liked to make physical contact, was happy with it. “You need to rest.”
When a frown formed between her eyebrows, he thought she was gearing up to argue with him, but she hopped out of the car. Shutting the door behind her, he grabbed the items he’d bought for her and—well aware she remained leery of the Arrow squad—kept his body between her and the guards as they walked to her cabin.
He waited on the porch while she went in to turn on the lights. After placing most of his gifts just inside the doorway, he busied himself loading up her new datapad with catalogs he thought she might like.