Page 264 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

My shift at the early learning center, where I’m now an official part-time employee, doesn’t start until the afternoon. I exchange smiles with Dominic and Griffin while I prepare my instant oatmeal, but I don’t know exactly what I’m going to say until the words tumble off my tongue.

“You’re both going to the greenhouse today, aren’t you? Could I come along?”

Dominic blinks at me with obvious surprise, but his next reaction is a smile that’s almost shy. “Of course. Do you feel like you need some re-centering?”

I grope for the right words. “I just… I’d like to see you at work. It’s been a while.”

Griffin slips his arm around my waist and kisses my cheek. “I think it’s good for all of us to stop by the greenhouse once in a while.”

When we approach the gleaming, house-sized structure tucked at the fringes of one of the city’s more artsy commercial neighborhoods, I’m reminded of why that is. The custom-built greenhouse that Rollick helped arrange for Dominic a few years back exudes a sense of calm even from the outside.

Inside, narrow paths wind between dense foliage, much of which is in flower. The pleasantly warm, lightly humid air wraps around me like a hug.

Despite all the blossoms unfurling their petals around us, only a delicate floral scent laces the air. After just a few breaths, my nerves have already settled down.

Dominic put a lot of research into cultivating his garden here. Every plant has been chosen both for its soothing or uplifting qualities and for how it should work in combination with the others.

The Recovery Gardens, as he calls them, are open for several hours most days by appointment.

He only allows a few people in at a time to stroll along the paths and sit on the benches in key areas.

The fee is “pay what you can,” and the wait list is long, but he makes sure to leave spaces open for people who seem particularly in need, whether they can pay much or not.

The patrons range from stressed out CEOs to harried single mothers. Everyone leaves the greenhouse at least a little calmer than they were before.

And it gives Dominic a chance to work his healing abilities in a more subtle way than the difficult cases at the hospital allow.

He makes a point of shaking people’s hands when they come and go, guiding them around with a touch of their forearm, and other methods to get a read on their health—and pour a little of his healing energy into them to hopefully fix emerging conditions before they get serious.

If terminally ill patients suddenly started recovering en mass, there’d be a lot of questions being asked. When he can heal people before they even find out they need some kind of treatment, no one’s the wiser but everyone’s happier.

Griffin usually hangs back in a staff alcove set up in one of the denser parts of the garden, watching from afar. He projects reassuring vibes over the whole space to add to the effect of the plants.

After giving Dominic a quick kiss, I head to that area with Griffin. He flicks his pale hair away from his eyes and settles into one of the two cushioned rattan chairs on the tiny patio.

“Is this better or worse than the hospital for you?” I ask him. He still volunteers at a couple of the local hospitals a few days a week.

The corner of Griffin’s mouth ticks upward. “Neither, just different. The people who come here need less emphatic soothing, and they give off quieter joys. It’s nice to have a change of pace.”

As the first patrons of the day arrive, he leans back in his chair. We catch glimpses of the visitors between the leaves, but the glass wall between us and them is only transparent on our side, so they won’t be disturbed by any glimpses of us .

The complex mixture of scents, both sweet and herbal, mingles with the energy Griffin is sending out into the air. With each breath, my own body releases its tension.

I track Dominic’s movements through the garden too, noting when he sends one guest off with only a brief pat of welcome and personally escorts another to an ideal bench. The second must have some condition he’s spotted in the early stages.

The subtle healing he carries out with just his hands still takes a lot out of him, but when he sees that woman off, his face glows with satisfaction.

It wasn’t that long ago that he worried his powers would cause more destruction than healing. There’s something amazing about how far we’ve all come since those days.

I should leave feeling totally at ease. But as I step out onto the sidewalk to head to work, a twinge of apprehension lingers deep in my abdomen. I have the sudden urge to rush back into the greenhouse and call off work forever.

That wouldn’t be healthy. It’s not as if Rollick spends all his time with Quinn—I’ve never even properly met her, despite all the encounters we’ve had with him. He didn’t mean that I should give up every other part of my life.

All the same, the sense that something is missing niggles at me all through my work, no matter how many childish grins and giggles are aimed my way.

I put on my best cheerful face, but when my shift is over, I find myself summoning an Uber to take me to Zian’s little shop rather than our condo building.

The workspace Zee’s put together for himself—also with help from Rollick—is much smaller than Dominic’s. His tiny shopfront could barely hold a bachelor apartment, and most of that is the repair-slash-storage room in back.

The place suits him just fine regardless. I don’t think he notices the cramped space when he’s fiddling with circuit boards and wires, and a lot of his work takes him on house calls anyway.

When I peek inside, he’s just finishing up with a customer. He rests his hand on the microwave the man has set on the counter. My keen ears pick up their conversation through the window.

“Don’t worry,” Zian says. “I should have this fixed up by tomorrow. It’s just about having the right parts and knowing how to put them together.”

The man stuffs his hands in the pockets of his threadbare jacket. “I can’t pay you much… People said?—”

Zian nods before he has to go on. “I don’t charge. I just ask that if you have anything electronic you’re throwing out for good, you bring it to me instead of putting it out with the trash. You never know what bits and pieces might still be useful for someone else!”

He’s come a long way since his first awkward interactions with customers when he opened up the shop last year. His expression remains a little hesitant, as if he’s half expecting the people he’s helping to ridicule him for offering, but there’s a new confidence in his brawny body that suits him.

When the man has left, I venture inside. Zian is already hunched over the microwave on his worktable in the back, unscrewing the casing.

“Easy job?” I ask him.

“Shouldn’t take long,” he replies. “I have the right materials…”

He pauses to peer through his cluttered shelves with his X-ray vision. With a triumphant chuckle, he snatches a tub full of odds and ends shoved into one corner. “Here we go.”

Then he seems to remember that I’m not normally here as a spectator. He gives me his full attention, a trace of a blush bringing out the pink in his peachy-brown face. “But this repair isn’t urgent. Is something up, Riva? I should have asked you that first.”

“It’s fine.” I tug him into a brief hug and finish the embrace with a kiss. Zian strokes his hand over my hair, and it’s abruptly hard to remember what I was going to say.

“I wanted to see how the shop’s coming along.” I wave vaguely at the room around us. “It’s interesting to watch you work.”

Zee snorts as if he doubts that, but he steals one more kiss before turning back to the microwave. “Give me a half an hour, and then you can come along for one of my scavenging missions if you want. That’ll be more fun for you.”

I don’t think he understands how much fun it is to prop my chin on my hands and follow his movements as he picks apart the appliance’s innards and reconfigures them.

To see this massive guy who’s so often been afraid of how his brute strength will affect people handle the tools so delicately and precisely… It’s nothing short of magical.

He’s not wrong, though, that it’s also fun to cruise around in the old pick-up truck he picked up for dirt cheap and reworked the engine on, watching for electronics and appliances people have left out for the garbage collectors.

With our combined supernatural strength, we heave a washer and a stove into the truck bed alongside a toaster oven, a mini fridge, and a flatscreen TV.

As Zian turns the truck back toward his shop, I glance through the back window at our loot. “Are you really going to be able to use all of those?”

“I usually can. Almost everything has at least a few parts that still work fine.”

There should be something reassuring about that statement, but when we arrive back at the apartment to find Andreas has set aside plates of spaghetti so we can indulge in a late dinner, the niggling sensation hasn’t gone away.

Hold on to what you have while you have it.

The next morning, I emerge later than usual—and not feeling any better rested for it—to find Drey already stepping into his sneakers.

“Where are you going today?” I ask. He volunteers with a bunch of different causes all over the city—so he can run into the largest variety of people possible. All the memories he gleans inform the books he’s been writing one way or another.

Andreas runs his fingers through his thick curls. “One of the environmental ones—we’re going out to the beach to do a clean-up.” He considers me with his dark eyes that can pick up on my mood almost as well as Griffin can. “You want to come with?”

I roll my shoulders. “Yeah. Some fresh air sounds good.”