Page 246 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Twenty-Five

Riva

S unlight pierces through my eyelids and wakes up a dull throbbing at the base of my skull. I wince before I’ve opened my eyes, and clothing rustles nearby.

Dominic’s voice reaches me, soft and soothing. “Hey. You’re okay now.”

With a thin line of pressure, one of his tentacles slides along my arm. A waft of warm healing energy washes through my body, and the lingering pain in my head melts away.

I blink and stare up at him—at all of my guys, who are standing around the bed I’m lying on. They’re all okay and wearing matching expressions of concern.

With a lurch of my pulse, I shove myself upright. We’re surrounded by the muted beige walls and chic furnishings of a hotel room, though not one I recognize from before.

The last thing I remember before waking up is the battle. Crossbow bolts flying, cries ringing out, light blazing—Booker, Nadia…

My voice comes out raspy. “What happened? How did we get here? The other shadowbloods…”

Griffin sits down on the bed by my other side and rests his hand on my shoulder. A faint caress of calm seeps from his palm through my mind—not really changing my emotions, just helping me focus despite the sudden swell of anguish.

Jacob is gripping the oak footboard, his fingers clenched as tight as his jaw.

“It was a shitstorm. After you fell, we pulled out as fast as we could. Zian grabbed you. The assholes took off down the street as soon as they had the opening. I messed up their vehicles, but we know they can steal new ones.”

He sounds almost annoyed that the rogue shadowbloods decided to prioritize staying alive over continuing the fight.

“We did get a few of them,” Zian says in a hopeful tone that clashes with the unhappy cast to his face. “We picked up three of the shadowbloods we managed to knock out—a couple of the kids and one of the criminals.”

I swallow thickly. “Some of them were more than knocked out. And the shadowkind they attacked—I saw Steel get shot, and Willow…”

Andreas nods, not even his normally animated eyes managing to offer any light.

“I think six or seven of the shadowkind didn’t make it out.

It’s hard to keep track when we didn’t know for sure who all was going to come out of the shadows.

We lost about as many of the other shadowbloods too, in the fighting.

Mostly the kids and a couple of the criminals. Tegan and Booker…”

His voice trails off raggedly. My fingers curl into the covers beneath me. “I know. I saw them.”

And the kid I killed, whose name I didn’t even know. I’ll never get the chance to find it out.

I don’t think the shadowkind will see their deaths as a loss, though. Not when they lost so many of their own to the rampaging hybrids.

I rub my forehead, still working to piece together everything that happened. “They were carrying weapons like the hunters were using—for fighting shadowkind.”

Dominic strokes the tip of his tentacle back and forth over my wrist. “They saw the shadowkind working with us when we confronted them in Memphis. We figure they wanted to be prepared in case we came at them again.”

It makes a sick kind of sense. In the most horrible of ironies, our attempts at shaking our fellow shadowbloods out of Balthazar’s influence have pushed them into becoming the monster-murdering soldiers he wanted.

Fuck. I feel hollowed out inside, as if all my inner organs have sunk to the bottom of my belly.

“The shadowkind must be pissed,” I murmur. “They didn’t really want to help us anyway. They thought the other shadowbloods weren’t worth saving, too much of a threat.”

A tawny-haired figure wavers into view by the door beyond the foot of the bed.

Rollick has his arms folded loosely over his chest, his expression serious but otherwise unreadable.

“I asked my associates to leave you undisturbed while you recovered, but I think you should talk to them directly about how they’re currently feeling. It’s good to see you with us again.”

I have to resist the urge to cringe under the demon’s penetrating gaze. It was my plan that sent his people into the fray—and ended some of their normally infinite lives.

I can take responsibility for my decisions. I can face the people my mistakes hurt the most.

With a wiggle of my legs to make sure they’re in working order, I shove myself toward the side of the bed. “Let’s go do that now.”

Rollick dips his head in acknowledgment. He leads the way out the door.

It turns out we’re not just in a hotel room but a whole penthouse suite.

I halt in the doorway, staring at the sprawling living room with its floor-to-ceiling windows giving a view over the surrounding city from above.

The hazy light that’s creeping over the buildings and the burnt gray of the sky suggest dawn has just arrived.

“We needed the space—and not to be interrupted,” Rollick says in brisk explanation.

My gaze lands on a body-shaped form draped in a white sheet, lying on the floor beyond the sofas. I freeze in place. “Who?—”

“Booker,” Dominic says softly. “One of the shadowkind managed to grab his body and carry him here through the shadows—I guess that’s possible for a mortal once they’re dead.”

Rollick nods. “She saw how upset you were by his death. She thought you’d want to give him a proper burial rather than leaving him to your crazed counterparts or whoever else would have found him.”

“Yeah.” My arms come up to hug myself. I can’t see Booker through the sheet, but the image of his sagging face after the crossbow bolt hit him is emblazoned in my memory.

The rogues killed him—a shadowblood just like them, simply because he was trying to get through to Nadia in the most peaceful possible way.

I don’t like considering what that says about them and how far gone they are.

I turn to Rollick. “Will you be able to help us with that? We don’t have the money or the contacts to arrange any kind of regular burial.”

The demon offers a small sympathetic smile. “We’ll sort it out.”

He motions for us to follow him to one of the other bedrooms off the common room. As we walk over, several shadowkind materialize to trail after us.

Among them, Shanty sweeps her deep blue hair back over her shoulders, her features pinched with what looks like grief. Fang lumbers forward, his muscular prowl making my limbs tense with the memory of his bear form tearing into Tegan.

Crag brings up the rear with a steady stride that reassures me that the injury I saw him take didn’t do any permanent damage. Even so, his harsh face with its rocky jaw looks even grimmer than usual.

The room we step into holds two queen beds. One appears to be empty. Sorsha lies on the other, her head tipped back against the pillow, but she pushes herself into a sitting position at our entrance.

And promptly sways as if she can’t find her balance. Beside her, Snap catches her shoulder with a noise of concern, his bright green eyes wide with worry. Across from him, Thorn looms taller as if he can intimidate whatever’s bothering the phoenix into submission.

My heartbeat stutters. I dart forward to the foot of the bed. “Are you all right? What happened?”

Sorsha rubs her temple and offers me a crooked smile. “Those friends of yours have quite the assortment of powers. One of them hit me with something that seems to have rattled my brain around. If I move at all quickly, I get very dizzy.”

Jacob speaks in a growl. “They’re not our friends. ”

“She’s got vertigo,” Rollick clarifies from where he’s positioned himself by the wall. He glances at me. “We’re monitoring the condition. Your tentacled friend hasn’t been able to identify a physical source to fully heal it, but we’re hopeful it’ll clear up with rest.”

Nausea wraps around my gut. If Sorsha can’t even sit up without getting dizzy, there’s no way she’ll be able to fly.

The rogue shadowbloods managed to disable our most powerful ally with one blow.

With a shifting of the duvet, a figure pops into being in the other bed, her legs tucked under the covers. Pearl grins at me as if oblivious to the thin trail of essence trickling up from her arm. “And I’m going to be okay too.”

I dash to her bed, my throat constricting. I’d almost forgotten that I thought I heard her yelp during the fight. “Pearl…”

A bunch of other shadowkind have emerged with her arrival. Billy is among them, closest to the bed. He shakes his head at her with a swish of his dark brown waves and yanks a roll of gauze from his pocket. “When you jump in and out of the shadows, you lose your bandage.”

The succubus glances down at her arm while her friend wraps enough gauze around the wound to suppress the flow of essence. “The cut is almost all healed up anyway.” She meets my eyes again and lets out a laugh. “You should have seen how it looked last night. That was scary.”

She doesn’t sound scared, but guilt chokes me anyway. The shadowbloods I insisted we try to capture could have killed my closest friend among the shadowkind.

This is all my fault. How do we come back from this?

My skin prickles with my awareness of the other shadowkind who’ve joined us in the room, the small crowd scattered around the two beds. They’re all watching my reaction.

“I’m sorry,” I say to Pearl, pushing the words past the lump in my throat, and turn toward the others. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know they’d have those weapons, or that they’d be able to use their powers against the devices emitting the sirens—I never wanted any of you to get hurt.”

I brace myself for accusations and recriminations. Instead, surprise ripples across the shadowkind faces before me.

Shanty speaks first, in a low tone. “One of the young ones like you nearly shot me. I saw you finish him before he could hurt anyone else. You killed your own blood to protect us.”

Lance pipes up from where he’s hopped up to perch on the room’s dresser. “Jacob took down one of the other shadowbloods too. You fought for us like you wanted to fight for them.”