Page 52 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Riva’s jaw clenches. Her eyes close, but I’m not letting her check out of this conversation.

“You don’t have to play our friend anymore now. You’re not getting anywhere with that. So let’s see who you really are already.”

Riva winces, and her fingers tighten around the pendant so abruptly there’s a metallic crack. Her eyes snap open; she stares down at her hand.

How can she look so anguished about it even now?

Andreas has been rambling again, trying to cajole her back—with insults aimed at me. “Riva, he’s being a fucking idiot. Listen to me. I?—"

He moves toward her, and she jerks away with a sharp yelp that shudders through my bones. Andreas flinches.

Her body tenses as if she’s bracing to lunge. Her eyes darken, turning stormy with anger.

Good. We’ve almost shattered this stupid farce.

“That’s right,” I say. “Tell us how you really feel.”

She backs up a step, as if she can escape the reckoning. Oh, no. With a flick of my fingers, I send the door banging shut.

As I walk closer to her, she aims a glare at me. Her mouth twitches with all the caustic words I’m sure she’s itching to finally let out.

But then her hand wrenches away from her chest, the chain of her necklace breaking and flying from her grip, and all she lets out is two hastily gasped commands.

“Stay away from me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Then she hurls herself at the closer window.

She twists her slim frame at just the right angle to crash straight through the glass. Her body tumbles out in a shower of shards.

I’ve stopped breathing.

“Riva!” Andreas yells, dashing past me to the window. There’s a thump below, and then she’s off, her silver hair streaming out behind her in the moonlight.

Moonbeam , Griffin always called her.

“Where’s she going?” Zian demands, and Drey is ranting something at me about how I was laying into her, but my mind is stuck on the last moment before she dove through glass to get away from us.

I can’t shake the impression that it was terror more than rage on her face. That those last frantic words weren’t a threat but a plea.

I bend to pick up the broken pendant off the floor. Zian is already charging out of the bedroom.

Andreas catches me by the elbow. “Are you going to help us get her back or not?”

I chased her away. That wasn’t what I was trying to do, was it?

My thoughts seem to have jumbled, the righteous fury that was fueling me now petered out and leaving me even emptier than usual, staring at the ashes. I move at Andreas’s tug, rushing down the stairs after him with Dominic right behind us, but everything in my head is a whirl.

I wasn’t necessarily wrong, was I? She’s trying to get away from us.

Because I just beat her down like my words were a cudgel. What the hell does that even prove?

That she’s a human being. That what I say and what we do matters to her beyond the practicalities.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

She isn’t as fast as she probably would be at her best, fatigue and my poison wearing at her muscles, but she’s still fucking speedy.

By the time we burst out the door and dash across the yard, she’s already a tiny figure halfway back to the line of the train tracks. Too far for me to reach with my power.

Where is she even going?

I push my legs as fast as they’ll go, but the truth is I’m exhausted too. In less than a minute, my lungs are burning.

Zian has pulled ahead of the rest of us, hollering at Riva to stop. Andreas calls out her name.

My gaze stays locked on her distant figure, like a mirage of the girl we used to know.

The one who’d laugh while she raced circles around all of us except Zee on the track.

Who’d blush and duck her head when any of us tossed her a compliment…

especially me, maybe because I never gave them out too freely.

Who’d squeeze in between the bunch of us on that L-shaped sofa in front of the TV and make sure the rare, treasured bowl of popcorn got passed around so everyone got plenty, keeping an eye on Zian’s grabby hands.

Who’d go off to the side and simply sit with Dominic on the days when he got back from solo training looking like someone had punched him in the soul.

And with the adrenaline blaring through my system, for the first time it really sinks in that Andreas might be right.

The woman fleeing from us right now might be that exact same girl.

And I have let out all my hatred and frustration on her instead of the people who really deserve it. Starting with myself.

I grit my teeth and throw myself forward faster, just as the roar of an approaching train reaches my ears.

The lights blink into view through the trees up ahead… and Riva swerves toward the tracks. Like she’s running to meet it.

Like she welcomes the collision.

Horror blots out every other thought in my head. That’s my Riva, our Riva, and I’m the one who’s flung her toward disaster.

I’m too far away. I don’t know how to stop her. But the words careen up my throat with all the force I can put into my voice.

“Wildcat, no! ”

* * *

I hope you enjoyed this bonus scene from Shattered Vow ! To find out what’s next for Riva and her monstrous men, pick up Monstrous Power, the second book in the Shadowblood Souls series .