chorus, but she forced herself to keep moving.
Alexei was on her trail.
Even as she tried to keep ahead of him, she wondered what would happen if she ran across a wolf other than Alexei. Distracted by the sudden thought, she nearly tripped on a root snaking across her path. Catching herself in the nick of time, she managed to keep her footing. Exhaling, she looked up in readiness to move again . . . and found herself eye-to-eye with a huge black wolf, his eyes vivid gold.
Her throat went dry, her muscles rigid.
The wolf angled its head in a quizzical way . . . and took a sniff at her before dropping its jaw in what she thought was a friendly way. She dared “sniff” back at him with her empathic senses and caught the edge of feral amusement. Changeling.
And he found her funny? That was fine with her. Giant black wolves with razor-sharp teeth probably didn’t eat people who made them laugh.
Turning without attacking her, the wolf padded away. But just when she thought she was safe, the wolf stopped to throw her a look over its shoulder. Come on, that look said.
It was insane to follow a strange wolf into the dark. But this was a crazy moonlit night where she was playing a chasing game with a golden wolf—she decided to take her life into her hands and follow the amused black wolf. But something kept niggling at her . . . She took another sniff. Frowned.
The emotional feel of him was tantalizingly familiar. She just had to translate wolf emotions into human and . . . “Riaz?” she gasped with a smile.
Glancing back, the wolf gave a look of approval before carrying on through the trees.
Memory followed in silence.
Less than two minutes later, she came around a tree and nearly ran into a small Asian woman with blunt-cut bangs and jet-black hair down to her shoulders.
Memory’s eyes widened, but before she could apologize, the woman—who wore black jeans, boots, and what might’ve been a dark blue sweater that hugged her body—scowled down at the black wolf.
“What the hell, Riaz? What are you doing with Alexei’s empath?”
Alexei’s empath.
The words settled on Memory’s skin, sank deep. “Alexei and I are playing a chasing game,” she said, feeling as if she were in the middle of a fantastical movie where a dangerous wild creature led her to a woman who looked at her with the eyes of a friendly assassin.
“Game, huh?” The maybe-assassin exchanged looks with Riaz’s wolf. “Our Lexie has a huge advantage.” She looked Memory up and down. “You have a couple of pieces of clothing you can spare?”
Mystified, Memory pulled out her damp socks.
The wolf and the woman looked at one another again before the wolf shook his head. Taking the hint, Memory put the socks back into her pocket.
“Have you sweated?” The woman put her hands on her hips, and though there wasn’t a visible weapon on her, Memory kept thinking of her as armed.
A lightbulb went on in Memory’s brain. “Turn around,” she said to Riaz.
He yawned, but did so while she stripped off her orange sweater, then took off her tee. Handing that to the woman, she pulled her sweater back on. “Sacrifice it.” She nodded to the tee. “This is war.”
A wicked grin. “I like you, E. Now, let’s make this game a little harder for Lexie.” A blade suddenly glinted in her hand. Using it to rip the T-shirt in two, she gave one piece to Riaz, held the other herself.
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