Alexei brushed his thumb over her skin, the caress turning her breath shallow. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, lioness, but we’re predators with claws of our own.” Words spoken against her ear, his breath hot, intimate. “Stop insulting us by worrying about that coward.”

She felt his claws release, brush her skin—but though the hard tips lay against her carotid and jugular, Memory didn’t run, didn’t panic. Because deadly predator or not, this was the golden wolf who protected her as much as he infuriated her. “I don’t want to bring evil here, to this bright, green, clean place.”

Another brush of Alexei’s thumb over her skin before he retracted his claws. “Sascha darling probably has a story or two to tell you about that.”

“I’m going to smack you in a second.” Despite the dark threat, Sascha’s tone was exasperated rather than angry. “Or maybe I’ll just call you Sexy Lexie.”

Alexei’s growl made every tiny hair on Memory’s body quiver in attention. Turning without dislodging his hold on her nape, she saw that he was scowling at a grinning Sascha, and she wondered why he called the cardinal “darling.” Sascha was mated to another man, mother to a cub she adored enough to do violence.

Maybe she’d ask him . . . but first she had to make them understand. “I don’t know how to tell you what I do,” she said in a voice that broke at the end. “I have to show you.” It was hard to breathe, her chest painful. “I need a monster, a murderer who kills for the thrill of it.”

Alexei’s jaw was a brutal line, his thumb stroking her skin again. “You’re free now, Memory. You don’t have to consort with bastards like Renault.”

“Yes, I do,” she whispered, her chest so tight she wondered if it would crack. The ugly darkness was where she walked, nightmares her home ground. “I’m not meant to heal. I’m a monster, too.”

Sascha got to her feet and took Memory’s hand, as if she hadn’t heard anything Memory had just said, the warning she’d tried to give. “Most Es refuse to work with true psychopaths.” She made a face. “I feel awful about it, but I can’t even get myself to work with Amara and she’s not a serial killer. It’s just . . .”

The cardinal shivered. “She’s better than she was before, has developed a stunted kind of emotional intelligence, but there’s such emptiness at her core where emotion should be, an endless nothing that drags me under.”

“Nothing,” Memory whispered, astonished that Sascha had felt it, too. “That’s what’s inside Renault, too. Nothing.” She didn’t realize she’d moved closer to Alexei until she raised her free hand and fisted it in the back of 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 twin sister’s home in DarkRiver territory. Ashaya Aleine had balls of fucking iron as far as Alexei was concerned—he might be a big tough wolf, but no way would he choose to be alone with Amara under any circumstances. He’d never know when she’d decide he’d look better as a corpse she could cut up and study.

Turned out Ashaya’s mate didn’t trust Amara, either. “I have multiple packmates prowling around within hearing range of our home,” Dorian told him when Alexei touched base with the leopard sentinel. “I’ve got Keenan with me, too—Ashaya feels better when she knows our son is safely away from Amara.” A frustrated sound. “I’d rather she keep her distance from Amara, but that bond of twins . . . Ashaya is incapable of giving up on her.”

“That’s because your mate has a heart.” Quite unlike her twin. “Look, we need a place for a psychic experiment.”

After Alexei ran through the details of the proposed experiment, Dorian suggested a small, unused cabin in DarkRiver territory. “It’s structurally sound but old, and set to come down in the next couple of months. Anyone who uses it as a teleportation lock in the interim will end up in the middle of leopard land. Not healthy for them.”

Alexei was dead certain none of this was healthy for Memory, but it was in play now. She was determined to do this. So he would stand watch and make sure she didn’t hurt herself in the process. Because despite his decision to be clear-eyed and pragmatic about Memory, his gut kept telling him she was the one who needed protection. His damn lioness had no shell, no shield, nothing between her and the ruthless world.

Alexei’s claws sliced out.

Chapter 19

My sister is like these trees. Perfect to look at, brilliant in her design—her brain is flawless, her intellect staggering—but all it takes to crumble that perfection is a single match.

—Ashaya Aleine on her twin, Amara

MEMORY SAT SILENTLY in the front passenger seat as Alexei drove them to the meeting location. Sascha had taken the backseat. None of them spoke much on the drive, and Memory had a feeling it was because of her—she was nervy, jumpy, all her energy on the surface of her skin. Erratic and bouncing.

Alexei had told her that the twins would both be present at the meeting.

“Ashaya can control Amara to a certain extent,” Sascha had added. “It’s good she’s coming.”

Now the cardinal said, “Remember, Memory, Amara doesn’t see empaths as sentient beings. She doesn’t really see anyone but her twin as a person.”

Memory put a fisted hand against her stomach. “I understand. I’ll take care.”