Page 133 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Her damp top clings to her curves. My gaze traces them before I jerk it away, with heat flaring through my veins.

In my pants, my dick rises.

There’s a part of me that wants to swim right over to her, yank her back into the water, and press my body against every bit of hers. Kiss her until our lips are on fire.

But I know that if I tried, I’d be recoiling in another jarring smack of panic before I did much more than graze my fingers over her leg.

I’m not sure I could touch her at all right now, no matter how carefully, without setting off the instinctive jolt of horror that Clancy provoked so badly with his experiment.

Riva cocks her head, catching me staring. I turn, glad that the flush staining my cheeks won’t show in the twilight.

How the hell is she ever going to understand why I keep pushing her away?

Andreas’s voice travels up from my memories. You’ve got to tell her, you know .

Every particle of my being balks at the idea, still. But maybe he was right, because she’s already gotten the wrong idea.

She pulls her legs up in front of her to hug her knees. “It’s okay, you know. I’d never want you to do anything more than you’d want to. I love you, Zee, as you are, without you needing to do anything else. What we already have is enough for me. That’s not going to change.”

My throat closes up at the raw affection in her words. For a second, I’m afraid to speak, but I know I have to say at least one thing.

The statement seems to yank at my heart as I push my voice from my mouth. “I love you too.”

The smile that springs to her lips could kill me.

She does need to know the rest. She deserves to know.

I don’t want to be treading water while I’m doing it. I clamber out of the pool a safe distance from Riva and wrap the other towel around my bulky shoulders.

When I sit down with the picnic basket between us like before, my thoughts jumble together. I don’t know where to start.

No, maybe that’s not really true. My dick is still half-hard—it’s taking conscious effort not to let my eyes trail over her body again.

I fix my attention on the water instead. “The worst thing is that I do want more. A lot more. Even now. I just don’t think I’ll ever be able to act on wanting it.”

Riva gives me a moment and then ventures into my silence. “I heard from the other guys about what the guardians did after I left—how they brought in that woman… and something went really badly.”

Should I be glad there’s one part I don’t need to explain? All I feel is the weight of the story pressing down on me.

“She took Andreas first,” I say. “He said he told you about that. I could see afterward how sick he felt about the whole thing, and then she came to me. She was leaning into me and touching me to encourage me to come to the other room, and I?—”

I stop, gathering myself, my gaze still glued to the water.

Riva’s voice comes out painfully gentle. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it if?—”

I shake my head. “No. I do. You need to know…”

I inhale sharply and force myself to go on.

“I’ve never wanted anyone other than you, Riva.

And my head was a mess right then because she wasn’t you, and that wasn’t right, but the guardians had told us all that shit about you turning on us, so I didn’t know how to feel about you anymore.

And I was just so angry about everything. ”

“Anyone would have been.”

“Maybe, but anyone else wouldn’t have—” I close my eyes with a wince. “She started tugging on my arm for me to join her, and something in me just snapped. The wolf-man came roaring to the surface all raging. I just wanted her to stop , I wanted her to be gone, to leave me and my friends alone…”

My voice trails off into the stillness around the pool. I inhale raggedly, my stomach churning as I put the memory that’s haunted me for nearly four years into words.

“I was hardly aware of what I was doing. But then the guardians zapped me back to reality, and she was there on the floor… in pieces… all the blood…”

I press my hand against my face. “It wasn’t her fault. They’d hired her, they’d told her what to do. She might not even have had any more of a choice than we did.”

My whole body is tensed against Riva’s reaction. But when her voice reaches me, it’s quiet and steady.

“That’s right. It was the guardians’ fault. They should never have put you in that position.”

“I shouldn’t have lashed out that harshly.

I shouldn’t have lost control.” My breath rushes out of me.

“And now, when I’m in any situation that feels like that scenario even a little, all the feelings come back.

The disgust and the anger and the horror about what I did.

And I’m terrified. If I can’t control the feelings, then how do I know I can keep control of myself? ”

It could be Riva lying in a puddle of blood, chest gouged open and limbs strewn by my vicious hands. Not because she did anything wrong. Because I’m just too fucking messed up to protect her from myself.

And here she is, still trying to help me after everything I’ve told her. “That makes sense. Of course you’d want to be careful.”

I manage to raise my head to finally meet her eyes.

“It isn’t fair to you. It’s the worst with you, because even a totally innocent touch can set me off, because…

because I do want you, so it always affects me more.

But nothing’s gotten better as we’ve spent more time together. I might be like this forever.”

Riva’s eyes glint with a shimmer that might be tears. For me?

“If you are, then that’s how you are,” she says. “But you haven’t had that much time to see how we could work through it, right? We’ll just have to take it as it goes and see what happens. When we’re in a place where we can actually do that without any… pressure hanging over us.”

A burn forms behind my own eyes. I want so badly to hug her right now.

Instead, I reach, ever so tentatively, to rest my hand on the basket between us.

Riva watches and carefully sets her hand just a few inches from mine. An offering, take it or leave it.

I swallow hard and evaluate the emotions whirling inside me. Then I let myself slide my hand that last short distance to curl my fingers around hers.

Riva responds with a gentle squeeze that sends a pang through my heart. Her smile is tight, but I know the pain in it is empathy for me, not her own distress.

“This is enough,” she says, like she told me before. “It will always be enough.”

I thought I already loved her as much as a person could, but somehow in that moment, the feeling grips me twice as hard.

How can I care about her so fucking much and still not be sure I won’t destroy her?

Darkness settles over the glade. The warmth starts to fade from the air, chilling my damp clothes and probably Riva’s too.

We grab another tart each and then pack up the baskets. Before we can set off for the facility, lights glow along the path.

Clancy arrives with another two guardians in tow. One moves to collect the boxes, while the other goes to Riva.

She offers Riva a poncho to warm her up—and removes the bands from her arms without a word.

As the guardian motions for Riva to walk along the path, Clancy reaches for my own arms. I hold myself tensed as he detaches the bands.

“I’m sorry,” he says in a low voice for only my ears. “I was aware of the incident at your old facility, but I failed to realize how deep the trauma ran. I shouldn’t have put any pressure on you at all. Nothing like this will happen again.”

I blink at him, but all he adds is a brisk nod. Then, without any sign of expecting forgiveness, he ushers me ahead of him down the path.

I follow the light that glimmers off Riva’s hair, tension still humming through my body. Should I even believe his apology?

It’s hard to imagine we’ve won any kind of victory here. All we can do is wait and see what Clancy and his guardians will try next… until we’re free of them.