One human against a Tk had no real chance, but many violently inclined humans who knew to approach their target with stealth? Yeah, they could win. “Which way did he go?”

The dealer nodded to Alexei’s right with a grin that revealed a missing tooth and a gold one, side by side. “Hope you tear out his guts and use them as a noose!” he yelled out after them.

Alexei followed Renault’s scent in the direction the dealer had indicated. It wove in and out of the district, intersecting with itself several times—either Renault was being clever and laying multiple trails to confuse anyone hunting him, or he’d been searching for drugs for a long time before he’d finally found the dealer.

Alexei hoped to hell that meant Memory had been safe from the bastard the entire time. I’m coming, lioness. You hold on.

Chapter 52

Never underestimate an empath.

—Author’s Note, The Mysterious E Designation: Empathic Gifts & Shadows by Alice Eldridge (Reprint: 2082)

MEMORY’S HEART POUNDED a rapid beat, feeling somehow more powerful than it ever before had. As if she had a wolf’s heart now. Sweat dripped from her temples and her head throbbed from the constant use of her minor telekinetic gift . . . but the bond around her right wrist suddenly came undone.

She had no time for surprise or elation; she worked with desperate speed to untie her left wrist, then bent to release her feet—it was where Renault had knotted the long piece of rope he’d wrapped around her. Her fingers slipped, a nail broke, but she managed to undo the tie around her ankles. The rope tangled around her body was now the only thing that stood between her and freedom.

The door to the warehouse creaked open, letting in a shaft of streetlamp-yellow illumination. It shut with a bang. A bright ceiling light came on soon afterward.

Memory gritted her teeth and kept on working with angry calm. She was not going to let Renault win. Breath shallow but pulse rapid, she tugged off the last of the rope as she sensed Renault’s twisted presence coming closer and closer.

There!

Stepping out of the pool of ropes, she padded softly away from the chair despite the heat in her blood that urged her to run toward the monster, take him down. She had to think like Alexei, like a wolf.

A good hunter stalked her prey, took him from a position of power.

She slipped behind a shelf just as Renault appeared from the other side. She examined him through the shelving, noting his slightly unsteady walk, the glittering brightness of his face. Whatever he was on, it had him hyped—it might be one of the new drug formulations aimed at Psy that had recently hit the streets.

The Beacon had reported on it last week.

Whatever it was, it had messed with his senses, because it took him several seconds of staring at the empty chair surrounded by ropes to realize she wasn’t there. His face contorted, his mouth opening. His scream of rage echoed throughout the warehouse—she took advantage of the noise to duck around another corner, putting more distance between them while ensuring she could keep an eye on him through the breaks in the boxes stacked on the shelves around her.

Protein supplement.

Nutrient mix.

Her foot hit something.

She glanced down and had to slap a hand over her mouth to control her reflexive scream. A dead man in a security guard’s uniform lay on the floor, blood oozing out of his nostrils and ears. She sensed nothing from him, no indication of a living presence, but she bent down to check his pulse. Clammy skin, nothing but death.

So this warehouse wasn’t one of Renault’s that he’d somehow accessed. He’d broken in—and murdered in the process. Either the place had no alarms, or he’d forced the guard to give him the codes. She was betting on the latter.

Her resolve to end him hardened. Renault would keep on killing if he wasn’t stopped here and now; he’d spread pain like a cancer across the families of his victims.

No more.

“You bitch! You think I won’t find you!”

Memory braced herself for a telepathic sweep—she was the only other mind in the vicinity, couldn’t escape it, but Renault wasn’t going to attempt to kill her with telepathy, not unless he’d completely lost it. If she kept moving, he couldn’t use his Tp to zero in on her location so he could then freeze her in place using his telekinesis.

And if she managed to incite him into coming after her, she might be able to get him in a position where she could push one of the heavy shelves on top of him before he could use his abilities to block it.

She had Alexei, too.

Her mate was coming for her, his wolf a prowling wildness inside her.

Renault screamed again and Memory realized she hadn’t felt a telepathic sweep. Oh, of course. She was inside Renault’s own shields; he couldn’t attempt to find her mind without first releasing her.

It had to be the same reason her attempts at swamping him with negative emotion weren’t having any impact—her energy was being trapped inside the shell he’d placed over her mind. The next thing she felt was a slam of power against her mind that had her gritting her teeth, her eyes watering.

“Run! Run! I’ll smash your shields open!” He kicked over the chair so it fell to the floor with a clatter, all the while battering at her mind.

He was a stronger telepath than her, and he’d had decades longer to learn aggressive tactics than she’d had to learn defensive ones. In a blunt-force fight, she’d lose. So she had to be cleverer, had to outthink him. Aware from past experience that she could telepath him while locked inside his shields, she said, Shatter my mind and you kill the part of me you want. No lie. This kind of savage and violent breaching often led to severe brain damage.

She watched through the shelves as he paused, the muscles in his jaw and neck bulging. Come out and I won’t hurt you. His eyes moved in jittering sweeps.

Damn it, she’d made a strategic error. Now he knew for certain that she was nearby. I want an agreement, she said, stalling while she looked for anything that would work as a weapon.

An agreement?

I’m not a child any longer. I’m an independent contractor.

An incredulous look on his face. An independent contractor?

Yes. Memory crept toward the door. If Renault stayed where he was and didn’t pursue her into the shelves, then she’d slip out and wait for Alexei, and they’d take down the monster together.

One way or another, this ended here, tonight.

I like having money and being able to buy pretty clothes, she ’pathed him. Pay me and you won’t have to spend energy trying to keep me caged. I’ll appear as scheduled for regular sessions.

Renault stared around the warehouse before leaning down to calmly right the chair. “If you’re attempting to get to the door, don’t bother. I twisted the lock with Tk. I’ll have to untwist it to let you out.”

Memory had no intention of just believing him. She’d see for herself.

“As for paying you . . .” Taking a seat on the chair, he propped one ankle over his other knee, a CEO at rest. “How about your new allegiance to the wolves and the Empathic Collective?”

Sascha, Jaya, the stipend provided so Memory could live a free life, the open embrace of her divergent abilities . . . Renault couldn’t hope to understand the bonds she had with her fellow Es and she could use that to her advantage. Where was the Collective when you had me in the cage? She considered what to say next, what he’d buy. I won’t betray the wolves, since they let me out of the cage, but you don’t do business with them anyway, so there’s no conflict.

Another pause, just as she reached a spot with a sightline to the door. Not only was the lock twisted, but so was the security bar across the doorway. No one but another telekinetic would be getting through that door. She wished she had her phone, some way to warn Alexei, but Renault had smashed it to pieces after first tying her to the chair.

Not about to give up, Memory searched the walls of the warehouse for another exit.

All she could see from her current position were the high windows and the huge roller door used for deliveries. That door wasn’t an option—the access scanpad was just visible to her, and she knew it had to be secured against unauthorized use.

“An intriguing proposal,” Renault said aloud, and she knew he wanted to push her into a mistake. A single spoken word and he’d know her general location in the warehouse. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” he added.

Memory tried to think like a smart monster. Because under the influence of drugs or not, Renault was smart. But Amara was smarter. Never could Memory have predicted that she’d one day tell herself to think like Amara, but that might just be the ticket here. Amara would no doubt be highly amused when Memory shared that fact with her post-transfer.

You are the only person I know whose motives are crystal clear to me, she said. We have a relationship. Others in the world want to use me, but there is a risk they’ll overuse and break me. You know how to control the draw.

“Yes,” Renault murmured, the sound barely reaching her. “That much is undeniable. You are helpless against a transfer.”

Not anymore, you pathetic psychopathic coward.

Can I ask you something? He appeared rational at this second, and it might be the only chance she had to get this information for Alexei’s pack. How did you know about the bunker? she said, directing her next words at his ego. It’s so secret.

“I bet your wolf friends are going crazy trying to find the answer,” he said, conceit in his laughter. “My father was a teleporter who worked with a bunch of scientists. He got paid to create that bunker, and once he was done, he took me there to show me what he’d made. He had some ridiculous notion that I would follow in his footsteps—as if I would waste my energy on manual labor. But I filed away the visual references just in case.”

Memory dared another question. Oh, so other people do know about the bunker? It’s not just our place? The words made her want to throw up, but they got results.

“Everyone else who knew is dead. Probably killed by the wolves.” Renault’s tone said he didn’t care. “I eliminated my father when I began to indulge in my hobby. Couldn’t have him deciding to teleport into what he considered his best work, could I? Not when it was my special secret place.”