by Nalini Singh
Renault stared around the warehouse before leaning down to calmly right the chair. “If you’re attempting to get to the door, don’t bother. I twisted the lock with Tk. I’ll have to untwist it to let you out.”
Memory had no intention of just believing him. She’d see for herself.
“As for paying you . . .” Taking a seat on the chair, he propped one ankle over his other knee, a CEO at rest. “How about your new allegiance to the wolves and the Empathic Collective?”
Sascha, Jaya, the stipend provided so Memory could live a free life, the open embrace of her divergent abilities . . . Renault couldn’t hope to understand the bonds she had with her fellow Es and she could use that to her advantage. Where was the Collective when you had me in the cage? She considered what to say next, what he’d buy. I won’t betray the wolves, since they let me out of the cage, but you don’t do business with them anyway, so there’s no conflict.
Another pause, just as she reached a spot with a sightline to the door. Not only was the lock twisted, but so was the security bar across the doorway. No one but another telekinetic would be getting through that door. She wished she had her phone, some way to warn Alexei, but Renault had smashed it to pieces after first tying her to the chair.
Not about to give up, Memory searched the walls of the warehouse for another exit.
All she could see from her current position were the high windows and the huge roller door used for deliveries. That door wasn’t an option—the access scanpad was just visible to her, and she knew it had to be secured against unauthorized use.
“An intriguing proposal,” Renault said aloud, and she knew he wanted to push her into a mistake. A single spoken word and he’d know her general location in the warehouse. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” he added.
Memory tried to think like a smart monster. Because under the influence of drugs or not, Renault was smart. But Amara was smarter. Never could Memory have predicted that she’d one day tell herself to think like Amara, but that might just be the ticket here. Amara would no doubt be highly amused when Memory shared that fact with her post-transfer.
You are the only person I know whose motives are crystal clear to me, she said. We have a relationship. Others in the world want to use me, but there is a risk they’ll overuse and break me. You know how to control the draw.
“Yes,” Renault murmured, the sound barely reaching her. “That much is undeniable. You are helpless against a transfer.”
Not anymore, you pathetic psychopathic coward.
Can I ask you something? He appeared rational at this second, and it might be the only chance she had to get this information for Alexei’s pack. How did you know about the bunker? she said, directing her next words at his ego. It’s so secret.
“I bet your wolf friends are going crazy trying to find the answer,” he said, conceit in his laughter. “My father was a teleporter who worked with a bunch of scientists. He got paid to create that bunker, and once he was done, he took me there to show me what he’d made. He had some ridiculous notion that I would follow in his footsteps—as if I would waste my energy on manual labor. But I filed away the visual references just in case.”
Memory dared another question. Oh, so other people do know about the bunker? It’s not just our place? The words made her want to throw up, but they got results.
“Everyone else who knew is dead. Probably killed by the wolves.” Renault’s tone said he didn’t care. “I eliminated my father when I began to indulge in my hobby. Couldn’t have him deciding to teleport into what he considered his best work, could I? Not when it was my special secret place.”
A crackle of sound that sent a chill down Memory’s spine.
“Your mother had such thick ebony hair,” he said in a honeyed tone. “It’s one of my favorite souvenirs.”
Memory bit back her scream and stayed silent. The monster would pay for her mother’s death and the deaths of all the others.
“You don’t want to see? I’ve kept it nice all these years for you.”
Keeping a tight grip on her rage, Memory forced herself to say, It means nothing to me. Do you want to make a deal or not?
“It is a nice surprise to see you’ve absorbed my business acumen.”
I have no problem with allowing you to use my abilities, Memory said. But I want an apartment and pretty clothes and the freedom to go out in the world in between.
“How much?” The words were clipped, cool, businesslike.
Memory had no idea what to ask for, so she went for ten times her stipend from the Collective.
Renault snorted. “You have a high opinion of yourself.” He offered a far lower number, and they got down to negotiating.
Memory went along with it while intensifying her search for a weapon. That’s too low, she said at one point. Designer clothes cost money.
“This is my final counteroffer.” Renault named a figure and a schedule of expected visits.
Memory took her time forming an answer. I’ll take that if you organize an apartment for me, she said, forcing a hint of fear in her voice, though she wanted to—as Alexei had suggested—kick him in the nuts. A small place. I don’t like wide-open spaces. That would please Renault. Even when Silent, he’d fed on the pain and fear of others.
She didn’t know how else to explain it—he was a psychopath, but to an empath like Memory, psychopaths did have the facility to feel pleasure, though their version of pleasure wasn’t anything a person with normal emotions would understand.
“Of course, of course,” he said, his voice modulated into the soothing tone he’d used with her when she’d been younger.
Memory had never fallen for it; in the forefront of her mind was the memory of the same voice saying ugly things to her mother as he hurt Diana Aven-Rose. At times, she’d pretended to listen, but only because she had to survive so she could get her revenge.
“We’ll make it a quiet place,” Renault said in that same rage-inducing voice. “You know you’ll be more comfortable that way.”
Memory’s eye fell on a wrench sitting on the shelf in front of her. Sweat broke out on her spine as she stared at it. Forcing herself forward, she tried to close her hand around the tool, but her hand trembled, froze. Before, vengeance had always been an idea, a future concept that made her bare her teeth in relish. The thought of doing actual violence, however, of causing bloodshed, made her gorge rise.
Damn it! This was the exact wrong time to discover she was very much an E.
But . . . Es fought back when monsters threatened their own. And Alexei was on his way to her. She wasn’t about to stand back helplessly while her mate took on a psychopath who would never fight fair. Setting her jaw, she closed her fingers around the wrench and held it firmly to her side.
Renault did not get to hurt her golden wolf.
Once again, she thrust destabilizing emotions at Renault while watching him from her hiding spot. He frowned and touched his temple, but remained otherwise unaffected. Memory’s own head ached.
“Enough talking.” A punch of telepathic power.
Memory bit down so hard on her lower lip that she tasted blood. Barely able to breathe past the pain caused by the attempted breach, she began to make her way back toward Renault. The mating bond surged inside her, a protective thing with claws and teeth. Pressing her hand against her heart, Memory tried to convey that she was all right.
The idea of Alexei frantic for her made her hand tighten on the wrench.
Stop, she telepathed to Renault. Stop. I’m coming. All the while, she told herself to think like the most dangerous, most calculating person she knew. The facts hadn’t changed—she couldn’t win physically against a Tk of Renault’s strength. Not in a fair fight. But the way he’d set up the chair in an open space in the warehouse meant she couldn’t sneak up behind him and whack him over the head.
M
emory, Memory, Memory. A sigh from the ghost of Amara in her head. Have you learned nothing? We don’t whack people over the head. We make them whack themselves.
Memory’s gaze fell on the rope at his feet.
Smile slow, she squared her shoulders and focused her tiny amount of Tk to nudge the rope around his ankle. Gently. Gently. Tie the knot.
A keening sound in her ears, her telekinetic ability burning out.
Shaking in the aftermath, she went to stall again somehow . . . and sensed a piercingly familiar wildness in the air. Her heart kicked. Alexei was here. That changed everything. She had to put herself in position to help him and stop Renault from teleporting.
You hurt me again. Once more, she tried to infuse her telepathic voice with fear instead of anger and protective fury. How do I know you won’t put me in the hole?
“I own you!” Renault yelled, his cool demeanor cracking under a wave of red-eyed rage; whatever drug he was on, it was seriously destabilizing his psyche. “Come here right now or I’ll teach you pain!”
Memory looked again at the wrench in her hand as Renault began to assault her mind with warning strikes that were shallow but still bruised. She had no way of knowing if Alexei was ready, but she had to take action before Renault lost it and launched a deadly assault.
He’d be sorry afterward, but she’d still be dead.
She sent her determination and readiness down the mating bond, not sure if it would work. The returning wave of feral resolve nearly had her growling. Teeth bared in a primal smile, she hefted the wrench and threw it as far from herself as possible. It clanged loudly against a bookshelf.
The sound had Renault jolting to his feet, his eyes glimmering. “There you are.” He went to move.
His foot hooked on the rope and he fell onto his face.
She heard the crunch of his nose breaking.
Even as rage contorted his bloody features, a wolf launched itself at him with lethal fury.
“Renault!” Memory yelled and stepped out of her hiding spot.
Turning his head toward her, he pushed up to his knees. Ugliness twisted his face. “I’ll make you pay—”
The wolf hit him hard, taking him to his back.
That wolf had its jaws around Renault’s throat before the man could recover enough to teleport. It was over in seconds, blood spilling onto the warehouse floor, the wolf’s muzzle drenched dark red.
Memory collapsed to her knees. Right in front of her lay a blood-splattered plas packet, a lock of hair within. Memory didn’t pick it up; that wasn’t her mother. Diana had been smart and gentle and protective. Memory would not reduce her to a memento kept by a psychopath.
“He’s dead,” she whispered, her mind free; the PsyNet was alive around her once more, stars appearing in the darkness in an endless carpet. “Finally, he’s dead.”
When the wolf turned to her, she held that amber gaze without fear, with love. “He deserved to die.” She felt no pity for Renault, felt nothing but the ache of justice long denied. “My mother, all his other victims, they can rest in peace now.”
The wolf padded to her. Fisting a hand in his fur, she buried her face against his warm body and she cried. For all the years lost. For all the lives taken. For the battle won.
Chapter 53
Shoot first and ask questions of the corpses.
—Rumored motto of the SnowDancer wolves
THE WOLF THAT was Alexei glanced up at Judd as the other man walked up to the scene of the execution. Taking in the blood and Renault’s lifeless body, his friend said, “You want to disappear this?” He placed Alexei’s discarded clothing to one side.
While Alexei hadn’t needed Judd’s help to keep Renault from teleporting out, his fellow lieutenant had helped him get inside. Alexei had given him a boost up so Judd could look in a small window at the far end of the warehouse, gain a visual inside the space. They hadn’t been able to see Memory from their spot, but Alexei had scented her, his wolf prowling under his skin.
Judd had teleported them both inside.
And Memory had thrown the wrench after warning him of her intent. Alexei had never known the mating bond could be used that way—and perhaps only an empath could communicate with emotion with such specificity—but regardless, he loved it. Knowing his mate could reach him via the bond if she was ever in danger, it satisfied his every protective instinct.
Waiting until she’d cried herself out and was taking deep, steadying breaths while petting his back, Alexei shifted. He knew he was splattered in blood and that it appeared even more savage in human form than in wolf, but Memory just undid her pretty scarf and used it to wipe his face, his hands. “There,” she said quietly, and he knew deep inside that she accepted all of him, the primal and the human.
Alexei regretted nothing of what he’d done—but he regretted having done it in front of his E. Cradling her close, he nuzzled her curls. “You okay?” It came out a growl, his wolf yet at the surface.
“Yes. He was only pain, only horror. He gave nothing good to the world.” A grim smile. “It had to be done.”
“Sorry I acted too fast to let you get your licks in.” He felt bad about that, though not about saving his empath from carrying a death on her conscience. It’d have eaten at her. His wolf, on the other hand, had zero trouble with dispatching a serial murderer.
The human side of him was also fine with it.
“It’s all right.” Memory’s smile was pure lioness. “I made him break his own nose and that gives me great pleasure. Amara would be proud.”
When he raised an eyebrow, she shrugged. “I had to think tricky and sly.”
“Got it.” Rising after a hard promise of a kiss, Alexei pulled on his pants while Judd examined the scene.
“There’s another body,” Memory said as she got to her feet, her tone sad. “Security guard.”
“We’ll make sure he’s treated with dignity.” Renault on the other hand . . . Alexei knew that if he wanted, Judd, Hawke, and the rest of his pack could and would disappear all evidence of the psychopath’s death. The cats would help. But he narrowed his eyes and said, “I think the world needs to be reminded what happens to people who attempt to take a SnowDancer’s mate.” He held out his hand.
Memory took it. Her eyes were red but her spirit bright. His lioness. His mate. His.
“It won’t cause trouble for your pack?”
Alexei shot her a surely feral smile. “We don’t exactly have a sweet and fluffy public image.” Wrapping his arm around her, he cuddled her against his bare chest. “All else aside, Renault was a serial killer who’d taken you prisoner and was threatening to murder you.” A shrug. “I’d like to see Enforcement do anything but say thanks for taking out the garbage.”
* * *
• • •
ENFORCEMENT all but shook his hand.
Then Hawke called to say SnowDancer had shifted Alexei to quarters for a mated pair. Of course his alpha knew he’d mated. And the asshole wasn’t shy about showing off his knowledge. Yet the call wasn’t about that—it was about acceptance. Though Memory remained in the PsyNet, she was Alexei’s mate, and as such, she was welcome in the den.
* * *
• • •
ALEXEI was painfully conscious of his mate’s quietness on the way back to her cabin, but said nothing until they were inside. It had begun to rain again, the sky as heavy as his heart. “You’re going to have nightmares, aren’t you?” He’d torn out a man’s throat in front of an empath, what the hell did he expect?
“What?” A shake of her head. “No, it’s not that.” Eyes turning obsidian, she shifted to stand toe-to-toe with him. “We’re mated. Are you sorry?” It was a scowling challenge.
He growled at her, his wolf adoring her beyond life. “Never.” Thrusting his hands into her curls, he nipped at her lower lip before admitting the depth of his selfish
ness. “I should be sorry that I’ve put you at risk, but I’m not.
“You’re inside my heart and you’re shadow and light and beauty and the best part of me.” It terrified him that he’d hurt her as Brodie had hurt Etta, but his fear was no match for the depth of his joy. “Before, I didn’t know what I was missing. I’ll never give it up.”
Smile fierce, Memory turned and pressed her lips to his palm. “You won’t go rogue, Alexei. I work with the worst kind of darkness and you have nothing even remotely similar to that kind of damage inside you.” She saw from his grim expression that he didn’t believe her; that was all right—she could be as stubborn and she was inside him now, as he was inside her.
Another worry continued to niggle at her, however. “Are you sure your pack wants me in the den?” she asked. “I’m still in the PsyNet.”
“You see us there?” Alexei asked, a deeply wolfish curiosity in his eyes.
Memory looked and felt her breath catch, her heart stop. “Yes,” she whispered. “We’re connected by a bond of wild amber.” Aggressive, primal in a way that would probably fascinate and terrify in equal measure, it was a bond with teeth and claws. “But you’re not in the Net.” Her brain couldn’t make sense of it. “The bond disappears at a certain point, but I know you’re at the other end.” She poked at the stunning wild amber of their bond.
A growl from Alexei. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s making my wolf snarly.”
Laughing, Memory deluged him with flowers and rainbows. He groaned. “I’m a big, scary wolf. Have some respect.”
She laughed and blew him a kiss.
Brows heavy, he scratched his jaw. “You’ve met Mercy, right?” At her nod, he said, “She’s mated to a wolf and their bond does the same thing. Connects them across the DarkRiver and SnowDancer networks.”
All at once, Memory remembered an article she’d read in Wild Woman. “Silver Mercant’s bond with her bear mate does the same thing! Everyone’s theorizing it’s because Silver’s too important to the PsyNet for it to let her go.”