Page 235 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

At least, I assume he’s part of the cluster I’m seeing. Six tall men, each as brawny as our leonine former captor himself and at least half a foot taller, form a tight circle that Balthazar must be in the center of. He’s brought a literal human shield with him.

Is he only worried about physical attacks, or has he considered that we shadowbloods might be involved in this confrontation after all? Or maybe he isn’t completely sure that he has grabbed all the Guardianship’s test subjects, and he figures it’s better to take precautions about being seen.

Either way, I can’t inflict my shriek on him while those thugs are in the way.

Thugs seems like the right word for them.

They’re wearing heavy coats that amplify their bulk, and a couple of them have shaved heads revealing the tattoos of skulls, daggers, and other violent imagery that decorate their skin.

Another has a scar carved across his protruding brow from some past fight.

They must be some of his new shadowbloods—the criminals he stole from various prisons. One of them lifts his hand to scratch his neck, and I get a glimpse of a metal band around his wrist beneath the cuff of his coat.

My pulse thumps hard. I could shriek his bodyguards’ deaths and then move on to him, but as soon as any of them start to falter, he’ll know something’s wrong.

He might have that concentration-shattering device on him. We have earplugs in our pockets, but we felt it was more important to be able to follow the initial conversation when he shouldn’t know we’re here. I might miss an opening if I can’t hear what’s going on.

And who knows what other strategies he’s come up with?

No, I can’t attack yet. We wait until we have a clear shot at the man himself. That was the plan.

Although if this meeting goes far enough to shit that he heads back to the helicopter without any of us getting that chance, all bets are off.

As Balthazar’s huddle comes to a stop about ten feet from the board members, I let my gaze dart to the helicopter for a split-second.

I know I traced the three younger shadowbloods’ location to the same path that Balthazar’s presence was moving along. They had to be in the helicopter with him.

He’s left them and maybe other shadowbloods inside—why? If he doesn’t want his former colleagues seeing their “property” in his hands, why would he bring them at all?

A whiff of adrenaline reaches me from the lurking guardians below. They’re already preparing to launch themselves at Balthazar just like we are.

But Richmond does still offer the last remaining founder of the Guardianship a brief chance to talk. He lets out a slight scoffing sound. “What’s this, Otto? You’re not even going to let us see your face in person? You’d think we were the ones who attacked you.”

Balthazar’s ominous baritone carries from his ring of bodyguards. “I know you think I’m just a problem to be solved. There’s no need to play friendly.”

Richmond sighs and makes a swift flick of his hand that could be dismissed as fidgeting—except at the next second, a squad of some twenty armed and armored guardians step from the trees, surrounding Balthazar’s group and cutting him off from the helicopter.

Richmond lifts his chin. “You can force your men to die for this, or?—"

If Balthazar gives a signal of his own, I don’t know how anyone sees it. But before Richmond gives his second option, a surge of movement explodes from the forest.

Five more shadowbloods spring from the helicopter, all of them teens—Nadia, Booker, and Devon among them. A much greater force charges from between the trees where they must have used their own talents to allow them to prowl unseen.

It only takes the space of my heart’s stutter for chaos to erupt across the concrete field. Blinding light sears through the space, blue lightning sizzles in its midst, and gunshots thunder.

Another second, and the screams start splitting the air. Bodies thud to the ground amid a fierce bellow that sends ripples all the way to my perch, shaking the branch beneath me. Other figures dash around the mass of attackers at supernatural speed.

And in a pause between two streaks of Nadia’s blazing light, my gaze comes to rest on Balthazar himself.

Now that they’ve seen how easily they can take down the guardians, his bodyguards are easing away from him to deal out their own attacks. One’s eyes flare with an unnerving green light; another lashes out with an arm that stretches to twice its normal length.

Between them, they’ve left a gap straight to their master.

He looks exactly as I remember: the mane of silver-and-gold hair, the square jaw, the coldly intent eyes. Exactly like the psychopath he’s proven himself to be over and over again.

I called him Dad once, but only to save my guys. His presence doesn’t stir the faintest hint of a familial bond.

I don’t hesitate. The moment I recognize what I’m seeing, I’m propelling my mental shriek straight into his skull.

In the midst of the bolts of energy and the cacophony of the battle, maybe my concentration isn’t perfect. Just as I feel the vicious energy hit its target, Balthazar flinches—and wrenches his hand toward his pocket.

It’s possible he does have the device he used to interrupt my previous attack on him. It’s even possible he’d have managed to activate it before I lanced my scream into him with even more force, if I were alone.

But I’m not.

Before Balthazar’s fingers quite brush the surface of his jacket, his wrist snaps sideways as if twisted by an invisible force. His forearm cracks in a different direction, the bone raking through the fabric.

And with the extra second Jacob earned me, I throw everything I have into my shriek.

There’s no time for lingering in the torment, as much as I might like to pay this man back for what he did to us like I got to with Matteo. I channel all of my brutal power into the wrinkled organ within his skull.

The neurons cleave apart; the tissue shreds. The bony dome fractures into a thousand pieces.

Life sputters out.

Balthazar’s knees buckle, a single searing jolt of pain resonating from him into me. As he topples over, his body jerks.

It slams into the ground, and his face crumples in. Bloody dents burst across his flesh, smashing his features.

I can picture Zian’s fist pounding into our former captor. Zee is still invisible, but his supernatural strength shows in every break of Balthazar’s skull—until all that remains is a bloody pulp framed by crimson-streaked hair.

Relief sweeps through me, knocking the breath out of my lungs. It’s done. We did it. Balthazar is actually… gone.

I hurl myself from my tree and race to the concrete yard, needing to see the proof up close to confirm it. Needing to taste the tang of our tormenter’s blood in the air.

Skidding to a stop just a foot away, I stare down at Balthazar’s mutilated and undeniably dead form. The man who called himself my father only as another way to control me. The man who forced himself into all our lives even more viciously than the guardians he once helped lead.

He can’t hurt anyone else ever again.

As my heart thumps hard in my chest, a sense of triumph that has a shocked edge to it fills my chest.

We really did it. I almost didn’t believe we could?—

The impression of being stared at yanks my attention away. I glance up and find the nearest of the scattered shadowbloods gaping at Balthazar, looking totally bewildered.

Right. They can’t see me or Zian to know what even happened to him.

That thought has just passed through my head when Nadia lets out a cry and hurls a blast of her blazing light our way. It smacks into me with an unnerving prickling sensation, as if I’m sloughing off my skin like a snake.

No, not my skin—Andreas’s invisibility. As I blink the burn from my eyes, Zian wavers into sight beside me.

He’s fully wolf-manned out, muzzle jutting and fur sprouting down his neck to the collar of his coat. Gore smears his clenched fists.

“You…” Nadia says in a shaky voice.

I touch Zian’s arm in solidarity and raise my voice to peal out through the clearing. “Shadowbloods! Balthazar is dead. He doesn’t control you anymore. It’s over.”

More of the figures who were still fighting the remaining guardians swing toward us. Only a few continue the battle—nearly all of their enemies have fallen anyway.

Bodies litter the concrete surface, but nearly all of the dead wear guardian uniforms. Balthazar’s bodyguards have smashed right through the four board members who stood nearest, their corpses lying crumpled and distorted on the ground several feet away from where I stand.

One of those thugs, the one with the scar across his brow, stares at Balthazar’s battered form. He lifts his gaze to me, and his lips curl with a snarl. “ You did that?”

I blink, my throat momentarily closing up. “I?—”

All around us, pairs of shadowblood eyes have narrowed. Hostility crackles on the crisp breeze.

The man who spoke cracks his knuckles and steps toward us. “You’re going to pay.”