Page 263 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

A Shadowblood Souls bonus epilogue

Riva

W e’re lounging on the cozy sofas in our apartment’s living room after dinner when Dominic’s phone rings.

None of us get calls all that often, so we all watch him answer with undisguised curiosity.

Even Snowball, the cat who’s claimed us as hers over the past few years, lifts her furry white head from where she was cuddling on Griffin’s lap.

Dom clearly wasn’t expecting the call. There’s a puzzled note in his voice when he says, “Hello?”

As he responds to the person on the other end with a vague, “Oh,” “Yes,” and “Of course,” a furrow digs deeper into his forehead.

When he hangs up, Andreas has already arched his eyebrows. “What was that about?”

Dom looks at us, his expression somber. “Rollick is sending his jet for me. He wants me at the landing field in an hour. He didn’t say why.”

A thread of tension squeezes my chest. We’ve gotten all sorts of help from the demon, including this lovely apartment, but he doesn’t generally ask us for anything.

“Why just you?” Jacob demands, frowning.

Dominic shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know. He didn’t say the rest of you couldn’t come, so I guess that’d be fine. But he specifically wants me there.”

My mind spins through the possibilities. Dom’s powers are focused on healing—and, at the opposite end, draining energy from living things. They don’t seem to work all that well on full shadowkind, though.

Was one of the younger shadowbloods badly injured? So badly Rollick thinks regular medical practices wouldn’t be enough, but not so badly they’ll be okay for the couple of hours until Dominic gets there?

I push to my feet. “We’ll all go. If there’s been some kind of trouble, the rest of us might be able to help too, whether Rollick thought so or not.”

After several years of similar trips, we move together in well-honed synchronicity.

In case we’re not back tonight, I set out extra dry food for Snowball while Zian fills a big bowl of water.

We grab the knapsacks we leave packed for hasty departures and hustle down to the lobby just as the cab Andreas called for arrives.

The jet is waiting for us at the airfield. The pilot nods as we board with no sign that it’s a problem all six of us have arrived. The plane is only in the air for about half an hour before it lands by a waiting SUV.

The vehicle roars over to a property in the middle of desert terrain, the yard surrounded by a stucco wall with a matching house sprawling behind it. I recognize it as one of Rollick’s homes, a place I’ve only been to a couple of times.

Why does he want to see Dominic here ? None of the shadowbloods should have had any reason to be hanging out with the demon this far from their usual stomping grounds.

None of Rollick’s usual shadowkind colleagues have appeared to give us an explanation. I’m no less confused when the chauffeur parks the SUV outside the garage.

Griffin speaks up in a soft tone, obviously drawing on his empathic abilities. “Rollick is upset—worried. I’ve never felt him like this before.”

I swallow hard. There isn’t much that seems to rattle the demon even a little. What are we walking into?

As we emerge from the car, the front door swings open. Rollick himself stands on the threshold in his human-like guise, his classic good looks marred by his grim expression.

His gaze slides over us as if he barely sees us—other than Dominic. He beckons toward Dom. “This way. Thank you for coming so quickly.”

Dom hurries ahead of the rest of us to join Rollick. “What’s this about? Is someone hurt?”

“Not… exactly.” Rollick drags in a breath, and I don’t need to borrow Griffin’s emotion-reading power to know he finds this conversation hard.

He pauses outside a closed door down the hall and turns to us. “You’ve heard me mention Quinn before.”

Zian frowns. “Your… girlfriend? Is she okay?”

I’m not sure “girlfriend” is the best term for the woman that as far as I know Rollick has been devoted to for the entire time we’ve known him, but he hasn’t told us much about her one way or another.

She’s completely human, and he seems to prefer to keep her as far from shadowkind business as he can.

Except for today.

Rollick’s mouth twists. “She has a heart condition. She’s had two transplants in the past thirty or so years.

Her current heart has been giving her some trouble…

I don’t want to put her through another operation if I don’t have to.

” He pauses. “She might even refuse now that she’s already gotten two second chances. ”

And as flexible as the demon’s sense of morality often is, he isn’t going to force something like that on the woman he loves. A pang that’s both sympathy and respect reverberates through my heart.

Dominic’s jaw sets with determination. “I’ll see what I can do.” He reaches for the buttons on his shirt and then hesitates. “Does she know what to expect?”

Rollick nods. “I told her the basics.”

When Dom shrugs off his shirt, revealing the light brown skin of his lean chest, the only trace of his tentacles visible on his back are two scar-like marks on his shoulder blades where those extra appendages protruded in the past. As Rollick opens the door for him, the sinuous, suckered lengths of flesh push to the surface and ease out to trail down his back.

He’s found he can do some minor healing with just his hands, but for anything more intense, he has to use the tentacles.

“I’ll need something to draw energy from,” he starts.

“I’ve already got a couple of potted palms in the room,” Rollick says before Dom needs to go on. “If that isn’t enough, we have other options.”

It doesn’t feel right for the other five of us to tramp into Quinn’s room after them. There isn’t anything any of us can do to help a failing organ.

I catch a glimpse of a woman sitting up on a hospital-style bed, pale blond hair tucked behind her ears and a bright but weary smile aimed at Rollick and Dominic. Then the door clicks shut in their wake.

The tension that niggled at me earlier digs deeper. I might not know much about Quinn, but it’s clear Rollick cares about her just as much as I do all five of the men connected to me through our shared history and the marks dappling our chests.

And now the demon is facing the possibility of losing her. Fuck, I can’t imagine how hard that would be.

If any of my men became deathly ill…

At the rush of anguish that surges through me at the thought, Griffin’s head ticks toward me. I make a quick gesture to deflect his concern and inhale deeply to dispel the uncomfortable thought. But the deepest knot of tension lingers.

We don’t know how our future will go. None of us has shown any clear signs of aging beyond early adulthood yet, but we’re still only in our twenties.

We have no idea whether our lifespans will be extended to anything like shadowkind near-immortality, whether we’ll get the typical human eighty-some years, or if we’ll end up somewhere in between.

How can Rollick stand it, knowing for sure that he’ll long outlive the woman he loves, unless some catastrophe knocks him down?

I shift on my feet, and Andreas comes up behind me. He wraps his arms around my shoulders and tucks his chin next to my head. “I’m sure Dom is doing everything he can for her.”

Our healer is in the bedroom for a long time. It feels as if hours have passed before he emerges, his face drawn and grayed with exertion and his tentacles still resting against his back.

Rollick follows him out and shuts the door behind them.

“Thank you,” he says quietly. “I could tell it made a significant difference.”

Dominic nods. “I haven’t tried to heal anyone in a situation quite like this before. I’m not sure how long the effects will last. But I think I strengthened her heart and the connections between it and her body to almost as good as new—almost as good as if it was her heart to begin with.”

“I couldn’t have hoped for more.”

The demon appears to gather himself, willing away his solemn expression. My gut pinches with the thought that he might feel he needs to offer us some kind of hospitality when he’d obviously rather stay focused on his lover.

“We should get back to the city,” I say before he tries to invite us to dinner or anything like that. “Lots of stuff to do.”

Rollick shoots me a look that might be a little grateful. He follows us out to the SUV that’ll drive us back to the jet.

As the guys pile into the vehicle ahead of me, I glance at our long-time benefactor again. The question seems absurd, but it spills out of me anyway. “Are you going to be okay?”

Rollick sputters a laugh. “It’s not my well-being at stake here.”

I offer him a wry but tight smile. “I don’t think that’s totally true.”

With a soft huff, the demon shakes his head. But then he grasps my shoulder with a quick squeeze. “Hold on to what you have while you have it. Make every moment matter.”

He nudges me toward the SUV, and all I can do is go.

All night, Rollick’s words spin on a loop in my head. I’m glad I told the guys I wanted the expansive bed in my bedroom to myself this once, because I toss and turn so much I doubt anyone next to me could have slept well either.

Hold on to what you have while you have it.

How can I “hold on” more than I already am? The guys and I live together, we spend so much time together…

What if it isn’t enough? What if I end up regretting that I didn’t make the most of the time we have now?

The restlessness lingers after I pull myself out of bed. I emerge to find Dominic and Griffin in the kitchen, Dom slathering toaster waffles with maple syrup and Griffin halfway through an apple. Snowball twines around his feet.

Jacob likes to do his vigilante patrols at night, and both Zian and Andreas often tinker into the late hours—Zee with his latest electronic projects and Drey with his current book. I don’t expect any of them to be up for at least another couple of hours.