Page 47 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Thirty-Three

Riva

J acob uses his power to unlatch the basement window and nudge it up bit by bit with the softest of rasps. Zian’s keen sight spotted an alarm system mounted near the doors on the house, but Engel hasn’t protected the windows as well.

One after another, we slip into the dark space. The tang of pine sap hangs in the air, no doubt from the stacks of logs that fill most of the unfurnished room.

The chill follows us in from outside. As soon as Zian has squeezed through, the last of us, Jacob eases the pane shut again.

Who knows if Engel is sensitive enough to notice a strange draft? But then, she’s going to know we’re here soon enough.

We prowl between the stacks of logs to the narrow staircase that leads to the ground level. There’s no door at the top of the stairs, only a rectangle of light that a current of warmth wafts through.

Andreas goes first based on prior agreement. We don’t know if he’ll be able to get a look at Engel and read her memories surreptitiously, but if he can get the chance to, we want him to take it.

She might be at odds with the facility we escaped, but we have no way of knowing how she’ll welcome us.

Zian described the basic layout of the house to us from his observations, and what we emerge into matches what I pictured from his words.

The main floor is an open-concept space with the basement doorway at the far end of the expansive kitchen.

Dark wooden cabinets and black appliances gleam around us.

A matching kitchen island, several feet across, sections off the kitchen from the dining and living rooms beyond—and hides us from the rest of the building while we stay crouched. We creep across the smooth tiles toward it.

When he reaches the island ahead of the rest of us, Andreas peeks around the side. He cranes his neck for a few seconds and then glances back at us with a frown and a shake of his head.

He can’t see Engel to get a lock on her mind from here. We’re going to have to rely on our other skills—and her potential willingness to talk.

Jacob makes a gesture of caution, reminding me of the instructions he gave before we entered. We approach slowly, staying alert, watching in case she has a weapon. I’ll be ready to disarm her if I need to.

We shouldn’t go in too strong, Dominic put in back then. She might not be a real enemy. We have to give her the chance to let this be a peaceful conversation.

Jacob made a face but nodded. That’s what we’re all hoping for—no more fighting, just answers.

Is it crazy for us to even hope?

I can’t see Engel either, but the whisper of a turned page reaches my ears. The clink of her mug set down on a side table.

The sounds give me an impression of her in my mind’s eye, off to the left side of the room where the ceiling looms highest. The second floor only fills half of the space, over the kitchen and dining room.

Dark beams crisscross the far wall of the living room around towering windows, stretching so high I can see them even crouched behind the island.

This isn’t how accepted guests are supposed to enter, but we can’t risk slipping back out and simply knocking on the door, not knowing how she’ll react. Instead, we rise cautiously to our feet.

The woman who’s only been a name to me before now flinches in her armchair beneath the tall windows. Her book falls from her hand to thump on the floor.

My eyes skim over her, absorbing my first real view of the woman I’ve wondered about so much.

Her hair, a mix of fawn-brown and gray, curls lightly where it’s tucked behind her ears. Her oval-paned, wire-rimmed glasses slide down her nose with a flinch, revealing pale eyes with crinkles of age at the corners. A cozy sweater and faded jeans clothe her softly rounded frame.

I can’t help thinking she looks almost motherly, even in her startled state. Like the moms I’ve seen on TV screens, sending their grown kids off to college or comforting them through breakups.

It isn’t hard at all to imagine her offering a warm hug or reassuring words—I mean, if she wasn’t staring at us like we’ve nearly given her a heart attack.

Andreas has raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m sorry for sneaking up on you like this. We were hoping to speak with you—we don’t mean any harm.”

As long as she doesn’t try to harm us, he means.

The rest of us stay perfectly still, watching. Engel nudges her glasses up her nose to study us through them. Then her hand swipes downward in an odd motion I don’t totally understand.

It looks almost like she’s reaching for her mug, but instead her fingers dip between the arm of the chair and the side table. Just a brief skim before she’s folding her hands in her lap.

Jacob tensed beside me for a second, but once both her hands are in view and empty, he relaxes again, just a smidge.

“Do you know who we are?” he asks, managing to sound more curious than hostile, although I don’t think he’s capable of completely erasing the demanding note from his voice.

A hint of a smile curves the woman’s lips, enough to send hope flitting through my chest.

“My shadowblood children, all grown up,” she says in a crisp but gentle voice. “I haven’t seen pictures in years, but you haven’t changed that much since the last time.”

That voice. The faintest of recollections, not even really a memory it’s so vague, wisps through my head like the hazy impressions I got in the playroom at the old facility.

I’ve heard that voice lilting in a lullaby before—I’m sure of it.

Now that I can see the living room properly, it occurs to me that it looks an awful lot like that playroom. Log walls, suede seating, a fireplace where flames are crackling away over pine logs.

An image so familiar yet distant it sends a pang of homesickness through my chest.

If we ever had a real home, it was something like this.

As I take that in, Engel’s brow knits. “It’s only the five of you?”

She doesn’t know about Griffin. The realization jabs me in the gut like he’s dying all over again.

I swallow thickly, but Dominic speaks before I can. “He’s gone. Four years ago—we tried to get out, but it didn’t work.”

“Ah.” Engel appears to hold her emotions close, but a flicker of sadness crosses her face. “I heard about the attempt but not the entire outcome. My condolences.”

She leans forward slowly, and it occurs to me that she must feel just as wary of us as we are of her. She doesn’t know how much we know or what we think of her.

Picking up her mug, she gets to her feet. “I can be a proper host, even if the visit was unexpected. Before we get into the talking, how would you like some hot chocolate?”

A whisper of a memory passes through my head of buying a cup once while on an outside mission. I remember the sting of burning my tongue better than the actual flavor.

But the fact that she’s offering at all sends a quiver of elation through my chest. “That would be nice,” I say automatically.

Jacob casts a wary glance around at the rest of us, and I know what he’s thinking. As friendly as she’s being, we need to watch her—and probably we shouldn’t actually consume anything she gives us even if it looks safe.

Still, I can’t help relishing the idea of simply holding a mug radiating heat and breathing in the sweet steam rising off it.

As Engel approaches the kitchen, the five of us move like one being, both giving her space and keeping our own out of our honed sense of self-protection.

We cluster to the right of the island as she passes by on the left and then gather around its far side, leaving it between her and us like a barricade.

I get the sense that she wouldn’t mind us sinking onto the cozy seats in the living room, but none of us is ready to relax anywhere near that much.

Engel moves through the kitchen with soothing ease, pulling out a pot and setting it on the stove, grabbing a measuring cup and a box of cocoa powder from the cupboards. As she gets a carton of milk out of the fridge, she shoots a soft smile our way.

“It’s impressive that you found your way here. But then you were always quick studies, the bunch of you.”

I can’t keep quiet any longer. “You had something to do with— You started the first facility. You were there from when we were born.”

She picks up on the question I’m asking before I’ve figured out exactly how to ask it. “I arranged for you to be born.”

“We’re not just people,” Zian says abruptly. “We have…” He raises his hand, extending his wolfish claws as he does. “We can do things no one else can.”

“Yes. You are very special, my shadowbloods.”

Something about Engel’s tone itches at me, but my mind latches onto that last word—one she used before. “What does ‘shadowblood’ mean? What are we?”

“That’s why we’re here,” Jacob adds, setting his hands on the edge of the island. “We want to understand what was going on at the facility, how we turned out like this.”

Dominic speaks up, his voice quiet but steady. “And why.”

“I see.” Engel pours the milk from the measuring cup into the pot. “I suppose we have time to get into that story.”

We all lean a little closer in anticipation. A crimson sheen glimmers in Andreas’s eyes. He’s searching her memories even as he listens alongside us.

Engel’s lips purse, her expression momentarily tightening as she adds more milk to the pot. Then she turns to face us while she unscrews the lid on the cocoa powder.

“You know that you don’t bleed exactly the way a regular human does.”

I touch my arm where I scratched open my skin so many times. “There’s smoky stuff that comes out too.”

She inclines her head. “Like shadows. That’s why I’ve always thought of you as ‘shadowbloods’ in my mind.”

As she spoons some of the dark brown powder into the pot, my pulse skips a beat. “Our tattoos.” A moon for night—for shadows? And a droplet… of blood?