Page 75 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Rollick claps his hands together. “Well, that’s the introductions. How did your first training session go?”

Jacob’s attention flicks back to the demon, his eyes narrowing. “How do you think ?”

“Well, from the tone you’re taking, I’m going to guess something unexpected was involved. You’ll have to tell me what that was, since I have no idea.”

Rollick’s tone has stayed glib, but that could be an act.

“What Jake is getting at is that we were attacked,” Andreas says. “Well, mostly Riva was. A bunch of men—humans—who looked like they were part of some gang said they’d been hired to try to kill her.”

Zian bares his teeth. “We sent them running.”

Dominic shifts on his feet. He hasn’t said anything so far, just standing a little back from the rest of us with his head drooped lower than usual.

I glance at him with a twinge of concern, but his expression gives away nothing but a mild discomfort.

What happened during the attack—revealing himself, taking in the assholes’ reactions—is obviously still weighing on him.

Rollick cocks his head. “These guardians of yours caught up with you already? That’s awfully competent for mortals.”

“No,” I say. “That’s why it’s strange. The attack doesn’t seem to have had any connection to the guardians at all.”

Rollick pauses, and then a change comes over his body that I can’t totally explain. He doesn’t shift the way Zian does, his physical form altering, but somehow his presence feels bigger , more potent, in a way that sets all my nerves jittering.

He swivels toward Slick. “You were talking about testing them, provoking them. I told you to leave it be.”

Any hint of good humor has left his voice. His tone is dark and cold enough to make me shiver.

Slick’s eyes widen. “I wouldn’t have—you know me, Rollick?—”

“Yes, I do know you. And you know me . If you lie to me again, you won’t be around to do it a third time.”

The other shadowkind man draws his posture stiffly straight. “We don’t know what they might be capable of beyond what they were willing to admit. We needed to see?—”

Rollick’s hand lashes out so quickly I barely see it. Thick black claws have protruded from his fingertips.

They slice through Slick’s neck deep enough that a torrent of black smoke gushes up from his flesh.

Slick staggers and vanishes. Rollick turns back to us, his ominous energy simmering down, his claws gone. He looks perfectly calm, and so do the women on either side of him.

My body has gone even more rigid. “Did you kill him?”

Rollick shakes his head. “It’d take a lot more than that to kill a shadowkind. Which I could have done if I wasn’t feeling mildly merciful.”

He glances into the shadows behind him. “Slick knows he’ll need to give a full accounting when he’s done recovering from his just punishment.”

My throat has constricted. This is the kind of creature we’re dealing with. A demon ready to deal out a painful, even fatal punishment in an instant at being disobeyed.

The fact that he did it on our behalf doesn’t set me particularly at ease.

I suspect my men feel similarly. They’ve all eased a little closer to me at the display.

Well, all except Jacob, who probably figures a truly “just” punishment would have been slaughtering the offender. He’s stepped toward Cinder.

“Electricity,” he says. “Can you use that to heat things up just like real currents—if we wanted to melt something, for example?”

The slim woman gives him a puzzled look. “What are you looking to melt? I don’t do grilled cheese sandwiches.”

Despite everything that’s unnerving about this situation, the corner of my mouth twitches toward a smile. Then Jacob motions to me.

“Not cheese. We have— Riva has a necklace that’s very important to her, and it broke, and none of us can fix it properly with our powers. But you might be able to work the metal so it’s good as new again.”

Oh. With a lurch of my heart, my hand flies to my cat-and-yarn pendant. “I—I don’t know.”

Jacob told me he’d find a way to see it fixed. Apparently he was so committed to the task that he’s taking the first opportunity he’s spotted to do so, no matter how bizarre.

Cinder considers me. “If it’s your trinket, it’s up to you. I could do it—it wouldn’t be hard.”

I hesitate and then force my hands to move to the clasp on the chain. Why shouldn’t I let her if she’s offering?

It’s not as if she has any reason to damage the pendant.

“Very good,” Rollick declares as I tentatively pass the necklace to Jacob, who hands it straight to Cinder.

He turns toward Dominic. “Before we get down to larger business, I’ve given the matter of your tentacles some thought.

Given your hybrid status, I’m not sure how this would go.

But I don’t think it’d be a horrible risk to attempt carving them right off you. ”

Dominic’s body goes rigid as he stares at the demon. My pulse stutters.

He did say something about how uncomfortable they made him to Rollick during our demonstrations of our abilities yesterday. Maybe he indicated even more disgust with them than I realized.

Dom’s voice comes out rough. “That’s good to know, but I don’t think—let’s not go to that extreme an option first.”

“I do have someone who’s close to an expert to consult.

” Rollick drops the subject as if it didn’t mean much to him anyway and sweeps his gaze over all of us.

“Now let’s hear a full accounting of what you all accomplished with your time when you weren’t fending off random miscreants.

And then I’ll decide what I should send you off to do next. ”