Page 127 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

I give him my account of our progress into and through the house, trading the story back and forth with Jacob, from our first kills to the kitchen staff’s warning to our ultimate victory.

With every word, the nausea gripping my stomach expands. At the time, it did feel like a victory.

Dominic’s revelation has drained all the justice out of that triumph, turning it hollow.

Why did I ever trust this man even a little? The guardians have never done anything except manipulate us and betray us.

I should never have believed he was any different, no matter what he said or did.

But I still need to hear what he’ll say for himself. I need to know just how aware he was of the shit he dragged us into.

Clancy takes our account in with occasional nods and sounds of encouragement.

When we’ve finished, he contemplates us with a satisfied expression.

“It sounds as though you fulfilled your tasks as well as I could have hoped. There can always be unexpected obstacles along the way—it’s impossible to avoid them entirely. ”

“There was something else unexpected that came up,” I say, girding myself for the conversation ahead.

Clancy arches his eyebrows slightly, almost as if he’s amused. I don’t think he can have any idea what I’m about to say. “Is that so?”

I cross my arms in front of me. “Yes. Why didn’t you tell us that someone was paying you to send us in there? It wasn’t a humanitarian mission.”

Our captor’s gaze flickers with a momentary tensing of his jaw. Oh, he had no clue at all that I was going to bring that subject up.

A faint whiff of stress pheromones reaches my nose, but he recovers quickly. “An organization on this scale requires funding. Our operations can be both humanitarian and paid for.”

Griffin is looking at Clancy instead of us now, with a furrow on his brow. He didn’t know about this part either, apparently.

I raise my chin. “Sure, that’s possible. But not when the people paying you off only want you to get rid of the criminals so they can take over the same slaving business for themselves.”

“What?” Jacob snaps. He narrows his eyes at Clancy. “You hired us out to help some child-abducting assholes?"

Clancy’s whole expression has tightened now. “I didn’t inquire about the plans of the group that hired us. They wanted to take out a target I was happy to see gone. If you heard something that led you to believe our sponsors had malicious intentions, you were probably mistaken.”

I snort. “Probably? You don’t even know. It didn’t occur to you to ask why these people were willing to spend who knows how much money for a mass assassination?”

Dominic wouldn’t have told me with so much certainty if he hadn’t found out enough to be totally convinced. And the fact that Clancy admits he didn’t really know one way or the other only makes me surer that Dom was right.

“It doesn’t matter,” Clancy says firmly. “You did a good thing today—you removed people who were doing horrible things from the world. We can’t control who might step in to fill a vacuum that’s been created, but if someone else picks up where they left off, they can be dealt with too.”

Jacob scowls. “As long as someone coughs up enough money to make it worth your while?”

Clancy gazes steadily back at him. “There’s a lot of injustice in the world. I see no reason we shouldn’t address it while also avoiding bankruptcy.”

He makes the whole thing sound so reasonable, but every inch of my skin is crawling at his matter-of-fact tone.

Destroying awful things could be awful in turn if it’s done for the wrong purpose.

Can’t he see that? He must.

He just doesn’t give a fuck as long as his bank account gets larger.

I catch Jacob’s eye. We don’t need to speak for me to recognize that we’re on exactly the same page.

Being paid mercenaries is a totally different thing from acting as superheroes. We don’t want this.

But as long as we’re here under Clancy’s control, we’re either carrying out his missions or he’s going to lock us up as lab rats.

Which means we’re going to have to get out of here, no question about it. All of us—the younger shadowbloods too.

And I have no idea how the hell we’re going to pull that off.

Clancy steps around the desk toward us. I brace myself for another attempt at justifying himself, but instead he cocks his head, his gaze skimming over our bodies.

“That’s not the only interesting thing that happened after you completed your part of the assignment, is it?”

My heart skips a beat. After Dominic’s report, I totally forgot to wonder how much the guardians might have realized about my and Jacob’s intimate activities.

“I don’t think anything happened that would be interesting to you ,” I shoot back.

Jacob steps closer to me in solidarity. “You’re just trying to change the subject from your shitty attitude.”

Clancy tsks his tongue. “Or maybe you’re trying to divert me . I did hear some very intriguing things while I was monitoring the missions.”

He reaches out, a gesture I wasn’t prepared for, and tugs down the collar of Jacob’s clean tee. Just far enough to reveal the dark spot that’s formed at the top of his sternum.

Jake is shoving him away a second later, but Clancy mostly dodges the blow with a backward step, anticipating it. He rocks on his feet, brushes himself off, and glances at me.

“I’m guessing you have a third of those now. A mark. We made note of them when you arrived, but I didn’t realize they were connected to your powers.”

My pulse thumps faster. “What are you talking about?” I blurt out, praying that there’s some chance he doesn’t really understand.

Griffin stands up. “You’re upsetting them,” he says, his voice as calm as ever but the furrow on his forehead deepening.

Clancy ignores him. “I suppose I didn’t mention that your tracking bands also transmit audio. I heard everything you said after your little interlude. Sex creates a connection between you? An extra awareness of each other? That’s fascinating. We didn’t anticipate anything like?—”

“Shut the fuck up!” Jacob snarls, and throws himself at the other man with a clench of his fist that I think is directing a smack of telekinetic force ahead of him.

But Clancy is ready for that assault too. His arm whips out, and Jacob’s body spasms with the crackle of a taser.

A cry bursts from my throat as Jake stumbles to his knees. “Stop!”

My claws spring out, but Clancy holds up his hand. “Let me remind you that you aren’t gambling only with your own well-being but his and your other friends’ as well.”

I stop, the vibration of a scream burning in my lungs, my fingers curling.

I want to slash his throat out like I did to the thugs in the mansion we just invaded. I want to shriek pain through his joints until they break.

But I don’t know what will happen to us—all of us—if I give in to that impulse. I don’t know how much worse things could get.

Taking in my stillness, Clancy rolls his shoulders, the taser still held between us. The door clicks as several more guardians enter the room to surround us.

“I think this conversation is over,” he says. “You’ve simply opened a new avenue of inquiry—a process I’ll need to study more closely to fully understand.”