Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3) - Nalini Singh Page 0,48
his T-shirt. He didn’t object, his thumb continuing to stroke the side of her neck in rhythmic motions that made her toes curl.
Sascha dropped Memory’s hand—but only so she could cup the side of Memory’s face. “You’re an empath, Memory.” No room for discussion in the cardinal’s tone, Sascha’s lips soft when she pressed them to Memory’s forehead. “You appear to be a unique kind of empath, but you are one of us. I know—I see you as only another E can.”
Memory’s lower lip threatened to tremble at the kiss. It reminded her of her mother’s gentle hands on her as Diana Aven-Rose helped her put on her coat, or did her hair. “I have to show you,” she repeated; the fear of being repudiated would otherwise eat her up from the inside out. “The psychopath has to volunteer. I won’t force anyone, not even a monster.”
Sascha blew out a breath, her hand still on Memory’s cheek. “You’re certain you want to do this now?”
“Yes.” Her hip and shoulder brushed Alexei’s side, his body a furnace.
“Amara’s a scientist. She’ll probably volunteer out of curiosity—or does it have to be a murderer?” Sascha’s brow furrowed, care in the hand she ran over Memory’s hair. “I really don’t like this, but at least Amara is safe enough if handled correctly.”
Memory forced herself to think. “If she has the nothingness inside her, then yes, it should work.” The howling abyss was the key. “I’ve only ever done it with a murderer, so I don’t know for sure.”
Alexei’s chest rumbled. “Sascha, I’m not sure this is a good idea. Memory’s—”
“—right here!” Spinning out and away so she could face him, she folded her arms across her chest and glared; for some reason, while Sascha’s protectiveness made her feel warm and safe, Alexei’s made her feral. “Don’t talk about me as if I’m a dog you rescued!”
God, she was magnificent. “A dog would have more sense,” Alexei said in a snarl. “You want to go party with psychopaths when you’re so thin I could pick you up with my little finger.” Her neck had felt scarily delicate under his touch, the unruliness of her curls the biggest thing about her.
“I’m doing this,” she bit out. “Then I’m going to hunt Renault.”
The wolf in Alexei approved of her single-minded need for vengeance. Hell, so did the man. The same wolf was torn by an overwhelming sense of protectiveness toward this survivor who’d refused to allow a monster to destroy her. “With what?” he snarled. “You have claws smaller than a kitten’s.”
Narrowing her eyes, Memory looked as if she wanted to show him her claws right then and there—probably across his face—but Sascha said, “Both of you. Behave.” Stepping forward, she frowned. “We have to figure out logistics—bringing Amara to a compound full of baby empaths isn’t a good idea. She’ll panic them.”
The genuine worry in her tone had Alexei breaking his eye-contact standoff with Memory. “That bad?”
“It’s this sense of being sucked into a howling emptiness that gives nothing back.” Goose bumps broke out over the cardinal’s arms. “I can handle it by gritting my teeth and ignoring my nausea, but untrained Es won’t have a chance.” She touched the side of Memory’s face again, her smile holding the warm affection of an older sister. “Our Memory is far tougher than she looks if she can deal with the sensation without breaking.”
Alexei saw Memory’s brittle shields fracture at the words and knew he had to go along with this insane plan. It was vitally important to Memory; maybe afterward, the damn E would actually rest. “You talk to Amara, get her agreement. I’ll figure out where we can do this.”
As expected, Amara Aleine was in favor of being an experimental subject. “I haven’t been able to dissect an E, so this will give me an insight into their function,” was her unsettling response over the wall comm, her face expressionless. “I will prepare to be probed.”
Memory blinked after Sascha ended the conversation. “Is she always that . . .”
“Yes,” Alexei heard Sascha say as he moved out to the porch to organize the location of the test. “Her twin has the same genius IQ but only Amara is this way. It’s as if her wiring got shorted out at a certain point in her development.”
It took Alexei a half hour to get all the pieces in place. In a stroke of luck—if you could term anything connected with Amara lucky—the Psy scientist was currently at her