Page 198 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Twenty-Four

Riva

I t’s easy. I hate how easy it is.

Several mice, two rabbits, a squirrel, and a ferret have lost their lives to a silent shriek in my head that doesn’t even require that I part my lips. When Matteo places a cage holding a tabby in front of the chair I’m locked into, my body balks even more emphatically than it did before.

I can’t help thinking of Lua, Griffin’s sweet cat that he was forced to leave behind in some unknown jungle near Clancy’s island. Is she surviving okay? Has she managed to trek to other people who’ve taken her in?

I like that imagined version of reality better than the one that seems more likely—that the guardians abandoned her to become a tiger’s dinner.

No part of me wants to be responsible for ending this other cat’s life. It peers at me through the bars of its cage and lets out a piteous meow.

I lift my gaze to meet Matteo’s through the transparent pane that separates us. “No. Haven’t you seen enough?”

He smiles, his eyes gleaming with barely suppressed excitement. “But you’ve been doing so well! You did want to make sure you can control your impulses, didn’t you? Practice seems to be the best way of ensuring that.”

How can he look so fucking happy—almost giddy —about slaughtering innocent animals by the dozen?

Frustration stabs through me, and my power vibrates in my throat. A spike of the vicious energy quivers through my thoughts.

I do have some control—enough to yank my attention away from Balthazar’s flunky before I hurt him . Because God only knows what agony he’d inflict on my guys if I slipped up that much.

But a soundless blare of my pain-seeking hunger spills out of me anyway, latching on to the only other available target.

The cat flinches and yelps. Its leg twists at an impossible angle.

My stomach lurches. I twist in the chair and gag over the bucket Matteo set there after the first time I puked during this “training” session.

There’s nothing left in my stomach to come up. I only sputter a little sour acid.

Matteo tsks his tongue with an air of droll chiding that pisses me off even more on top of my anger with myself for lashing out accidentally. He didn’t even inject me with his special serum this time, so I can’t blame any chemical compliancy.

What I do here is totally up to me. That’s the point. He wants to see how far he can make me go.

I clench my jaw so hard it aches, willing my mind to stay closed. But the cat is trembling and whimpering, and Matteo is watching me expectantly.

He won’t do anything to help it. He’d probably have us sit here like this for hours more, the cat wallowing in the pain I inflicted, waiting for me to finish what I started.

Tears prick at the backs of my eyes. I don’t know what else to do.

Bracing myself, I send out all the power of my frustration in one sharp mental blast.

The cat’s body jerks, its spine snapping the way Jacob often kills his targets. It slumps on the cage floor, now out of its misery.

Matteo’s smile widens, and I want to vomit again. “Good, good. Very impressive. I’ll need to have more animals brought in—larger, more mentally advanced—to see how you do with them.”

I flinch inwardly, barely holding in a protest. What good will arguing do me?

He already knows I don’t want to do this. The more I complain, the more he might feel he needs to challenge my resistance.

What if someday he brings people for me to practice my powers on?

I restrain a shudder at the chill of that thought and keep my mouth shut as Matteo emerges from his booth. My gaze falls to my lap.

I don’t want to look at him. I’ll be too tempted to unleash my anger on the man who’s directed this session.

It’d be so easy to sever his life without so much as a peep. The hunger inside me shivers with its own giddiness just imagining it.

Not yet. Not when I’d only be condemning all of us to more misery.

Lashing out doesn’t do us any good when we still have no way to escape.

I get to my feet, willing my legs not to shake, and walk past Matteo to the door. In the hall outside, I suck in a breath of air that smells just a little fresher.

My gut is still churning. It might be past lunchtime now, and I don’t have anything left in my stomach, but I can’t imagine trying to eat.

Rubbing my arms, I head back to the section of the villa where we spend most of our free time. Who is Matteo going to bring in for his “procedures” next? What is he going to make them do?

Is he going to traumatize my guys even further after everything they’ve endured in the past?

My fingers curl, the tips of my claws emerging. In the same moment, Toni steps into my path up ahead.

I can tell the moment I see her stern expression that she’s here to give orders. It’s not like she’d ever inquire about how I’m doing or whether I’m okay, right?

I stop about five feet away from her and trail my fingers over the plaster wall, almost but not quite scratching the faded blue paint. “What do you want?”

Toni tips her head in the direction of the drawing room. “Mr. Balthazar has a new job he needs to talk to you about.”

Oh, he needs to, does he?

My jaw clenches. I think he needs to shove his expectations up his ass.

I said no to Matteo today, and he ignored me. But I do have a little leverage with our main captor.

He knows that we’re capable of disobeying him—and that he won’t necessarily be able to tell the difference between an honest failure and a purposeful one. That unless we’re sufficiently motivated, failure is definitely an option.

I push my lips into a tight smile. “You can tell Balthazar that I’ll deal with his demands when they’re actually a deal. I’ve been doing what he’s asked. He needs to do something for me in return if he wants me to continue cooperating.”

Toni narrows her eyes at me. “What are you talking about?”

I stare back at her unflinchingly. “He healed Dominic like he promised. Which, by the way, worked in Balthazar’s favor too.

I think I’ve done more than enough to cover my side of that bargain.

Now I want to know about StreamCycle Enterprises and how his business fits in with all these jobs he’s giving us. ”

A scoffing sound slips from Toni’s mouth. “He’s not going to talk to you about his personal affairs.”

I raise my eyebrows. “They can’t be that personal if he’s sending six strangers to handle some of them, can they? If he wants our help, I want to know what we’re actually doing. More than the nothing he’s told us so far, anyway.”

Toni’s lips purse as if my even making the request is distasteful. “He has security concerns. You don’t have a right to that information, so you can forget about getting it.”

My frustration blazes to the surface again with a vengeance. The words seem to scorch my tongue. “I don’t have the right ? Where the hell did he get the right to turn me into even more of a monster than I already was?”

My experience with the cat and my apprehension about threatening Balthazar’s people in general hold the most cutting part of my temper in check, but only barely. An ache pulses in the middle of my forehead.

“You don’t understand the purpose of all this,” Toni retorts.

“Which is exactly why I’d like an explanation!”

“You wouldn’t understand. It’s too big—you’ve barely been outside the cages the guardians kept you in.”

“And whose fault is that?” I snap back. “Who’s keeping me caged now, while you defend him?”

Toni’s gaze sharpens to a glare. “Mr. Balthazar has his reasons, and it’ll be better for everyone when he sees them through.”

Before she’s even finished her response, anger flares white-hot behind my eyes. I have to jerk my gaze away, clenching my hands and digging my claws into my palms so the pinpricks of pain keep me stable.

My voice comes out strained. “It’s not better for me. It’s not better for any of us shadowbloods. What he’s forced on me—I almost killed you right now, you know? I could hurt you so badly without even meaning to, if I wasn’t putting everything I have into clamping down on my powers.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No,” I rasp. “It’s just the truth. I wouldn’t want to—I don’t want to hurt anyone . Can you please just stop acting like an asshole and tell him what I said?”

There’s silence. The pressure reverberating inside my skull gradually eases.

I risk glancing over at Toni, my fingers relaxing. Her gaze drops to my hands, taking in the streaks of blood from where my claws dug in and the tiny wisps of smoky essence drifting up.

Her jaw works. Her gaze flicks to my face again, and a strange expression comes over it.

A trace of nervous pheromones reaches my nose, mingled with the faintest tang of what I’d have taken for… longing?

I frown. “What?”

Toni shakes her head as if to clear it. “For a second, you almost looked like— Never mind.”

She jerks around, away from me. “I’ll pass on your message. I can’t say he’s going to be happy about it, let alone agree to your demand.”

“Fine,” I mutter. “As long as you tell him.”

As she walks off, I stand there in the hall, feeling even more out of sorts than I did before. The effort of holding in my fury has left me wiped out, and I have no idea what to make of Toni’s reaction.

My feet drift toward one of the outer doors as if of their own accord. I want to drink in the fresh air, even if it’s cold outside with the impending winter.

I want a glimpse of the world beyond our prison even if I can’t reach it.

I wander across the lawn and between the hedges. My whirling emotions gradually settle.

Then a sound like a distant voice reaches my ears.

I pause and listen hard. Maybe it was just something from inside the house.

No. A faint but insistent call is carrying from somewhere ahead of me. I can’t quite make out the words, but they tingle in my mind on the verge of recognition.

Casually, so no one who happens to be watching would realize something’s odd, I stroll toward the sound. As I approach, it becomes clear enough for me to distinguish the faint summons.

“Shadowbloods. Oh, shadowbloods.”

The hairs on my arms rise. I crouch down by the wall, following the call.

Here. A small, smooth stone, solid black, little more than a pebble. It’s lying amid the grass like it was tossed over the wall carelessly.

But there’s nothing careless about this. The moment I pick it up, a faint quiver passes through my skin.

And a voice I now recognize as Rollick’s resonates from the stone.

“Hello, little banshee and company. Don’t worry—no one without our essence in their blood will be able to hear this message. I just wanted you to know that I got yours. I’m not sure how long it’ll take to sort out your latest mess, but I’m on my way.”