He tugged again.

Unable to bite back her laugh, she jumped down and closed the door behind her. The wolf let go at last. When she went to her knees and raised her hand with hesitant wonder, he butted his head against her chest. “Alexei,” she whispered, astonished at the transformation even though she’d always known he was changeling; seeing him this way, this magnificent wild beast . . .

Fisting her hands in his fur, she rubbed the side of her face against him.

He opened his powerful and deadly jaws, pretended to grip her throat. She pushed playfully at the heavy bulk of his body and he danced away, light as air. Only to come back when she held out her hand. She stroked him, found that his coat was thick and soft. He stood in place, not just patient with her petting but angling his head or nudging at her to indicate she’d hit a good spot or that he wanted more.

Memory tugged at one of his ears, got a low growl in response, and a look that she was sure was of affront. “I guess no one dares tug a dominant wolf’s ear.” Her smile creased her cheeks. “What kind of game do you want to play?”

Amber eyes gleamed.

Lowering itself into a seated position, the wolf ostentatiously closed its eyes and put its head on its paws.

“A sleeping game?” Memory scrunched up her face. “That’s the strangest game I’ve ever heard of.”

The wolf opened its eyes and huffed, then got up and ran a little way into the forest before coming back. After which it folded itself back down into a seated position and placed its head on its paws.

Memory glanced at the moon-kissed forest into which the wolf had run and back at him. She’d never played games, never had a playmate, but she’d watched so many documentaries. What did wolves like to do? Her eyes widened. “Oh. A chasing game!” Pulse kicking, she rose to her feet. “I’m not very fast.”

The wolf began to snore. I’m giving you a big head start.

She sensed that intent as clearly as if he’d spoken. The wolf’s emotions were far more primal than Alexei’s, but it was still him . . . and she could understand him in this form, too. That was a gift she’d never expected.

His eyes opened, a question in them.

“No peeking.” She pretended to scowl.

He parted his jaws in a wolfish reply before closing his eyes again.

Trying to move as quietly as possible, she walked into the forest. She took care, unsure of her footing—but the moon lit up the world. It showed her an area with towering pines, carpeted by thick pine needles.

No cracked rocks, nothing to trip her up if she was careful.

Alexei had stopped where she could play with him without hurting herself.

Pulse a drum, she began to run. When she spotted the silver ribbon of a small stream, she took off her shoes and socks and waded upstream for five minutes before getting out. It was worth the frozen toes to give Alexei a small challenge at least. After using her socks to dry her feet, she balled them up and stuck them in a back pocket. Her sneakers fit well even over bare feet.

Ready, she began to run again.

A wolf’s howl split the night sky five minutes later, raising every hair on her body, and she knew Alexei was on the hunt. Her breath hitched. Then froze in her lungs as howl after howl answered his. The wolf song echoed around the mountains, bouncing off the slopes and falling into the valleys. Memory’s eyes burned at the unearthly beauty of the wild chorus, but she forced herself to keep moving.

Alexei was on her trail.

Even as she tried to keep ahead of him, she wondered what would happen if she ran across a wolf other than Alexei. Distracted by the sudden thought, she nearly tripped on a root snaking across her path. Catching herself in the nick of time, she managed to keep her footing. Exhaling, she looked up in readiness to move again . . . and found herself eye-to-eye with a huge black wolf, his eyes vivid gold.

Her throat went dry, her muscles rigid.

The wolf angled its head in a quizzical way . . . and took a sniff at her before dropping its jaw in what she thought was a friendly way. She dared “sniff” back at him with her empathic senses and caught the edge of feral amusement. Changeling.

And he found her funny? That was fine with her. Giant black wolves with razor-sharp teeth probably didn’t eat people who made them laugh.

Turning without attacking her, the wolf padded away. But just when she thought she was safe, the wolf stopped to throw her a look over its shoulder. Come on, that look said.

It was insane to follow a strange wolf into the dark. But this was a crazy moonlit night where she was playing a chasing game with a golden wolf—she decided to take her life into her hands and follow the amused black wolf. But something kept niggling at her . . . She took another sniff. Frowned.

The emotional feel of him was tantalizingly familiar. She just had to translate wolf emotions into human and . . . “Riaz?” she gasped with a smile.

Glancing back, the wolf gave a look of approval before carrying on through the trees.

Memory followed in silence.

Less than two minutes later, she came around a tree and nearly ran into a small Asian woman with blunt-cut bangs and jet-black hair down to her shoulders.

Memory’s eyes widened, but before she could apologize, the woman—who wore black jeans, boots, and what might’ve been a dark blue sweater that hugged her body—scowled down at the black wolf.

“What the hell, Riaz? What are you doing with Alexei’s empath?”

Alexei’s empath.

The words settled on Memory’s skin, sank deep. “Alexei and I are playing a chasing game,” she said, feeling as if she were in the middle of a fantastical movie where a dangerous wild creature led her to a woman who looked at her with the eyes of a friendly assassin.

“Game, huh?” The maybe-assassin exchanged looks with Riaz’s wolf. “Our Lexie has a huge advantage.” She looked Memory up and down. “You have a couple of pieces of clothing you can spare?”

Mystified, Memory pulled out her damp socks.

The wolf and the woman looked at one another again before the wolf shook his head. Taking the hint, Memory put the socks back into her pocket.

“Have you sweated?” The woman put her hands on her hips, and though there wasn’t a visible weapon on her, Memory kept thinking of her as armed.

A lightbulb went on in Memory’s brain. “Turn around,” she said to Riaz.

He yawned, but did so while she stripped off her orange sweater, then took off her tee. Handing that to the woman, she pulled her sweater back on. “Sacrifice it.” She nodded to the tee. “This is war.”

A wicked grin. “I like you, E. Now, let’s make this game a little harder for Lexie.” A blade suddenly glinted in her hand. Using it to rip the T-shirt in two, she gave one piece to Riaz, held the other herself.

The wolf took off to the west.

“Follow me,” the woman said. “I’ll show you how to confuse your trail so it’s not the most powerful of the three scent trails.”

Memory went, taking mental notes as her guide ran through a list of pointers. They ended up at a rocky section of land.

“Stones don’t hold scent as well,” she was told. “Breeze is also going in the wrong direction to help Lexie.” Another grin that lit up the dark of the woman’s eyes. “Good luck.”

“Thank you.” Memory’s heart began to race again. “Wait, what’s your name?”

“Sing-Liu, and if any asshole wolf tells you to call me China Doll, stab them for me. Except if the wolf’s name is D’Arn. Him, I’ll handle privately.”

Then the two of them were separating, Sing-Liu going in the direction where the wind would carry the scent to Alexei, while Memory went the opposite way.

The game was back on.

* * *

• • •

ALEXEI bared his teeth when he scented Riaz’s path intersecting with Memory’s. His fellow lieutenant should’ve known to leave her alone. Alexei had made sure to rub up against her until no one could mistake that she was his; the scent wasn’t deep enough to hold through a shower, wasn’t in her skin as it would be if they exchanged intimate skin privileges, but it was enough to warn off other wolves.

The only thing that kept his annoyance down to a slight grumble was that Riaz was devoted to Adria and would have no interest in Memory as a woman. So why the fuck had the two of them headed off together? He’d strangle Riaz if the other male had scared Memory.

What the hell? Now Sing-Liu was in this, too. He growled as he circled the area to see their next step. The trail split in two.

Oh.

Alexei’s jaw fell open in a wolfish laugh.

His packmates were helping Memory.

Fair.

The human part of Alexei agreed with the wolf’s determination. Memory had done a good job of slowing him down by walking in the stream, but she had no training in eluding a hunter.

Regardless of Riaz’s and Sing-Liu’s entrance into the game, Memory’s scent was a luminous beacon to him, fresh and luscious and warm. He tracked her to the stony area where he’d often played as a trainee soldier. That was where it got interesting. The scent split again, then disappeared over the stone. Alexei retraced his path, went back over the stone step-by-step.

Stubborn, defiant, strong.

Teeth bared, he followed the scent of his E. But his packmates were clever. Riaz and Sing-Liu had doubled back and circled and overlapped the scent trails until he had difficulty telling which one was of Memory alone—or if she’d decided to be tricky and head off with one of the others to confuse him.

He threw back his head in a joyous howl, delighted with this game. Delighted, too, that his packmates were playing with her. That wasn’t an expected thing; Riaz and Sing-Liu were powerful and high-ranking members of SnowDancer, and Alexei hadn’t made a public declaration about Memory . . . except for all the food gifts he’d been leaving at her door, and the way he’d brought her deep into SnowDancer territory for this game.

As one distant packmate then another responded to his howl with their own, he ran on under the moonlight, on the hunt for an empath who retaliated against him by drowning him in rainbows and sparkle and delight. The wolf snorted. She was about as scary as a pup. And both parts of him adored her.