Wolf Rain

by Singh, Nalini

  “You’re still celibate?” Judd asked before Alexei could broach the topic of Matthias’s itchiness under the skin.

  “Damn woman is going to drive me to insanity.” He glared into his beer after shoving a hand through the shaggy brown-black of his hair. “I brought her a bunch of flowers today. Actual wildflowers I picked myself like some romantic schmuck. You know what she did? Put them in a glass of water.”

  Judd raised an eyebrow. “Shocking.”

  “Yeah, real hardcore stuff.” Alexei was trying not to laugh at his poor friend’s morose expression, but it was hard.

  “Then she gave the glass of flowers I picked for her to Lara, who was passing by.” Matthias’s voice was all grumble now. “Why is she like that?”

  Alexei’s grin cracked his face. “Maybe because you two were in the same classes in school and she saw you work your way through the girls like a multicourse buffet?”

  “Even I’ve heard of your teenage exploits,” Judd put in. “Weren’t you once discovered in bed with an entire team of cheerleaders?”

  Matthias groaned. “I was sleeping. It just happened to be the only open spot.”

  “Right.”

  “Screw you, Sexy Lexie.” Matthias punched him on the shoulder. “One time, at a high school party, Nell saw me chatting up a girl, being all smooth and charming. She raised her eyebrow and told me my zipper was undone, then left.”

  Alexei snorted beer out his nose he was laughing so hard, and even Judd gave it up. Matthias threatened to pulverize them both. But Alexei’s shoulders didn’t stop shaking for a long time. His wolf was wildly amused by the thought of a teenaged Matthias’s ego being so swiftly deflated by razor-sharp Nell.

  It felt strange to laugh on this day, but afterward, he raised his beer to the night sky and said, “Fuck you, Brodie. I hope Etta is kicking your ass every damn hour of every damn day.” Shifting his gaze to the compound below, he thought of the woman who’d made this day far better than it should’ve been.

  Sleep well, lioness. Dream of wolves. He scowled. Scratch that. Dream of this wolf.

  Chapter 24

  Progress is being stalled by the heavily encrypted protections on a large percentage of historical data. Considerable data also appears to have been scrubbed from the system, creating holes that are impossible to fill with any accuracy.

  —Report to Ruling Coalition from Research Group Gamma-X, Silence & Outcomes

  AS MEMORY FELL into sleep surrounded by the primal scent of a golden wolf, another Psy mind shrugged off the last of its decades-long sleep and came fully awake. The waking had been happening in fits and starts ever since the fall of Silence and the creation of the Honeycomb. It had worried him at first, his intense discipline integral to his sense of self—he’d believed the sudden influx of emotion into the PsyNet was subverting his mind.

  He’d been wrong.

  It was Silence that had been the trap, the prison. It had locked him up in invisible chains. As the chains snapped free one by one, he stretched out his mind and felt it grow and grow and grow. So much power that it made his head spin. He could take his family to the very top of the PsyNet with it, rule over an unparalleled empire.

  As for the strange urges that had woken alongside the power, he’d deal with them the same way he’d dealt with the myriad responsibilities entailed in becoming the head of the family—with discipline and reason and intelligence. As he did so, he’d look for others of his kind, others who’d been in an unknowing sleep under the reign of Silence.

  Would he make allies of them, or erase them so that he had fewer competitors at this level of power? He wasn’t certain. It would depend on the individual and whether they presented a threat. First, he’d familiarize himself with his own new level of power, start to work on further stabilizing the surges.

  Leaving his mind to settle for now, he glanced at the report he’d received an hour earlier from the spies he had scattered throughout the PsyNet. One of them had noted the appearance of an unusual empathic mind in the training compound in SnowDancer-DarkRiver territory.

  The spy had only caught a distant glimpse of her, as no one who valued their life ever encroached on that section of the Net. As a result, there wasn’t really much of substance in the report, and he discarded it after a quick scan. The Es were important to maintaining the health of the PsyNet, but when it came to raw power, he had to look elsewhere.

  Krychek held the alpha position, but the one who’d woken wasn’t foolish enough to look in that direction—Kaleb Krychek hadn’t survived all comers by being anything but deadly. The world was big enough for the two of them to share. At least for now. Until he settled into this new power that might eclipse Krychek’s.

  His eyes weren’t the white sparks on black of a cardinal, but the power inside him felt infinite. He stilled, considered. That supposition could not be true. Cardinals were immeasurable by definition.

  He commed his assistant. “Book me in with Dr. Mehra.” He would have a full medical, make sure of his physical and mental health; this power was useless if it turned him into a delusional idiot.

  All the while, his mind continued to expand, a sprawling vastness.

  Chapter 25

  All indications are that the percentage of psychopaths in the population remains steady despite half a century of Silence, though these individuals do appear to have gained more discipline in terms of hiding their kills. Most no longer fall into the trap of wanting credit.

  —Fragment of a 2031 report commissioned by the Psy Council of the time and retrieved by Research Group Gamma-X

  ALEXEI SECOND-GUESSED HIS decision to leave Memory even as he fell into a fitful sleep at last, haunted by images of a small woman with big brown eyes. The only reason he’d left her alone in an unfamiliar environment at all was because Sascha had pulled him aside at the DarkRiver cabin while Memory had been in the bathroom.

  “Memory needs to claim ownership over her surroundings,” the cardinal empath had murmured. “She can’t do that if you’re around.”

  When he’d responded with a flinty stare, she’d rolled her eyes. “I know you’d never hurt her, you obstinate wolf, but you burn with dominance. You take over a space just by being in it. Memory needs to heal and grow before she can hold her own against you.”

  As far as Alexei was concerned, Memory was more than holding her own against him. “Did you hear her just before?” He’d folded his arms. “Damn E doesn’t know the meaning of backing down.”

  A dazzling smile. “No, not against you in any case.” Sascha had patted his cheek. “It would be so easy for her to start relying on you, but Memory deserves better. I know she comes across as tough, but this is a big, scary world for her. And you have such wide shoulders, Alexei.”

  “She has no pack, no family. I can’t abandon her.” It went against his every instinct.

  “I’d never ask that. Just . . .” Sascha’s features had cleared. “Give her space to claim the cabin as her territory. It matters. Memory is far more than we’ve seen yet, and to grow into herself in a way she’s never before been able to do, she needs that sense of ownership.”

  Alexei wasn’t about to stunt his lioness’s growth. So he’d given her space to stamp her mark on the cabin—but when he woke sometime around two in the morning, he couldn’t stop from checking up on her.

  Before he left, he raided the pack’s stores. When a packmate on night shift poked his sandy-haired head inside and said, “Not quite your style, Lexie,” Alexei gave the smart-ass a death glare.

  The lanky man grinned, his amusement reaching the light green of his eyes. “What’s her name?”

  Fuck, now the whole pack would know; wolves were nosier than a parliament of gossipy magpies. “Go away and I won’t tell Sing-Liu about the secret anniversary present you’re hiding in Elias and Yuki’s quarters.”

  D’Arn’s mouth fell open. “How do y
ou even know about that?”

  “I don’t see you leaving. I feel the urge to find your mate.”

  “I’ll get you back for this,” D’Arn threatened darkly before adding, “She must be special. Can’t wait to tell—” The other man took off laughing when Alexei lunged at him.

  Growling, Alexei packed up the very useful item he’d chosen for Memory, then left the den.

  The Arrows didn’t stop him when he walked into the compound and up to her cabin. He could scent her inside . . . could scent himself, too. Frowning, he glanced to where he’d left his clothes and boots; no rain fell to blur the darkness, the landscape clear to his night vision. His clothes were gone. A slow smile curving his lips despite himself, he put her gift beside the doorway, then stepped away and made his way back to the den. He’d just walked inside when his phone buzzed.

  It was Brenna, Judd’s mate and part of the den’s tech team. “You said to let you know when we tracked down this Renault psycho.”

  Alexei altered direction, aiming himself toward the tech center. “What’ve you got?” Brenna’s focus was meant to be on cutting-edge research, not computronic tracking, but Alexei knew the dark reason why she’d thrown her considerable brain power behind the search for Renault.

  “An address beyond his official business or residential ones,” she told him. “You know the cats checked out those addresses for us when you first sent us the name? Bastard was gone by then.” Brenna’s voice held the urge to slice and dice the man who’d kept Memory prisoner, her wolf fully on Memory’s side despite having never met her.

  “Yeah. Hawke told me.”

  “Well, E. David Renault laid an excellent false trail,” she continued. “I’m finding signs of serious long-term planning. I’ll say one thing—the psycho is intelligent. He exists on a superficial level, but dig below the first two layers and it’s all smoke and mirrors.” A pause before Brenna said, “Will she be all right?”

  Having reached the tech center by then, Alexei entered and made his way to her. “She’s like you,” he said to this packmate who’d survived her own monster. “Tough as nails.” Brenna let him run her ponytail through his hand, the silky blonde strands dipped in pink at the bottom. “She has plans to get strong, then chop Renault into small pieces.”

  “Tell her I’ll carry her knives for her.” The pinched look faded from Brenna’s extraordinary eyes, the dark brown of her irises shattered by arctic blue shards. A scar she’d turned into a badge of survival. Those eyes were innocent as she said, “Did she really accuse you of being a chicken?”

  Alexei growled. “Was it one of the asshole cats prowling around the compound? It was, wasn’t it? Tell me. I need to know who to kill.”

  A giggle from the packmate next to Brenna’s workstation, while Brenna herself rose and kissed him on the cheek, her own cheeks creased in a smile that lit up her whole face. After that, it was all business.

  Brenna told him that her team had already ruled out two locations—one in Arizona, one in Nevada—that had earlier come up as Renault’s secret home base. She’d gotten a couple of the WindHaven falcons to fly over and double-check their assessment. “Falcons confirmed both were basically shells with some window dressing. No signs of actual habitation.”

  This third address was in the heart of San Francisco.

  His wolf stirred.

  Alexei had asked Judd how far Renault could teleport regularly given his official Gradient level. The San Francisco location was well within his range if he needed to go back and forth to the bunker. Not only that, according to the financial records Brenna had hacked, the bills paid for this property for consumables such as energy fluctuated through the seasons—as they would for a household in use.

  “One of his few mistakes,” Brenna said after bringing up the bills. “That, or he believed these records couldn’t be hacked.” A snort. “I could hack the PsyNet if only I could find a way to jack in.”

  She used deft movements of her right hand to manipulate the large screen. “Last automatic upload to the billing server was eight hours ago—and someone was doing things at that address that required energy. Arrogant bastard could be hunkered down there—maybe he wants to be nearby so he can try to grab Memory again.”

  Alexei pressed a hard kiss to her jaw. “You’re a fucking queen. Send any updates to my phone. We’re going to move.”

  It took him less than ten minutes to put together an assault team.

  Hawke was a given—he needed to question Memory’s captor about the bunker. Matthias because he was an extra body in the den whose absence wouldn’t cause a hole in their defenses. Judd because having a Tk along seemed a good move when they were dealing with another Tk.

  The fifth member of their team was Sing-Liu. D’Arn’s deadly human mate could climb and move as quietly as any cat and throw a knife with pinpoint accuracy. She could also appear small and curvy and harmless, and was willing to play “simpering damsel,” if necessary, to throw Renault off the scent.

  “I’ll take the humiliation out of your hide later,” she warned Alexei.

  Prior to leaving the den, Alexei called and asked to be put in touch with the leopard on patrol in the area around Renault’s home. He got Emmett Schaeffer, a rough-hewn soldier with sharp eyes, who promised to keep the townhouse under surveillance and follow anyone who came out. “Can’t follow a teleporter,” he pointed out. “But he’s probably asleep—no movement that I can see. External security lights are on, but nothing inside.”

  Had Emmett said Renault was there and active, Alexei would’ve swallowed his need to personally haul Renault in for Memory’s vengeance, and asked the leopards to go in. “If that changes, you let me know.”

  Surveillance sorted, he and the team decided to utilize Judd’s teleportation skills from the halfway point—it would speed things up without wiping him out. Judd had once told Alexei that teleporting SnowDancers had become exponentially easier for him a year after he blood-oathed fealty to Hawke and became a ranked SnowDancer lieutenant. As if the bond with Hawke created a pathway of psychic trust with all the members of the pack.

  Alexei didn’t care too much about the mechanics, just that Judd could get them to the location quickly. It was worth the weird split-second disorientation that came with being teleported.

  Once in the city, it took them a short few seconds to make their way up to Renault’s townhouse—Judd had asked Emmett to send through a photograph of the street, then used a distinctive house down the block as a visual reference for the teleport. Just in case Memory’s abductor happened to be looking out the window when five strangers appeared out of nowhere.

  It wasn’t yet dawn, but multiple houses had light glowing from their windows as people got out of bed and downed their first coffee in preparation for the day ahead. Another half hour and some folks would start leaving for work.

  Emmett emerged from the shadows as Alexei first set eyes on the target home. “I thought I smelled wolf,” the leopard said, a faint smile on his face and his jaw rough with stubble.

  The other man was one of the more laid-back cats in DarkRiver, but he was also a lethally skilled senior soldier. More critical to Alexei, Emmett had a mother who was currently in the midst of running the second study ever done on changeling rogues. Keelie Schaeffer had sent a message to all predatory changeling groups around the world, requesting dialogue with anyone impacted by a rogue.

  The subject is a painful one, she’d written, but we must confront it if we are to have any hope of finding an answer to why a small number of our kind succumb to such violent impulses.

  Alexei had deleted the message at the time, the loss of Brodie too close, but he hadn’t forgotten it. When Dr. Schaeffer gave an interview on the subject four months ago, he’d listened to every word. Trying to find answers. Trying to not be so angry. Yet he still couldn’t speak to her. Not when the wound kept on bleeding inside him.

>   “No movement,” Emmett said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the well-kept property. “I can watch streetside while you go in.”

  Technically, SnowDancer should’ve asked for Enforcement permission since it was a Psy home they were about to breach, but Enforcement remained full of leaks. And when it came down to it, this was leopard territory. Even many of the resident Psy now had more faith in the cats than in their own leaders. When the shit hit the fan, the people of San Francisco knew DarkRiver and its allies would come to their aid.

  So yeah, no one was too worried about Enforcement.

  “Thanks, Emmett.” Wolf snarling inside him to begin the hunt, Alexei glanced at his alpha.

  Hawke nodded, and the five of them flowed across the dark street. The first thing they did was find a window through which Judd could gain a visual. Teleporting inside a second later, he then opened the front door to let them in. All of it in silence.

  A split second of warning and Renault would disappear.

  Alexei’s nostrils flared at the distinctive ice-metal scent he’d caught in the bunker, that scent laid down thick around him now, as he’d expect in any living creature’s home. Yet nothing felt fresh, not Renault’s scent and not the other smells you’d expect to find in a home. Regardless, none of them spoke as they split up to search the house in silence.

  “Fucker’s gone,” he said to the others when they met in the large upstairs bedroom.

  “Arrogant, but not arrogant enough to believe he could hide for long right under DarkRiver’s and SnowDancer’s noses,” Judd murmured. “A pity.”