black T-shirt, such as those she’d noticed many of the squad wore under their high-collared and bulletproof uniform jackets—except her chosen tee had a thin stripe of silver down the outside of each sleeve.
Yuri had worn it today; it was hidden under his jacket, but he’d made a point to tell her that he’d caused a commotion among his squadmates with his “sudden stylistic prowess.” He’d also asked her advice on how to respond to an understated but clear overture from a senior female Arrow.
Memory’s heart had nearly burst in joy at the indication of Yuri’s growing world, but her friend wasn’t the male who stood in front of her, taking up all the air in the yard and blocking the last of the light.
“Hello, lioness.”
“Go away,” she muttered, wanting to brood alone—and definitely not anywhere near this wolf who’d ignored her for three weeks.
“Can you even walk in that skirt?” he asked dubiously.
She pulled up the skirt to show him her glittery sneakers. The stupid things were her favorites. Dropping her skirt when she realized she’d let him taunt her into betraying herself, she glared at the ground. “I said, go away.”
He tugged at a curl that had escaped her messy ponytail. When she slapped his hand away, he just found another curl to tug. Hands fisting, she jumped to her feet and put a foot of distance between them. “What do you want, you big, wolfy chicken?”
The beautiful golden god of a man—who was half demon—smiled at her instead of snarling in insult. “Want to get out of here?”
It was the only thing he could’ve said that would cut through her morose mood. “Yes, let’s go.” At least she could be furious with Alexei without making anyone feel bad—it certainly had no effect on him.
Her skirt flowed around her as she strode toward the trees, the fabric as light as air. Suspiciously silent at her side, Alexei easily kept pace. When they passed Jaya coming the other way, the other E stopped to enclose Memory in the warm acceptance of her arms, not minding that Memory had stiffened in instinctive self-protectiveness.
“Give him hell,” her friend whispered in her ear. “Arrows and wolves, they’re the same. Show him your teeth.”
Memory had every intention of biting Alexei with those teeth.
“Here.” Alexei handed her his jacket.
About to snub the offer, Memory looked at his face and realized the obstinate wolf wouldn’t take her deep into the forest unless she agreed to this. And Memory needed to leave, to get some clear air. Also, it was cold now that the sun had set. Snatching the olive-green thing from him, she shrugged into it, then rolled up the sleeves with quick motions.
The two of them had just stepped beyond the tree line when a roar of sound hit Memory’s telepathic senses. Not an attack. A call for help, directed at her. “Yuri!” She turned on her heel . . . and a scream split the air, reverberating against the trees.
* * *
• • •
ALEXEI was moving even before he’d consciously processed Memory’s reaction and the chilling scream that followed. “Talk to me!” he said to her as the two of them ran back to the compound.
“Yuri yelled for help!”
Fuck! Yuri was the most senior Arrow in the compound. Why would a man of his lethal skills call for an inexperienced E? It had to be bad.
“Go!” Memory yelled, a sob in her voice. “I can’t keep up! Yuri’s mind is gone! I can’t reach him!”
Alexei pounded into a ground-erasing run, his heart punching against his rib cage. He could have a catastrophic medical emergency on his hands. Sascha had briefed him on the compound when he first took over Indigo’s oversight task, and one of the things he’d learned from her was that many newly emergent Es didn’t know how to protect themselves against dangerous surges of emotion.
If Yuri was dead as a result of violence . . .
Memory was still standing, he reminded himself. It gave him hope. Until he scented wet iron on the air. Blood.
His gaze snagged on a fallen body.
Yuri was down with a bloody wound to the head. A silent weapon, because Alexei’s acute hearing had picked up nothing of the attack itself, only the aftermath. Three collapsed bodies lay on the ground nearby, all of them twitching.
Empaths who’d overloaded at the close proximity to violence.
Other black-clad men and women were hauling Es out of danger. But what the fuck was the danger? Who had managed to not