Page 101 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

But the aura of power doesn’t diminish. It’s as if he twisted a dial up to max, and the force of it keeps humming through the air like the peal of a warning bell.

The demon crosses his arms over his chest. “I never said anything about ‘letting them off.’ There are gradations between turning a blind eye and slaughtering people.”

“She should be slaughtered—she tore Cinder apart! They all?—”

I can’t keep my own anger bottled up any longer. I step away from Riva to face him with my hand still on her shoulder.

“You were going to massacre us! Why the hell should we just roll over and die because it’ll make you feel better?”

Kudzu bares his teeth at me, but his attention snaps back to Rollick at the clearing of the demon’s throat.

“I will decide what’s to be done with them on my own time. But frankly, Cinder got what she asked for.”

Kudzu’s face hardens. He glances at his companions, some silent communication passing between them.

“Fine,” he spits out. “Have fun with your psychotic playthings. We aren’t sticking around to help.”

He leaps into the shadows, there and then gone, and the other four blink out of view within the next thump of my heart. Then it’s just the five of us on the deck, clustered around Riva, staring down at the demon who might have saved us… or might be planning a more complicated doom.

Rollick brushes his hands together as if washing them of bad business and meets our gazes steadily.

“You’d better come with me back to the ship. I have some news about your ‘facilities,’ but it wouldn’t be wise to stick around here any longer what with all the commotion we’ve already caused.”

The harbor area we picked is secluded from the rest of the city by a strip of brush, but the faint grumble of early morning traffic reaches my ears. Has some part of this conversation been seen or overheard?

All the same, I balk. “What news?”

Rollick shoots me a baleful look. “Nothing earth-shattering, but enough to potentially point you in the right direction. Are you coming or not?”

At his question, the others all glance… at me. Even Jacob.

As if the fact that I questioned Rollick, the fact that I told off Kudzu however ineffectively, means my opinion carries the most weight.

“Are you going to hurt her?” I ask. I don’t know if he’d tell the truth, but I want to at least evaluate his answer.

Rollick’s unperturbed expression doesn’t shift. “I have no interest in doing so. As long as she doesn’t try to shriek the bones out of my body, I think we’ll be fine.”

“I won’t be doing any shrieking if you don’t come at us,” Riva says in a raw but firm voice. “So there shouldn’t be any problems then.”

He did stop the others from continuing their attack. I don’t know what changed his mind, or whether it hasn’t changed at all and he’s wanted more time to evaluate us all along, but accepting his offer feels like a safer bet than taking our chances on our own here in Havana.

“Fine,” I say.

“But if any more of your idiot ‘associates’ try to—” Jacob snarls.

Rollick cuts him off with a flick of his hand. “I believe the trash just took itself out, as some of you mortals like to say.” He steps toward our boat. “Come on, then. Since you can’t travel by shadow, it’ll be easiest if we make use of this convenient craft you’ve already commandeered.”

Andreas moves toward the cabin. “I’ll drive.”

The rest of us unmoor the boat, always making sure there’s someone between Riva and Rollick. Not taking any chances about his good graces just yet.

As Andreas starts the engine and sets us cruising out into the low waves, Riva sinks down on one of the benches. She turns toward the demon.

“Will Billy be all right? He’ll heal once he’s back… home?”

Rollick is already lounging on the bench across from her. “I can’t say how long it’ll take, but he’ll recover. We can’t die in the shadow realm. We rarely die even in this one unless we’re hit with the right tools—or very thoroughly eviscerated, as you demonstrated with another of my colleagues.”

Riva’s mouth tightens. She gazes out over the water for a few minutes, the rising sun glancing off her silver and slate-gray hair.

Then her fingers twitch toward the trench coat. She slides it off and offers it to me.

“I’m sorry. I should have given this back earlier.”

I drop down next to her and grasp her hand. “It’s all right. I’m actually… kind of enjoying not being sweltered.”

A soft smile crosses her lips, but it looks fragile, like it could easily be shattered. There’s still so much pain shining in her gold-flecked eyes that the sight makes my heart ache.

When we approach the large harbor where the massive yacht is docked, Rollick steps into the cabin to direct Andreas. We pull up beside the vessel to scramble onto the pier and then the larger ship.

Rollick jerks his thumb toward our previous ride, looking at someone I can’t see who must be lurking in the shadows. “Take care of the boat and head back to Miami for further instructions.”

As he sets a few other members of the crew who waver into sight about casting off immediately, one more figure emerges from the patches of darkness along the deck. Torrent leans back against the cabin wall, taking some of the weight off his supporting tentacles that are much thicker than my own.

My heart leaps. If he’s back, then Rollick must have been telling the truth at least about the search for the facilities.

I head over to the shadowkind man with my hand still wrapped around Riva’s, the other guys following. Rollick strolls over too, although I assume he’s already heard whatever Torrent has to report.

“You found the facilities?” Zian asks with a hopeful expression.

Torrent’s mouth slants crookedly. “I’ve identified three spots I think are likely locations of the type of facility you described. I can’t tell you for sure whether any or all of them are actually holding other experimental subjects like you.”

“Then we’ll have to check them out,” Andreas says without hesitation.

“We can make decisions about that when we’re back in the right country and I have a better idea what we’re working with,” Rollick says. “For now, why don’t you take a moment to breathe and then you can come back to the discussion—and the others we need to have—fresh?”

Riva’s free hand tightens around the strap of her backpack. She doesn’t say anything about a potential rescue mission, no eagerness showing on her face.

She tips her head toward me, letting her forehead graze my jaw. “I’m going to my room. I think I need a little time alone.”

I press a quick kiss to her temple. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about me.”

She squeezes my hand and then lets it go. As she heads into the ship’s interior, the ache that formed before clenches hard around my chest.

But the wound inside her now is one I have no idea how to heal.