Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3) - Nalini Singh Page 0,29

Bile burned her throat as she spoke the next words. “He considers me his property and he wants me back.”

Alexei’s claws sliced out.

Leaning forward to grip the edge of the upper bunk, his big body far too close and the heat of him nearly a touch, he said, “Yeah? Well, I consider him prey.” His voice was hard and human, but the eyes that met Memory’s were a striking mix of amber and gray.

When he reached down one clawed hand to touch the side of her face, she didn’t jerk back. The deadly tips grazed her skin, but instead of a spike of fear, she felt that strange fluttering in her abdomen, her breath catching. He was so close she could smell the wild warmth of his scent, catch a hint of the perspiration that had dampened the hair at his temples.

Her fingers tingled, wanting to touch his skin, feel the power of all that muscle. Gripping the mattress of her bunk to still the strange urge, she held his stare until his gaze was all amber and his chest rumbled. Memory knew that, to a wolf, aggressive eye contact was a challenge, but she didn’t care.

Never again would she back down from anyone.

He snapped his teeth at her.

It made her jump in surprise. Eyes narrowed in sheer annoyance, she bared her own teeth at him. And, since he was looming over her, she lifted her hands and pushed forcefully at his hips. Her fingers brushed warm, hard abdominal muscles, her palms braced against the cloth of his sweatpants. The raw power of him hummed through her.

Alexei’s eyes gleamed.

Though she was fully conscious that she didn’t have the strength to make him move, he stepped back after grabbing the towel and fresh clothes he’d left on the upper bunk. Her heart thundered as he walked out, her skin prickling, but not in the way it usually did. The pain that was her constant companion had retreated for the moment.

The first thing she did was go to the front door and make sure her palm print still opened it. She didn’t breathe until the lock clicked open. Pulling the door inward a fraction, she looked out into the hazy gray of early morning, the rain a light mist today, and just basked in freedom.

It was a bone-deep pleasure to know she could walk out at will. Because she could, she closed the door after a couple of minutes. The cold was seeping in, and she didn’t want Alexei to walk out of his shower into an icy hallway.

Not that he appeared to feel the cold. He’d been bad-tempered yesterday when she’d hesitated at the doorway to this place, but he hadn’t shivered once.

Wolf.

Poking around the bedroom while imagining him shifting form, she managed to find a drawer full of simple grooming supplies, and took a couple of stretchy hair bands. The small mirror on the back of the door showed her a woman with a thin face surrounded by hair that was a huge, fluffy mess.

It took some work, but she managed to corral her frizzy curls back in two sections.

That done, she padded her way down to the kitchen area and started the coffee. It wasn’t the first time she’d done the task; the roots of her knowledge of such things lay in the worst darkness of her past. She’d come close to going mad after Renault first abducted her. Hours and hours she’d sat rocking back and forth, back and forth, while the visual of her mother’s final moments played against the wall of her mind. She couldn’t forget how Diana Aven-Rose’s body had spasmed, her hand thumping on the carpet, and her face going a bruised purplish shade under the ebony of her skin.

Renault had hit Memory to snap her out of it.

Her fingers lifted to her cheek, the burn of the backhanded slap a remembrance she carried vengefully close. It was nothing in comparison to what he’d done to her kind and gentle mother, but that slap had changed her forever. The blow had been so strong it had crashed her to the floor, blood trickling into her mouth from her split lip.

When she’d opened her eyes, she’d seen the polished tips of his shoes in her line of sight, realized she was scrabbling at the monster’s feet. Rage, such rage, had overwhelmed her, what training she’d had under the Silence Protocol in splinters by that point. She hadn’t understood the emotion then, but it had made