Page 43 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Thirty

Riva

E verything hurts.

I’m not even exaggerating. I mean, there’s my chest and my ribs and my stomach and my head. My shoulder and my hip and my knee, all consumed by a deep ache that rises and ebbs with my breath.

But even my ears prickle. My big toes throb. My fucking pinky finger twinges with pins and needles.

What the hell— Where am I?

I blink and find myself staring up at Dominic, his shadowed, handsome face etched with worry and strain. Stars speckle the night sky beyond him.

I’m lying on my back. Grass tickles the backs of my bare arms. The air is cooling damp patches all across my torso and legs.

Dominic lifts his hand from where it was resting at the base of my throat. Something else shifts across my belly; something thin and sinewy… like the things I can see sprouting over Dom’s shoulders.

The shapes of them are vague in the moonlight, but I make out the curves of rows of suckers along the undersides of the things. I blink again, but the view doesn’t change.

He has two tentacles growing out of his upper back.

The words slip from my lips before I have a chance to think about them, more a creak than a voice. “When did you become an octopus?”

Dominic’s expression shutters. I can feel him closing himself off from me, and the memories from what happened right before this moment rush back to me with a jolt.

The farmhouse. Andreas, in the basement. And afterward—everything they said—all the things I hadn’t realized?—

I close my eyes, sinking back into the physical pain that’s somehow more comforting than the swell of anguish that wants to swallow my whole mind. And Dom answers my question.

“About three and a half years now. We’ve all been evolving.”

His voice is tight but even, no hostility in it. More pieces click together in my head.

This is what he’s been hiding under his ever-present coats—what I saw him flinging at the guardians when they attacked us at the campus townhouse. What he never wanted me to see.

“Why…?” I rasp, and can’t quite form the question.

Dominic’s hand comes to rest on my sternum. “I’m healing you. You—you got bashed up pretty bad. I’m patching you up as quickly as I can, but it’s a work in progress.”

When I open my eyes again, his are shut. A rush of warmth flows through me, some at my chest where his fingers are pressed, but mostly from the tentacle lying across my abdomen.

The sensation radiates through my flesh. If the healing energy he conjured before was a stream, this is a river, coursing through every crack and gash that needs to be knit together.

The other tentacle, the one not wrapped around my belly, veers off toward… a nearby sapling. The tip curls around the thin trunk.

Its branches are sagging, the whole tree bowing toward the ground as its bark darkens as if overtaken by rot.

Dominic must notice my gaze. “The energy has to come from somewhere. It all balances out one way or another.”

Oh. The flowers and weeds I saw him picking before—he was using them for healing energy.

As I bring my attention back to him, the arc of the tentacles I can see arcing over his shoulders expands . Just a little, maybe half an inch, but unmistakable. Like they’re pulling farther out of his skin.

“They’re growing,” I mumble.

Dom lets out a ragged chuckle. “They do that. When I use my power.”

Understanding hits me like a smack across the face. Oh, shit. “That’s why you didn’t want to— You don’t have to. You don’t?—”

His other hand closes around mine—gently so that he doesn’t provoke fresh pains in the delicate joints there. “It’s fine, Riva. You need this. I’m glad I can do it.” His voice dips. “I’m glad you’re still with us.”

I need this… because of the train. That final memory roars up to the surface, and I wince instinctively as if I’m feeling the impact all over again.

Footsteps stomp closer. “Is she okay? Don’t do anything that could hurt her.”

“I know,” Dominic says, almost a growl, as my gaze flicks from him to the other man now standing within my limited view.

Jacob stares down at me, his expression tense, his normally cold eyes blazing as if they’ve been lit with blue flames. His hands are clenched at his sides, the tendons standing out in his arms.

I jerk my gaze away with a lurch of my heart that sends a new ache through my chest. I don’t want… to see him, speak to him, deal with any more of his bullshit.

Jacob lets out a grunt of frustration, and then there’s a groaning sound, like a weakening branch pushed by the wind. Somewhere beyond my field of vision, Andreas swears with a rustle of footsteps over the grass.

“You can’t keep doing that. Calm the fuck down.”

“How am I supposed to calm down when she?—”

Another set of footsteps thumps toward us from farther away, bringing Zian’s breathless voice with them. “I brought three water bottles—totally full.” He stops with a hitch. “Is she awake?”

I’m not sure I want to see or speak to Zian either. I close my eyes again, descending into the painful darkness of my body.

“Give one to Dom,” Andreas is saying. “He’s wearing himself ragged. Maybe Riva should have some too.”

Dominic speaks in an uncertain tone. “I don’t know if her stomach and… everything that connects to it are fully recovered. She was hit pretty hard all the way down her side.”

Jacob pipes up next, with an edge that rankles me. “Then get on with healing the rest of it.”

“He’s doing his best,” Andreas snaps. “Why don’t you find something more useful to do than tearing up trees?”

At a whisper of fabric and a shift in the air, I know Andreas has knelt at my other side, across from Dominic. I definitely don’t want to look at him—don’t want to think about the vulnerability and passion I offered him when his only goal was to unravel me.

I can’t do this anymore. I don’t wish I’d embraced the train head on, beyond repair, but that one fact hasn’t changed.

If I stay with my guys any longer, either they’ll tear me apart or I’ll do the same to them. Maybe both.

They don’t want me. What’s the point in sticking around anyway?

Dominic’s hand against my sternum goes abruptly limp. The current of warmth fades away, but I realize I’m not half as achy as I was when I first woke up. I don’t feel all that much worse than I have on average over the past several days, with Jacob’s literal venom eating away at me.

As if he’s sensed that thought, Dom brushes his fingers over my forehead, swiping stray strands of hair away from my eyes. “I drew all the poison out of you too. You won’t have to deal with that anymore.”

As he’s probably happy about, since it means he won’t have to deal with it either. Although if he’s going to be mad at anyone about however much staving off the toxin’s effects have expanded the tentacles he’s so intent on concealing, he really needs to take that up with Jacob, not me.

Part of me wants to sink right into the earth and never return, but I’m aware that’s not a viable strategy.

I force myself to open my eyes. Focusing on the shadowy landscape beyond my feet rather than any of the men around me, I flex my muscles and ease into a sitting position.

Halfway up, I sway. Dominic’s hand shoots out to steady me, with a tremor that runs through it as he catches my weight.

How much did the healing process take out of him?

I lean my hands into the grass so I can hold my own balance, tensing and relaxing each section of my limbs to get a sense of how much they can endure.

I might be able to walk right now. I think running is probably out of the question. Definitely no scaling cliffsides or squeezing through ventilation shafts.

Thankfully I should never have to do either of those things again, since they weren’t my idea in the first place.

There’s a moment of silence, as if the men are waiting to see if I’m going to say something. Andreas clears his throat.

“Riva, I’m sorry,” he says, his voice hoarse despite his efforts. “So sorry. I only wanted to make sure we could trust you—and I’d seen that we could. Tonight wasn’t about trying to trick you. I really did want to just talk with you. The rest… The rest I wasn’t expecting at all.”

A noise comes out of me that’s something like a snort. At the same time, ridiculous tears burn at the edges of my eyes.

I am not going to fucking cry over this manipulative lying asshat.

Andreas goes on, still strained but not showing any offense at my response. “I went upstairs to tell the guys that they’d been wrong— we’d been wrong—and that you’d been telling the truth about everything. I would have told you the whole truth once I knew they’d come around.”

Easy for him to claim that now.

My hand lifts instinctively to my neck, but there’s nothing for my fingers to close around. With a jab of anguish, I remember that I broke the necklace. Dropped it.

It’s probably lying on the floor back there in the farmhouse. Not that it matters when it’s cracked apart?—

Another form crouches right in front of me, hand outstretched. I’m about to recoil from Jacob when my gaze catches on the glint of sliver resting on his fingers.

“This is yours, Wildcat,” he says, his eyes piercing into mine. “I twisted the broken bit back together. It should hold until we can get it properly soldered.”

I don’t want to take anything from him—but it doesn’t really count when the thing was already mine anyway, does it?

My hand darts out to snatch the pendant from his hand. I tug the chain around my neck to attach it in its proper place, feeling abruptly like I’m a wild animal they’re all trying to coax into tameness.

I’m not the one who’s been going around savaging and shunning people for no reason at all.

“Okay,” I say stiffly, my voice still a little weak. “I’m healed enough that I can get by. You can all go back to your quest now.”

Zian steps into view and stalls at the edge of my vision. “What are you saying?”

Do I really have to spell it out?