Page 193 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Twenty-One

Riva

I t feels strange, making what might be the most daring move of defiance since Balthazar kidnapped us while chatting idly about the excellent cannoli we’re enjoying.

I take a bite, the thick, sweet filling coating my tongue, and furtively tap on the keyboard of our rented computer with my free hand.

Andreas looks on with a casual smile but alert eyes. He ushered us over to the computer closest to the boombox that’s playing upbeat Italian pop music through the room, to better cover the faint clicking of the keys.

From the moment Griffin told me he’d gotten permission for this “date,” the idea of how I could reach out to the demon who once guided us came together in my head. The hardest question wasn’t what I could do but whether I should.

I bring up the website for the Beach Bliss Hotel and Nightclub in Miami. The design is flashy but in a refined sort of way, a lot like the building—and the demon himself.

I find the link for the Contact page down at the bottom. When I click on it, it brings me to a sparse page with a simple form.

It’d have been better if there’d been separate email addresses for different levels of the business. Then I’d be more sure of the message reaching Rollick quickly. Or at all.

But this is by far the best strategy I can come up with. Even if I could get access to a phone, I don’t have his number memorized. I have no idea what his personal email address is.

The hotel was his primary business and also, as far as I could tell, his home. A significant number of the employees, if not all of them, were shadowkind.

Please, let whoever checks the hotel email be one of those. Or at least a human obedient enough to follow my instructions regardless of how weird the message sounds.

I pop the last of my cannoli into my mouth so I can type with both hands, so focused on the task in front of me I barely notice the crunch of the pastry and the final gulp of sweetness.

This is an urgent message that should be passed on to the owner of the hotel. Don’t worry if you don’t understand it—he will.

This is Riva. The guys and I are being held by a man who’s split off from the guardians and is forcing us to help him.

He’s already killed at least two of the younger shadowbloods.

We haven’t found any way to escape without help.

We’re hoping there’s some way you can reach us or send shadowkind who could get us out.

His last name is Balthazar, and he has us in a villa on a steep hill in an isolated part of Italy, within a few hours of Florence.

“South,” Andreas murmurs as if making commentary on our map to himself.

I revise my last sentence. Within a few hours south of Florence.

There’s at least one shadowkind who’s being forced to work with him, so you might be able to find out more through your connections.

He also has a woman who goes by Toni and a man named Matteo working for him. That’s all we really know.

If you come, please be careful. He has devices on us that can kill us in an instant if he wants to, and I think he might prefer that we’re dead rather than let us escape.

I sit back, feeling wrung out, and have Drey read over what I’ve written. He nods in approval and squeezes my shoulder.

I don’t have an email address of my own to put in the form, but then, I doubt I’ll get a chance to check it for a response. I write [email protected] as if my explanation of who I am in the message itself might not be blatant enough.

Holding my breath, I click send.

My body goes rigid, some part of me anticipating a blare of pain from my manacles or a thunder of pounding footsteps as guards rush into the room. The pop music plays on, the chair stays firm beneath me, and we go unmolested.

I exhale slowly and manage a grin at Andreas despite my queasiness.

I did it. The only thing I could think to do, and a gambit that might not pay off any time soon if at all.

But it’s one more flicker of hope to sustain us through whatever our captor throws at us next.

Andreas slips his hand around mine and tugs me to my feet. He tucks the map he was contemplating into his pocket. “I picked out a good route from here. Trust me?”

My next smile comes easier. “Of course.”

As we drift down the street outside, Drey strokes his thumb over the back of my hand. “We’ve gotten through a lot of hard stuff already. This was supposed to be a break for you. Do you think you can set the worries aside and enjoy being here?”

I know that by “hard stuff” he means the email I just sent as well as everything we’ve endured before. Tension still winds around my gut, but there really isn’t anything else I can do to improve our situation right now.

“Yeah,” I say. “I can give it a shot, anyway.”

Andreas flashes a warm grin at me. “Then I’ll do my best to make the rest of the day as enjoyable as possible.”

He guides me past some historic buildings I barely paid attention to before and then others beyond them, pointing out details in the architecture. We stop to read plaques offering stories of their significance.

After the first few, Andreas glances over at me. “It’s kind of comforting in a strange way, don’t you think? That these buildings and the memories attached to them have endured for hundreds of years.”

I think I get what he means. “It’s nice to know that it’s possible.”

The horrors we’re facing now are just one blip in the grand history of the world. Balthazar’s impact could end up being nothing more than a brief burst of static.

The beautiful things people have created can outlast a whole lot of trouble.

Andreas leads us on from the streets of towering buildings to a sprawling park. No flowers bloom in the gardens in the autumn chill, but impressive statues gaze down over the perfectly shaped hedges that form winding paths through the greenery.

We stop by a breathtaking fountain, taking in the water streaming over the carved stone. The rhythmic warbling settles some of the lingering jitters in my nerves.

Not many tourists are bothering with the park at this time of year. The sound of other voices fades as we venture deeper among the hedges.

Drey’s face brightens when he spots a sort of alcove formed between the hedges, like a dead end in a maze. A stone bench stands against the leafy wall.

He draws me down onto it and takes my other hand in his. A glint of mischief gleams in his eyes.

“I’ve been thinking… Our talents feel like a burden sometimes. Not something we’ve asked for—something the guardians forced on us so they could use us.”

“Something a whole lot of other people seem to want to use—or destroy,” I can’t help muttering.

“Yeah. But the powers aren’t just that. They’re ours too. There are so many things we couldn’t have done for our own benefit if we hadn’t been made into what we are.”

I can’t really feel happy about any of the destruction I’ve caused with my hunger for pain. On the other hand, I am glad I could cast out my shriek to save us when I’ve needed to.

And my strength and speed have given me moments of exhilaration I wouldn’t have gotten any other way. I like the power that runs through my muscles when I flex them.

In my silent contemplation, Andreas gives my hands a little squeeze. “How would you like to experience one more thing no one else in this city could get to?”

I raise an eyebrow. “What did you have in mind?”

Rather than an answer in words, a tingle glides over my skin, from my hands up my arms and then racing all through my body.

Before my eyes, Andreas fades from view. But not just him. When my gaze jerks to our twined hands where I can still feel the pressure of his grasp, I’ve vanished too.

I can see right through the spot where our joined hands should be to the bench my no-longer-visible legs are braced against.

Andreas releases one of my hands, and I wave it toward the hedge next to us. I can’t see anything but the dense leaves, but they tickle against my arm when I brush it right against them.

An elderly couple strolls by our alcove, glancing into it with bland expressions that show they don’t see us at all. My pulse leaps with a giddy hiccup.

“It isn’t much,” Andreas says in a low voice. “It’s only a temporary disappearance. But it means I can do this right here, and no one’s going to stop us.”

His fingers trace the line of my jaw, and he guides my mouth to his.

When I close my eyes, there’s nothing different about the embrace at all. Andreas is here with me in every way that matters.

The only difference is we don’t have to worry about anyone seeing us and judging our PDA.

Because we’re shadowbloods. We’re special .

Even if I hate what the guardians put us through, even if sometimes I hate what they turned us into… there is something amazing about our existence too. Only six of us humans in the entire world with powers strong enough to rival actual monsters.

And those powers don’t have to be used just for fighting.

The shadows in my veins shiver and flare. My longing for the guy in my arms grows with every second of our kiss, every stroke of his hand from my shoulder to my hip and back again.

It’s never been as urgent as it was back when we first collided, when the smoky essence inside us wound together to form our matching marks. But I know that part of me will always call out to part of him, recognizing him as my own.

We’re blood.

I kiss him harder, looping my arm around his neck. A pang of hunger radiates from between my thighs.

I have to remember what’s really important, no matter what shit we’re going through. I need this physical connection as much as everything else we share—with all of my guys, or at least all of my guys who are ready for it.

Balthazar might have us cuffed and under threat, but even he doesn’t own us. Not entirely.

When I feel for the hem of Andreas’s shirt and tease my hand up under it, his breath catches. His mouth slides along the edge of my jaw to the crook.

He speaks in a low murmur and a hot exhalation. “Riva, we don’t have to?—”

The desire lacing the air tells me he’s just as eager as I am despite his words.

I curl my fingers against the taut lines of muscle that shape his chest. “I know we don’t. But I want to. Because we can. Because I always want you.”

He makes a strained sound and nips my earlobe. “I always want you too, Tink. We’ll have to be quiet, though. I can hide us from eyes but not ears.”

I give a soft laugh against the tight curls of his hair. “I’ve got plenty of practice at that.”

My hand slides lower, and Andreas sounds as if he’s swallowed a growl. He tips me over so I’m lying on the bench with him braced over me.

His mouth brands my jaw, my neck, the top of my shoulder. “Someday it won’t be like this. I look forward to getting to hear you let it all out.”

He cups my breast through the fabric of my dress, and I arch up into his touch. When the swipe of his thumb over the peak provokes a whimper, I yank his lips back to mine so he can muffle it for me.

As much as I want to soak up every bit of passion Drey can offer me, I know we can’t take our time with this interlude. What if one of the few other visitors to the park decides this bench looks like a nice place to sit?

What if Balthazar summons us back?

With our mouths still melded together, I reach beneath the waist of Andreas’s jeans. The brush of my fingertips over his scorching erection earns me a strangled groan.

He yanks up the skirt of my dress and runs his own fingers over my already dampened panties. I rock with his touch, letting my gasp get lost in the meeting of our lips.

It’s not just special or exhilarating, being with this man. It feels like some kind of miracle.

We were wrenched apart more than once but found our way back, with a love and trust I never knew I’d be able to have, back in the anxious teenage days with my unspoken crush.

I manage to undo Andreas’s fly. As I ease his rigid cock from his boxers, he pulls down my panties.

My knees splay around his hips. He plunges into me with another crash of his mouth against mine.

My shadows sing, and my body bucks to connect with his even more closely. My spine jars against the smooth stone beneath me, but I don’t give a shit about the distant pain or the bruises I might be giving myself.

We’re in the middle of a sprawling city full of people, but we’re also alone together in our own invisible world. No matter what happens next, Balthazar can’t steal this moment from us.

He tries. Andreas thrusts deeper with a rasp of breath, and the bands around our wrists give off a faint buzz of an alert.

Before I can even start to tense, Drey grips my thigh and slams deeper. His lips sear against mine.

He doesn’t need to speak for me to understand that he’s refusing to back down, to give up this stolen intimacy. And the defiance sparks a starker fire inside me.

I sway up to meet him, my fingers digging into his shoulder. He pounds into me even harder, chasing the eager pants of breath I’m now expelling against his cheek.

His cock hits the perfect spot deep inside me, and the manacles thrum again.

“No fucking way,” Andreas rasps. “Not until I’m done with you.”

The desire in his words and the pulsing pressure inside me tip me over the edge. I come with a moan I can’t totally stifle, pleasure flooding every inch of my body.

Drey follows me with a jerk and a groan of his own, his face bowed to my neck. He holds me for several beats of our heart before deigning to lift his head, claim another kiss, and sit up to help me straighten my clothes.

“We’re on our way,” he says softly for the benefit of the manacles. “Just had a little something to finish up first.”

There’s no one in sight of our alcove in the hedges to see Andreas’s powers at work. He brings us back into visibility, appearing before my eyes with a triumphant grin.

We won this minor battle. Balthazar didn’t have us knocked out or harmed for delaying an extra minute.

For all he knew, we really couldn’t have returned right away regardless. He couldn’t have seen exactly what the circumstances were.

A little loophole in the tangled mess he’s wrapped us up in.

I don’t know if he’ll agree to any more recreational excursions after we’ve stretched the limits of his patience, but that possibility seems unlikely anyway. All that matters is the lightness that winds through me as Andreas and I find our way back to the waiting car.

The sense of momentary freedom lingers through the drive to the villa as I nestle against Drey in the back seat. It lasts until the car passes over the drawbridge into the grounds, and Toni eyes us as we clamber out.

“You got your fun,” she says. “Now Mr. Balthazar has another job for you.”