Page 83 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Nineteen

Riva

W hen I flick out my claws and bring them to my arm, all four of my guys stiffen where they’re standing around me.

“Riva!” Andreas protests, but I’ve already sliced open the skin beneath my shoulder in a shallow cut.

As a thin trickle of blood streaks down and a tiny whiff of dark smoke gusts up in the ocean breeze washing over the yacht’s deck, Jacob lets out a sound like a growl. His hand jerks up as if he was going to catch my wrist but thought better of it.

“Never again,” he says roughly. “You don’t hurt yourself.”

I look from him to Zian, who has tensed with anguish etched across his face, to Andreas’s tight expression, to the horror in Dominic’s eyes.

“It’s no big deal.” I motion to the tiny white scars that mottle my pale skin from elbow to armpit. “I did it at least once a week when they were holding me at the cage-fighting arena.”

Zian’s face contorts with even more distress. “Why would you?—”

“So I knew you were still out there,” I say with impatience I can’t suppress. “That was before I knew you were all going to be asshats about seeing me again.”

Standing beyond our little cluster, Rollick lets out a sudden sound that might have been a muffled snicker.

Jacob’s stance has gone totally rigid. A faint creaking emanates from somewhere in the vicinity of the yacht’s front cabin until Andreas gives him a punch to the arm.

Jacob shakes himself, his gaze searing into me in a way that sets all my nerves jangling—with both alarm and other emotions I’d rather not acknowledge.

“Heal her,” he snaps at Dominic.

I scowl. “I can do this. I don’t need?—”

“You don’t need to get hurt ever again,” Jacob interrupts. “Not if we can help it. It’s the least we can fucking do.”

He turns to Rollick. “I’ll handle the bleeding for the tests.”

The demon shrugs. “It’s up to you. I’d just like to get on with it, if you’re done posturing for the woman who clearly isn’t impressed by it.”

A tiny smirk tugs at my lips. No, Rollick definitely isn’t a completely bad guy.

Dominic has already rested his hand on my shoulder, but he searches my gaze before extending his power. Waiting for my permission rather than following Jacob’s orders automatically.

I have made a lot of progress with my guys. With all of them, really, even if it’s hard to know what could be enough from some of them.

“It’s really fine,” I tell him. “You know how quickly we heal on our own. It’ll seal up in a matter of minutes.”

The bleeding has already stopped. I’d have to prod it to get it going again, but I don’t feel like provoking a longer argument.

Dom gives my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “If you’re sure. I don’t mind at all.”

“ I mind. The protecting each other doesn’t just go one way, in case you’ve forgotten.”

I reach up to squeeze his hand in return and then step away so it isn’t a question anymore. We walk across the deck toward the bow while Jacob hangs back.

The test doesn’t really work if we’re standing right next to each other.

Rollick watches the proceedings with obvious curiosity. “The shadow part of your blood seeks out each other naturally?”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t just happen. I had to concentrate on my memories of them.”

Zian frowns. “How would the other shadowbloods be able to focus on us?”

“They could have watched recordings from our time in the facility,” Andreas says. “There’d be years of footage.”

I guess we have to assume that would be enough. Unless the guardians have found other connections we’re unaware of.

Jacob pushes his rolled-up sleeve right over his elbow. The purple spines laced with his innate poison spring from his forearm.

He mustn’t be affected by his own venom, because he twists his arm and scratches open the heel of his opposite hand without hesitation.

He dug in a little deeper than I did. A thicker spurt of smoky stuff streaks up toward the stark blue of the sky.

Jacob closes his eyes, his face turning into a mask of concentration.

After just a few seconds, the stream of haze curves. It wavers through the air across the deck toward the four of us.

Rollick hums to himself. When the trickle of smoke has nearly reached us, he gestures to what seems to be thin air on the other side of the deck.

A couple of shadowkind—Cinder and a slim man I saw at dinner yesterday materialize by a plastic storage box and shove it toward us before opening the lid. The guy cringes backward, and Cinder makes a face.

“Get yourselves some shields,” Rollick tells us. “Let’s see if the essence can still seek you out through that.”

Essence. That’s what he calls the smoky stuff. He told us earlier that it’s all shadowkind bleed, no liquid at all.

The four of us march over to the container and find gleaming serving dishes inside. When I shoot Rollick a quizzical look, he offers a wry smile.

“Shadowkind can’t handle silver and iron. Those were the easiest large pieces of silver we could obtain on short notice. Hybrids don’t seem to have the same issues with the metals, but maybe it’ll deflect the particularly shadowy parts of you.”

Silver. Something twigs in my brain—the big purple shadowkind who confronted us in Toronto accused us of using silver, didn’t he? With the guns?

Were Engel’s murderous guardians shooting at us with silver bullets like we’re werewolves out of a horror story?

Considering both those guardians and their guns are long gone, I guess it doesn’t really matter.

I heft one of the serving platters, which stretches from my chin to my waist when I hold it in front of me, and position myself across from Jacob with the plate held firm.

The other guys join me. Jacob stares at us as if he finds the whole thing ridiculous but squeezes a little more blood from the puncture wound on his hand.

The smoke wavers up—and veers straight toward us within seconds of him closing his eyes again.

Rollick gives another pensive hum. “All right. That’s not doing it. I figured it was wishful thinking. If it takes concentration to establish the connection, maybe concentration can ward it off too. All of you, focus on pushing back any essence that might be flowing your way.”

I can’t see how this is going to help us in the long run. We can’t exactly wander through life constantly thinking about pushing monster-blood smoke away from us.

But to humor him, I close my own eyes. Draw up a mental picture of the waft of smoke drifting away from me. Narrow all my attention down to that image.

When Rollick coughs meaningfully, my eyes pop open. The first thing I see is the stream of dark haze that’s yet again stretched out toward us.

I exhale with a grunt. “So much for psychic shielding.”

The demon trains his gaze on me. “You mentioned something about there being other ways you were in tune with each other beyond your blood. What specifically did you mean by that?”

“I think we’re all a little extra aware of each other when we’re nearby,” Jacob puts in, pressing his other hand over his cut to stop the bleeding.

“I knew something was going on the night Riva came to break us out, even though I hadn’t seen her yet.

But I don’t think that effect is strong enough that anyone could track us from a distance using it—if it’s even a general strategy and not something specific to us because we grew up together. ”

He’s never mentioned that to me before—that he sensed my presence in some way like that. But I’m too distracted by the actual thing I meant to give much thought to his assertion.

I resist the urge to hug myself against the awkwardness the subject stirs up inside me. Instead, I hook my fingers into the neckline of my tank top.

“It’s more than that. There’s—when one of the guys and I have, um, hooked up, we both had a mark appear on our chest. And since then, I’ve been able to sense where they are through it.”

I ease down the fabric just enough to show the two small black splotches that mark my collarbone on either side of my sternum. Zian’s head jerks around, and Jacob stares from the other side of the deck.

Looks like Andreas and Dominic never mentioned that little side effect to their friends.

Pearl pops out of the shadows next to me so abruptly my nerves flinch. It’s only by sheer force of will that I don’t jump ten feet in the air.

She waggles her finger at my chest. “You got shadow imprints from having sex? That’s so cool!”

Cool is not the word I would have used. But maybe to a succubus, airing your bedroom activities in public is a lot less embarrassing.

“I… guess.” I glance at Rollick. “Shadow imprints? Is that a normal thing?”

The demon ambles closer, his head tipped at a contemplative angle. “I’ve heard of some shadowkind who plant physical marks on beings over whom they’re staking a claim, but generally those are mortals, and it’s done purposefully. It sounds like you didn’t mean to create them?”

I shake my head. “No, it just happened.”

“Very interesting. There’s so much we don’t know about how hybrids might function.”

He motions for me to pick up the silver platter again. “Hold it so it’s totally covering the mark.” Then he snaps his fingers at Andreas. “Go somewhere else on the yacht, wait five minutes, and then come back.”

Cinder, who’s still watching from near the railing, lets out a discontented sound.

Rollick ignores her. As Andreas lopes off, his attention stays focused on me.

“Can you follow his path without seeing him, even with the silver over the mark?”

I pause, letting my own attention center on the splotch that binds me to Andreas. A faint tickling sensation spreads through my flesh.

I try to map my sense of him onto what I remember of the ship’s interior layout. “I can definitely tell what direction he’s in and how far away he is. If I needed to get to him, I could find him no problem. He’s stopped… I think that would be the library?”

A few more shadowkind pop into being around the edges of the deck. The gangly muscular guy who complained yesterday—Kudzu—crosses his arms over his triangular chest.