Page 189 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Eighteen

Dominic

R iva glances from my plate to my face, worry and happiness flickering together in her expression. “Are you sure you’ve had enough?”

I consider the sandwich I’ve eaten about a quarter of, but my stomach rebels. I might not have eaten anything in weeks, but whatever the man who runs this house used to keep me alive, it didn’t starve me.

Some part of my body has forgotten that it needs food.

I shake my head and offer a smile I hope is reassuring to offset the refusal. “I think I’m going to have to work up to regular meals. My stomach probably shrunk while I was out. I feel full enough.”

Zian is watching me with obvious concern too, his own lunch long since polished off. “Are you feeling at all sick anymore?”

I redirect my smile to him. “Not at all. I seem to have healed myself up no problem. It’s just… a bit of an adjustment.”

I don’t exactly feel sore or unsteady now, not like when I first woke up. My power can’t sense any bacterial invaders to destroy or injuries to heal within my body.

But I can’t say I’m totally back to normal in the few hours I’ve been awake either. A vague sense of fatigue hovers at the edges of my senses.

It’s not like I’ve been the strongest of our group even at my best.

As I stand up, all of my friends look me over, the same worries echoing across their faces. My gut twists with guilt.

I was the weakest of the six of us. I was the one this Balthazar guy felt was expendable enough to be used as leverage against the others.

They haven’t talked in much detail about what’s gone on while I was in my coma, but I’ve gotten the gist. Even the brief accounts left me queasy.

I don’t know how to make up for the things they’ve done out of fear of what would happen to me if they didn’t. For the things they did in exchange for our new captor waking me up.

I don’t know how to make sure he doesn’t turn me into an unconscious hostage all over again.

Riva has gotten up too, grabbing my plate to carry it to the kitchen as if she’s afraid to leave me with even that minor burden.

“There isn’t a ton to do here when we’re left to our own devices,” she says, “but one of the sitting rooms has some pretty packed bookshelves. There could be something in there you’ll find interesting. ”

I tip my head in thanks and am about to ask her if she’ll join me when a middle-aged man appears in the dining room doorway. His bony frame and sharply pointed beard would give him a menacing vibe even if I were meeting him at a beach club rather than an isolated mountain villa.

“Dominic,” he says briskly. “You’ve been exempt from our procedures so far by necessity. It’s time to see about bringing you up to speed.”

My body tenses automatically, my tentacles recoiling against the fabric of the T-shirt I shed my hospital gown for. Zian ripped the tee’s neckline for me so my monstrous appendages could move freely.

The others have told me about the procedures and some of how their powers have expanded. I got the sense from subtle hints of body language that there’s more they’ve discovered that our captors aren’t aware of yet, things they’d like to keep secret if they can.

We were able to hide just how far we were progressing from our old keepers in the facility, what feels like years ago. But the situation under the insane dictator they’ve described feels much more precarious.

And I’m not sure I want to stretch my abilities any farther. I can already heal every illness and wound I’ve been faced with. I managed to patch Riva back together from the verge of death after the train hit her.

The other side of my abilities—the giddy strength I can absorb by siphoning off life energy from other creatures beyond what I need to keep my good health—already horrifies me enough as it is.

When I hesitate, my friends push to their feet around me. As they step closer as if forming a guard around me, Matteo’s cold eyes narrow.

I stride forward before he needs to make a threat. It’s not as if we have much choice—and I don’t want the others suffering on my behalf any more than they wanted me to for them.

I think I know what to expect. I’m not surprised by the plain modern room Matteo leads me into or the steel chair or the syringe he brings out to begin his procedure.

He lets me stand, leaving my limbs unencumbered, and motions to a table set up next to the chair that holds a variety of not particularly unnerving objects—bricks and slabs of stone and woven cords. “We’re going to see how far you can take that borrowed strength of yours.”

That’s when my stomach starts sinking. It drops even farther when he slips behind the partition at one end of the room and presses a control that pushes a cage full of half a dozen white rabbits toward my feet.

Matteo’s gaze pins me in place through the tempered glass. “We’ll take it one at a time. Follow my instructions carefully. You can kill the first now.”

I want to resist. A pang of defiance stabs through me.

But my nerves have gone pliant from the chemical he injected into me, just like the others described. Even as my gut wrenches, I kneel down in front of one of the cages and snake a tentacle through the bars.

While afternoon fades into evening, I lie on my bed in the room Balthazar has assigned to me and try to judge whether Matteo’s drug has worn off. Is the heaviness in my muscles an aftereffect of his procedure or simply my horror weighing me down?

None of the rush brought on by my power remains—that’s for sure. Thinking about the life I drained from the helpless animals only makes my stomach lurch queasily.

Voices murmur in the hallway. The others are probably even more worried about me now that I’ve holed up in here, but I can’t bring myself to face them, not yet.

For the first few hours since Matteo released me from his tests, they’ve respected my closed door. As I run my hand over my face, it finally eases open.

Riva slips inside and shuts the door behind her. She stays by it as if she isn’t sure whether I’ll yell at her to leave.

“I had to check on you,” she says.

There’s so much anguish tangled in her tone and shining in her eyes that I can’t turn her away. She’s spent too long already scared for my wellbeing.

Mutely, I extend my hand to her. She darts across the tiled floor and scrambles onto the bed.

We fit together as if our bodies are meant to interlock, my chin tucking over her head, our arms looping over each other’s sides, her legs nestling against mine. I hold her close, absorbing her warmth for the more welcome strength it brings me without any supernatural powers necessary.

Riva brushes a delicate kiss to my sternum, just below the mark that connects us. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” There isn’t much to say. Matteo had me kill one rabbit, then two, then three at once. And in between each slaughter, he ordered me through tests of my physical might.

After the final rabbits, I snapped the thickest stone slab with my bare hands. Matteo looked pleased.

He told me he was happy we’d been able to establish a “baseline.” Just remembering that word sends a fresh wave of nausea through me.

“How often do they bring you in for the procedures?” I can’t help asking.

“I think on average it’s been once every couple of days.” Riva pauses. “But from the way Matteo was talking, he might bring you in more. Since he figures you’re behind.”

Fuck. I try to suppress my flinch, but a trace of my discomfort must show. Riva’s arms tighten around me.

Her voice comes out strained. “I’m sorry—we wanted you back with us. I didn’t even think about the downsides of you being awake.”

My own throat chokes up. I hug her back just as tightly. “It’s okay. I’d rather be going through this and here with you and the guys the rest of the time than half-dead and used as a threat.”

“I just wish there was more… I wish there was a better option.”

“I think you made the best choice you could have, considering the situation we’re all in,” I say honestly. “I promise you, there isn’t a single particle of me that’s upset about being revived.”

“Okay.” Riva manages to snuggle even closer to me. “I missed you so much. You guys have always said it wasn’t the same when I was gone… It wasn’t the same without you either, Dom.”

I doubt my absence had quite the same impact on our group as hers did, but a burn of tears forms in the back of my eyes anyway. Because I can hear how much it mattered to her.

We stay like that for a long stretch, our bodies gradually relaxing together, Riva’s presence melting the worst of my lingering distress. Gradually, other impulses wake up beneath my skin.

With her breaths, her breasts shift against my chest. One of my tentacles has fallen across her thigh.

The sharply sweet smell of her floods my lungs when I inhale. I can almost taste her on my lips, but I’m weirdly afraid to move to make it real, as if this could be a dream—as if I could be lost in a coma still, only imagining her.

Riva’s enhanced senses must pick up the signs of my desire. She lifts her head and lets her lips graze my neck, my jaw.

My pulse jumps. When she raises her head higher, it would have taken an iron will I sure as hell don’t have not to claim her mouth with mine.

Riva nudges me onto my back and straddles me. The feel of my dick settling between her legs has me stiffening even with the layers of clothing between us.

She leans over me, kissing me again and again, as I slide my hands beneath her shirt. As my tentacles circle her waist and dip right between her thighs to conjure more pleasure for her.

The hem of her shirt catches on the slim bracelets wrapped around my wrists—the silver bands the others have called “manacles.” Just for a second, I hesitate.

Back in the island facility, Riva would never have taken things this far. Not while she suspected the guardians were listening in.

I don’t think she enjoys the thought of Balthazar and his people monitoring us any more than she did with our previous captors. But she’s decided… that she doesn’t care?

It could be rebellion. Or it could be desperation—the fraught uncertainty of whether we’ll ever get to do this again if not now.

Riva draws back and gazes down at me with her bright eyes. “Are you okay?”

The longing in her gaze is more than just hunger. And I’d be lying if I didn’t want her just as much.

Fuck this house. Fuck the people who are keeping us here.

Whatever her reasons, we can confirm our bond and still kick their asses when we get the chance later.

I nod and tug her back down over me.

As she starts to rock against me, Riva doesn’t make any move to strip off my clothes. Maybe that’s her concession to privacy, as little as we have.

I follow her lead, stroking all the bliss I can into her body working around her outfit.

My breaths go hoarse as hers turn ragged. She unzips my jeans and frees my cock, then wriggles her leggings and panties down as far as she needs to.

When she sinks over me, taking me into the slick heat of her pussy, every thought flees my mind but the heady joy of joining together with her like this again.

I thrust up to meet her, electric quivers racing through my veins. I’m not going to last long, but I’ll be damned if I don’t bring her with me.

With one tentacle’s suckers, I massage at her clit. The other applies its cups to the curve of her breast while I work over the other with swivels of my thumb.

Riva moans and pumps faster over me. My jaw clenches as I hold myself back against the swell of release. I clamp down on the sizzling need until she shudders over me, and my control snaps in a blaze of ecstasy.

We sway against each other a few more times before settling into a slack embrace. I feel like I can’t hug Riva close enough.

There has to be more I can do for the woman I love than offer up a temporary physical escape.

Whatever that is, it isn’t coming to me in this moment. We cuddle together in a silence that’s as contented as it can be, given the circumstances.

Then there’s a tentative knock on the door. Zian’s voice carries through. “Dominic? Riva? We made some dinner, if you’re hungry.”

I sit up slowly with Riva in my arms. A weight still drags down my spirits, but not as badly as before.

And a jab of hunger prods at my stomach.

“That would be great,” I say. “Thank you.”

Riva gives me one more kiss and squirms back into her leggings. When we open the door, Zian is waiting in the hall.

His gaze travels from her to me, not judging, just with a glimmer of envy that tells me he knows we weren’t only having a friendly chat.

My gut twists. I wish I knew how to do more for my friend too.

The wounds getting in his way aren’t the kind my powers can seal over.

As we head down the hall, Zian drifts back behind me. Sensing he’s got something on his mind, I let Riva pull ahead of us.

He glances sideways at me, and the corner of his mouth lifts despite his previous solemn expression. “Getting your mojo back, huh?”

A faint flush tingles across my cheeks, but it’s hard to be really embarrassed around any of my friends when we’ve shared Riva together. “It’s not that hard when I have her as inspiration.”

“Yeah.” Zian pauses and seems to gather himself. “I—Dom— There’s something I’ve been thinking about. I don’t know when I’ll be ready to try it. But I think I could use your help.”

A flash of hope lights in my chest, small but potent. I tap his arm with my knuckles. “If I can, I will. Why don’t you tell me about it after dinner?”