Page 102 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Thirty

Riva

T he light knock on my door makes my lungs constrict where I’m lying on the bed on top of the covers.

Andreas’s softly cajoling voice filters through. “Hey, Tink. I brought you a plate from dinner, whenever you’re ready to eat.”

“Thank you,” I say without stirring.

I know he’s hoping I’ll come to the door or invite him in, that he’ll have a chance to talk to me face to face. But the weight bearing down on my chest holds me in place until I sense him stepping away and heading back down the hall.

When I’m sure he’s out of view, I push myself up and trudge over. A large part of me doesn’t want to do anything except sink into oblivion, but the rest of me knows that’s not really an option.

I need food to keep my strength up. I can’t just fall apart.

As much as I feel like I already have.

The scents wafting off the plate Andreas prepared provoke a pang in my stomach, but when I sit cross-legged on the bed with the dish on my lap, I find I can only force down a few bites of the creamy pasta and braised asparagus. After that, my throat closes up.

Grimacing at myself, I set the plate on the bedside table for picking at later and flop down on my back again.

The daylight is dimming beyond the small window. I wonder how far we are from land—where exactly we’re headed to.

I haven’t talked to Rollick about his plans yet. Every time I think about facing him or any of the other shadowkind, I cringe down to my bones.

Our demon benefactor hasn’t pressed the issue, so I’ve avoided it for now. Maybe if I lie here a little longer, I’ll know what I want to say.

I’ll know how to sort out the mess inside me into something worth hearing.

I’m not sure how much later it is when another set of footsteps approaches my door. I can tell they don’t belong to Andreas or Dominic.

My body tenses, bracing for a summons or impatient questions. What actually happens is the lock clicks over and Jacob barges right into the room.

I jerk upward on the covers with a lurch of my pulse. “What are you doing?”

He kicks the door shut behind him but then simply stands in front of it with his arms crossed over his chest, like he sees no problem with invading my privacy but draws the line at infringing on my personal space.

“You’ve been hiding away in here all day,” he says, with an emotion I can’t identify smoldering in his icy eyes. “At this point, it’s obvious whatever you’re doing on your own isn’t helping.”

I scowl at him automatically, partly because I can’t say he’s wrong. “And you figure that you can help me?”

His gaze seems to pierce right into me the way his poison spines once did. “I think I’m the only one here who knows what it’s like to have to live with the fact that you chose of your own free will to hurt someone who didn’t deserve it.”

His words sock me right in the gut. I flinch, my head drooping.

My voice comes out raspy. “I stopped as soon as I realized who it was.”

“I know. And you realized your mistake a hell of a lot faster than I did. So you can at least give yourself credit for that.”

I draw my knees up to my chest and hug them. “I proved the shadowkind who wanted us dead right. I showed that I can’t really control myself—I’ll hurt people I wouldn’t even want to. I almost killed him.”

“I almost killed you,” Jacob says quietly. “Maybe not quite as directly, but we both know I’m the one who pushed you to the edge. You might not have forgiven me, but you don’t seem to think I deserve to be scrubbed off the face of the planet for it either.”

Pain and regret resonate through his words. I swallow thickly before looking up at him.

He’s got a fresh bandage wrapped where he tried to cut his forearm off this morning. The one I used would have gotten soaked when our shadowkind attackers tossed him in the ocean.

He sounds calmer than he did when he broke down in front of me, but the anguish he expressed clearly hasn’t gone anywhere.

I can understand that urge in a way I didn’t totally before. If I could cut into my chest and dig out the parts of me that hold my shrieking power, I’m not sure I wouldn’t try.

I grapple for a way to respond to his statement. “We had all those years together before. Billy barely knows me except for what I did today. Anyway, him forgiving me isn’t the point.”

“You forgiving you is,” Jacob agrees. “Do you think you were somehow worse than I was? That you deserve worse than I do?”

I close my eyes. Somehow it hurts even trying to answer that question.

“I don’t know. I argued with Rollick about practicing more to make sure I had a better handle on my power. I took that gamble, and Billy paid for it.”

Jacob’s feet whisper across the carpet. The bed dips as he tentatively sinks down on the edge, still a couple of feet away from me.

“You were scared. You were scared, and you got backed into a corner, and you mostly managed to only lash out at the people who were actually a threat.”

“I’m not sure mostly is ever good enough.”

“Maybe not. But I was there too, Riva. He jumped out of the shadows and bolted up the dock so fast— I couldn’t even tell whose side he was on in that first second, and I wasn’t caught up in my powers.”

I peek at him through narrowed eyes. “So, what, you’re saying it’s okay that I bashed him up?”

Jacob’s mouth twists as he holds my gaze. “I’m saying it was an honest mistake. If you’d erred in the other direction and he had been joining the attack, we could all be dead.”

I can’t help snorting at the idea of Billy the faun, the sweetest of all the shadowkind we’ve met, racing in to slaughter us all, but there isn’t much humor in the sound.

“I don’t like it,” I say after a moment of silence. “The way I feel when I’m sending out that power. Or maybe it’s that I like it too much. What if using it even more makes it harder for me to back away?”

That’s the question that’s been simmering inside me all day. The fear that’s made me balk rather than march straight to Rollick and say we should get on with my training.

What if I end up hurting even more people than I already have?

Jacob considers for a moment before speaking.

“I think you’ll be able to tell if that’s happening, and then we can figure out other strategies to deal with that problem.

You don’t like how things are now either.

Even when you don’t know how to fix something, the only thing you can do is keep trying whatever seems most likely, over and over, until hopefully you get there. Right?”

I think from the shadow that’s come over his face that he isn’t talking just about me now.

I incline my head. “I guess that makes sense. I just—this isn’t anything like how I wanted to be. Who I wanted to be.”

“The guardians took away a whole lot of our choices. But I’m trying to make the most of the choices I do have.

I know you, Riva, just like you know me.

You aren’t going to let yourself become an actual monster.

If you could take on the whole fucking facility to get us out of there, you can handle this. ”

The confidence in his voice brings an unexpected burn to the back of my eyes. “I wish I knew that for sure so I didn’t have to be so scared.”

Jacob’s expression softens. He leans toward me, his hand reaching out—and then falling to the duvet still several inches from where I’m sitting.

His hesitation hangs in the air between us like a tangible thing. He’s afraid too—afraid I wouldn’t have accepted even a brief touch of comfort from him.

But he was right to come in and insist on talking to me. It is better not being alone, even when my company is him.

Maybe especially because. He’s also right that he understands the guilt that’s suffocating me in a way I don’t think any of the other guys could, not exactly.

As far as I know, they’ve never hurt anyone that badly except in self-defense or forced by the guardians.

Sitting with Jacob, talking with him, has opened a crack in the weight that was pressing down on me. And seeping through that crack is not just a hint of relief but a tingle of longing.

He brought me back the severed hands of our enemies. He would have cut off his own arm in retribution if I’d let him.

I hate what he did to me… but I have no doubts anymore that he hates his past cruelty just as much. That he is trying, in every way this damaged man knows how, to save me from any further pain.

To give me something better.

I lift my gaze from Jacob’s fallen hand to his uncertain face. It takes another moment before I can push the words from my throat—but they feel right when I do.

“If you want to make up for how brutal you were before, why don’t you show me how gentle you can be now?”

Jacob’s eyes flicker with a momentary widening. Then he eases across the bed and ever so carefully tucks his hand around mine.

He skims his thumb over the back of my hand, feather light. Just his increased closeness and that simple touch wakes up a sharper quiver of need through the shadows in my blood.

I don’t have to act on the sudden awakening. I can take the comfort he wants to offer without it having to turn into anything else.

A faint whiff of pheromones suggests that Jacob is grappling with the same desires, but he restrains himself, sticking to my request for gentleness. His thumb skims back and forth over my skin in several slow strokes.

He turns my hand over against his palm and glides the fingers of his other hand over my wrist. A fresh burst of tingles shoots over my skin.

My skin heats, but I sit still and silent, watching him.

He traces the bones of my forearm up to my elbow and back again with the same care. His lips slant into a bittersweet smile.

“You’ve always looked so delicate. Quite the trick when you’re the strongest one out of all of us.”

The corner of my mouth quirks upward. “I think Zian might object to that assessment.”

Jacob lets out a soft huff. “I’m counting powers and physical strength. Zian can’t tear someone apart without even touching them.”