Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3) - Nalini Singh Page 0,59

survive and stay sane. No loving arms to rock her when the nightmares hit. Alexei had been so fucking angry after they put Etta and Brodie in the earth, had refused all offers of comfort. Hawke had found him nonetheless, and they’d fought. Tooth and claw and blood. Until Alexei could think past the haze of fury. He couldn’t cry, not then, not now, but he was functional again.

“Yeah,” he said, brushing his knuckles against her cheek. “It hurts like a bitch.”

The slightest movement against his knuckles before he dropped his hand, his E accepting the comfort offered.

“What was it like,” she asked, “having a sibling?”

“He was my big brother.” A constant presence in Alexei’s life. “I never knew what it was like to not have a brother. He was the first person I told all my secrets and dreams.” It was Brodie who’d broken their childhood trust, Brodie who hadn’t confided in Alexei when the demons began to howl.

“On human comm shows, siblings fight. Did you?”

His lips kicked up. “Not much. Most of the time, I was his loyal minion in many a scheme.” A faithful lookout while Brodie tried to climb an out-of-bounds tree, a small helper when Brodie decided to build a catapult to launch himself across a waterfall, a staunch ally when they got caught.

“Brodie was the one who came up with the plans, but we’d make it happen together.” Alexei looked back into the sepia-toned past, saw two wild boys running through the trees. “When I got made lieutenant, then assigned to my own den, Brodie packed up and came with me.” So Alexei would have family nearby if he ever needed to decompress and not be a lieutenant, just a wolf kicking back.

“You aren’t based here?” Memory asked, a tone to her voice he couldn’t quite decipher.

Alexei shook his head. “Three-month secondment.” Ensuring its senior members rotated every so often to a different section of the territory was part of how SnowDancer kept its sprawling pack united. It was also good for Alexei to experience what it took to run the large main den at his alpha’s side—should Hawke ever need him to switch dens or temporarily take over for another lieutenant, he’d be ready.

“Brodie would’ve probably swung by for a visit by now if he’d been around.” Checking up on Alexei, making sure he was settling in okay to a more senior lieutenant’s duties. “He was a good big brother.”

Memory folded up the empty granola bar wrapper and put it in her pocket. “That’s why you’re sad and angry. It wouldn’t hurt so much if he’d been a bad one.”

“Wise little lioness,” he said, because it was all getting too deep, and soon she’d have him talking about the terrible history of the Harte/Vasiliev family and what it meant for Alexei.

Just as well that they arrived at the compound a bare minute later. The only ones up and around under the wet sky were the Arrows. “Home sweet home.”

Home.

Memory didn’t know what that meant anymore.

Light glowed from the windows of the cabins around Memory’s. Inside those cabins were empaths. Memory’s peers. Normal people who hadn’t grown up in a cage.

Her fingers curled into her palms just as Alexei came around to open her door. Leaning both arms up against the top of the car, he looked at her . . . and his eyes, they glowed slightly in the dark.

“Oh,” she whispered, her fingers rising of their own volition.

She jerked them back the instant she realized what she was about to do, but then Alexei deliberately lowered his head, just far enough that she could reach. And Memory found that she was weak where a certain golden wolf was concerned. Heart tight, she ran her fingers through the heavy silk of his hair.

It was cool from the misty rain and slipped like water through her fingers. She didn’t stop with one stroke, caressing him in the same way Sascha had caressed her mate that morning. “I like petting you,” she said, because hiding it was impossible.

When he made a rumbling sound in his chest, she found herself exerting more pressure, and running her nails along his skull. The eyes that met hers were pure amber now, the look in them distinctly feral.

Memory shivered, but didn’t stop the touch. Moving one hand, Alexei brought it to her face; her pulse kicked, her breath became shallow. He cupped the side of her face, ran the pad of his thumb over her lower lip. That lip