Page 237 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Eighteen

Zian

T he door for the cell Riva directs me to is locked. But the dim building in the middle of nowhere, northern China, has looked abandoned from the moment we showed up. Griffin confirmed that he couldn’t sense any human emotions inside other than the boy we’re here to save.

So I aim my searing vision at the door without any concern about triggering an alarm. Really, after walking through the silent hallways where the air is almost as still and icy as outside the grim gray walls, I’d welcome a chance to actually fight.

Riva’s apparently been talking to Ajax since well before we arrived, in her head. He directed us to his cell.

He must be able to see my progress, but he doesn’t risk breaking my concentration until the narrow slab I’ve carved out of the steel door topples out into our waiting hands.

The light catches on his dark brown face amid the thicker darkness beyond, and his voice slips into my mind without any movement of his lips.

You made it. Thank you.

Even his inner voice sounds exhausted. Bags have formed under his eyes.

As Riva extends her hand to help him ease his slim form through the opening, Andreas peers in over the boy’s head. “They didn’t even leave you any food?”

Ajax shrugs and opens his mouth. I guess it’s been a long time since he spoke the regular way, because his regular voice comes out all creaky. “I don’t think they saw much point. Balthazar never got much use out of me anyway. I ate yesterday.”

“That’s not enough,” Dominic says with a strained note, and beckons Ajax over. “Here, let me give you a quick energy boost—and I’ve got some protein bars. There are a bunch of snacks on the jet once we get there.”

While we tramp back through the dreary halls, the fourteen-year-old chomps through three protein bars and uses his telepathy to give all of us the account he already passed on to Riva.

Balthazar only had a couple of staff people here.

They found out he died last night. Right away, they took off.

They might have forgotten I was even here.

Balthazar came to round up the shadowbloods he actually wanted to use the day before.

Jacob scowls, his hands flexing like he’d welcome a fight or two himself. “That’s no excuse. That fucking psychopath. And the other shadowbloods talking like—like?—”

He cuts himself off with a growl of indignation. I can’t tell whether he stopped there because he can’t bear to put the praise we heard from the shadowbloods in the forest into words… or because he’s worried Ajax won’t be able to bear it.

But if the kid’s been able to tap into the minds of everyone in the building with him, if he’s noticed his fellow shadowbloods getting unhinged, then I’m pretty sure he’ll have picked up on their shifting attitudes toward their captor too.

We pass a gymnasium obviously used for training and a few other rooms that jolt me back to images from our time in the guardians’ facilities. Balthazar didn’t leave the basics behind when he abandoned the Guardianship.

At one smaller room where a desk is visible, Riva pauses. She waves the rest of us onward. “Get Ajax to the helicopter so he can rest. I want to take a quick look in here.”

Griffin dips his head. “I’ll help him relax.”

Though the whole building has been nothing but empty gloom other than Ajax’s cell, I hang back automatically. I’m not leaving Riva alone, not on our greatest enemy’s turf.

Even if just yesterday I pummeled that enemy’s head into a pulp.

My jaw clenches at the memory. It should come with a rush of triumph, but instead all that floats up is the echoes of horror and fury from when I watched the people—even the kids —we came to save complain at us like the maniac we killed was some kind of hero.

It’s been almost a full day since the ambush in the forest. We haven’t had any contact from the other shadowbloods.

Riva has used Griffin’s seeking talent to check the location of the teens she was friendly with a few times, but all that’s told us is they’ve stayed in Europe. They’re roving around, maybe using whatever vehicles Balthazar left behind like that helicopter.

I don’t like the sense of the other shadowbloods prowling across the continent, stewing in the brutal wildness they showed against the guardians—and against us. Especially the assholes who don’t even know what it really means to call yourself a shadowblood.

Riva paws through the desk drawers and the jumble of items left on the shelves before letting out a rough sigh. “Well, there wasn’t much chance we’d find anything helpful here. Even if Balthazar left some clue behind, it’d be about his plans, not theirs.”

I don’t need to ask which “they” she’s talking about.

“Maybe they’ll simmer down after they get used to him being gone,” I suggest as we hustle to catch up with the others.

“Lay low and just live, the way we wanted anyway. We don’t even know if the stuff Balthazar did to give them powers will wear off after a while. ”

Riva shoots me a grim smile. “That’s a nice thought, anyway.”

As we reach Rollick’s helicopter, she falls into a tense silence. I don’t think I’ve seen her relax since we set out to face Balthazar yesterday.

It isn’t the same barely restrained rage that was smoldering inside her for days in Balthazar’s villa.

As the chopper flies out to the landing strip where the jet waits for the longer trip back to Spain, she manages to speak gently with Ajax about where we’re heading, and she leans into Andreas’s arms when he offers a quick embrace.

I’m not afraid she’s going to explode with anger like I was back then. But every time I look at the tightness of her jaw, the rigid set of her shoulders, my heart aches.

She wanted Balthazar’s death to be the end of our problems. She wanted this long, awful journey to be over so badly—maybe more than any of the rest of us.

And now we have no way of even knowing when the catastrophe is really over.

Rollick is waiting for us on the jet. He watches Riva without saying much, but I think he can pick up on the same vibe I can.

When we’re getting close to our destination, I motion him to the back of the jet to talk to him quietly. “There’s something I could use…”

When I explain, a small smirk creeps across the demon’s lips. He gives me a quick nod. “I can arrange that.”

The flight leads to a short drive from the local landing strip to Rollick’s estate. Ajax drifts into a doze in the back of the SUV, and Riva glances back at him with a sad smile before shifting restlessly in her seat.

“When we get back, I should check the others’ locations again. Maybe Booker will have thought of something that the other kids or the criminal shadowbloods mentioned that’ll point us in the right direction…”

As we get out of the car outside the mansion, I touch her arm. “Nothing huge is going to change in the next half hour. Meet me in the lounge room with the fireplace?”

Riva knits her brow, but after she meets my hopeful gaze, she nods. I’ve realized one of the benefits of not asking much of her is that she understands how important it must be when I do ask for something.

The other guys glance at me with obvious curiosity, but I put them off with a subtle shake of my head. I don’t think she needs a crowd hovering around her right now.

There are a few things I’ve proven I’m good at with her all on my own.

I take a quick detour to the mansion’s massive kitchen and walk into the lounge carrying a tall stack of sandwich-size plates—with nothing on them. Riva takes one look at me and laughs. “You were so hungry you forgot to add the food?”

I join her by the fireplace, set the plates down in front of us, and give her a gentle nudge with my elbow. “Things have been kind of shitty. I thought you might feel like breaking something.”

Understanding lights in her bright eyes. When she was at her worst in her helpless rage at Balthazar, we flung flowerpots off the side of the hill.

It helped then, and I can already see the idea loosening the tension in her now. She exhales shakily, like a ragged release, and grins at me. “And Rollick won’t mind us destroying his dishes?”

The corner of my mouth crooks upward. “I already got his permission, as long as I clean up the mess afterward. He had this stack set out for us.”

There’s nothing in the broad, stone-lined fireplace right now except for a smattering of ashes left by the last actual fire lit here. I tug the protective grate to the side and heft a plate, but I let Riva take the first shot.

Her fingers clench around the smooth china. She glares at the blackened stones. “That fucking asshole screwed the kids up even more than they already were.”

She flings the plate. It smashes against the stones at the back of the fireplace with a satisfying crack .

As the pieces rain down into the ashes, I ready my own. “I wish I could have pummeled him for twice as long while he could still feel it, just for that.”

Bam. Bam. Bam.

We hurl plate after plate into the fireplace, muttering our frustrations and then simply pouring them all into the jerk of our arms. With each throw, a little more tension seeps out of Riva’s expression.

She lobs the last plate with a little battle cry. We stare at the heap of broken shards for a moment before I will the heat into my eyes to char all that pottery into dust.

Then Riva spins toward me and wraps her arms around my chest.

My pulse hitches with pleasure just at the knowledge that she feels comfortable enough to hug me without hesitation now. That I’ve shown her she’s earned that comfort.

My happiness swells more at her words, muffled in my shirt. “Thank you. I needed that.”

I scoop up her small frame easily and sit us both in the nearest armchair. Nothing could feel as good as having the woman I love cuddle deeper into my embrace as easily as breathing.

I lower my head over hers, drinking in the crisply sweet scent of her hair. “We’ll fix this. There’s got to be a way.” Even if I’ve got no clue what that is at the moment.

Riva grimaces. “I know Balthazar’s gone, and everyone important in the Guardianship probably is too. But everything still feels so messed up, and I don’t know how to help the other shadowbloods. They don’t want to be helped.”

“They haven’t had much time to really think about it,” I point out.

“But they’re stuck with the criminals Balthazar picked out. Who knows what those jerks are going to be telling them?” She rubs her forehead. “They’re just kids. They shouldn’t have to deal with any of this crap.”

“I know.” From the moment Riva found out the younger shadowbloods existed, she’s always cared so much about looking after them. Wanting to save them from having to go through as much torture as we did.

Even with all the crap the guardians did put us through, they couldn’t stop her from knowing instinctively how to act like a big sister. Or even…

The stray thought wriggles through my brain and sends a strange sensation that’s both giddy and terrified washing over me. I stroke my hand up and down Riva’s arm from shoulder to elbow, but the idea doesn’t drift away. It only grips me harder.

I hesitate and hug her tighter. Riva glances up at me as if sensing there’s something I’m grappling with.

I might as well spit it out. If she laughs or recoils, well, then I’ll know.

“Do you think… I mean, we don’t even know if it’s possible for us… but way down the road, when everything is okay and we have regular lives… would you want to make the family the six of us have a little bigger?”

Riva stares at me. Her hand drops to her belly. “You mean like?—”

Heat flares in my cheeks. “I just—I know how much you care about the kids, so it’s easy to imagine—obviously it would be way in the future if it happened at all?—”

She reaches up and touches my face, letting the softer warmth of her palm cool my blush.

“I haven’t really thought that far ahead.

It’s kind of scary letting myself imagine a future that normal.

But I could see wanting that and being ready for it someday.

” A coy smile curves her lips. “And you’d make a great dad. ”

My skin flushes even hotter. “I’m not sure—I’d have to work on a lot of things.”

Riva does laugh then, but it’s one of the sweetest sounds I’ve ever heard. “I’ve seen you with the kids too. When you were carrying George around on your shoulders while we were hiking through the jungle, giving him pep talks, you practically looked like you were his dad.”

The reminder sends a pang through my chest. George was a good kid.

And he died on the last mission the guardians sent us into.

I press a kiss to her temple. “I guess it’s silly to think about that stuff when we don’t even know what we’ll be doing tomorrow.”

Riva snuggles even closer. “No, I think it’s good to have some kind of dreams. Even if I’m too scared to really hold on to them just yet. I’m glad… I’m glad that we’ve gotten to a place where we can have dreams like that.”

My throat clogs with emotion. “Yeah. Me too.”

I might have tipped up her chin to really kiss her then, but as the words are leaving my mouth, Billy bursts into the room with his curly hair flying wild around his faun horns.

“Riva, Zian, you need to come. We’ve just seen—the other shadowbloods are attacking the mortals.”