Page 92 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Twenty-Four

Riva

R ollick leans against the railing around the yacht’s upper deck, the cool breeze ruffling his tawny hair. “What exactly is your objection?”

I lower my gaze to the little crab he’s set in a bowl on the small table between us. It clicks its claws and scrabbles at the sides too steep for it to clamber over.

It looks more like an alien creature than a thinking, feeling being. I wouldn’t be able to make out agony in the stalks of its eyes or catch a gasp of its pain.

But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t feel plenty. It’s still alive .

It has just as much a right to live that life peacefully as I do, doesn’t it?

I meet the demon’s gaze again. “That’s not who I want to be. I don’t want to use my power—I wish I didn’t even have it.”

Rollick lets out a short sigh. “You know you don’t have much choice. There is no operation that’s going to cleave the talent—or the urge to use it—out of your body. Your options are master it or be mastered by it when you’re unprepared.”

I grimace. “But how is mastering it better than the alternative if it means I’m willingly torturing animals to get to that point? At least… at least when I’ve used it before, I had a good reason to. It was life or death.”

“And you could be sparing this crustacean some pain now only to inflict much worse on some other innocent being later.”

He’s right. I know he’s right. But?—

I lift my chin. “I haven’t had the urge lately, even when I’ve been upset. The last time I released the power, I managed to only work it on the people attacking us. Maybe… maybe I’ve got enough control already.”

Rollick cocks his head. “You might be satisfied making that gamble, but I’d rather ensure more certainty than ‘maybe.’ As would my associates. If you want my help, this is a necessary condition.”

I study the crab again. Nausea unfurls through my stomach.

A tremor of a deadly shriek tingles through my chest, but it wants to smack into Rollick, not the little beast in front of me. Show him what he’s asking me to inflict.

But I don’t. It isn’t even difficult for me to resist the twinge of fury.

I hate the sadistic presence lodged inside me. Jacob and Zian can hone their brutal skills with inanimate objects that can’t feel anything. Dominic can at least practice with plants.

And Andreas doesn’t do anything that would physically hurt someone in the first place.

It’s only me whose power demands agony to operate. Why did I end up like this?

But if Rollick decides we’re not meeting him halfway, it won’t be just me but all of my men who’ll be kicked to the curb. I grit my teeth and prod at the viciousness inside me.

What kind of nerves does a crab have? What will I need to crack and sever?

The monster inside me will know. As soon as my scream ripples over its body…

I part my lips, but my throat constricts. The only sound I propel out is a choked grunt.

Frowning, I inhale deeply and try again.

The cruel shriek stays locked in my chest. The thin squeak I force out does nothing at all.

“I’m trying,” I say, bracing myself for Rollick’s anger.

He only studies me in his usual implacable way that always makes me feel like he’s seeing way more than I’d prefer.

“But you don’t want to try, and you don’t have the proper motivation. You’re working against your purpose.”

With another sigh, he straightens up. “As much as I’d like to get on with this, I don’t think enraging you is a great way to begin a regimen of self-control.

I have some things to take care of on land this afternoon.

See if you can’t meditate on the issue and come to accept the act as necessary so you’ll get out of your own way. ”

He doesn’t say what’ll happen if I can’t manage to get out of my way, but his prior comment about necessary conditions is warning enough.

I swallow thickly and follow him down the steps to the main deck. The harbor of a city I can’t recognize from the skyline is coming into view up ahead across the dark water, glossy high rises interspersed with older-looking structures in pale pastels.

“Where are we?” I ask. “And how long are we going to be here?”

“Havana. And how long depends on how quickly I can conclude my business. But I’d imagine you’re decently safe with a good chunk of ocean as well as national borders between you and our foes.”

Havana, Cuba. I’ve never left the United States before other than our brief foray into Canada.

But his reply relaxes me. I’m not sure how the guardians could figure out we’ve come here even if the younger shadowbloods are tracking us from back in the US.

They’d need to get in their own boats to narrow down our location across the ocean. Rollick’s people would see them coming from miles away.

I think I’m starting to warm up to sea travel.

“Stay on the yacht,” Rollick tells me as we reach the lower deck. “You should all do some meditating on deflecting your fellow shadowbloods too. You’ve got all those shadows in you—they ought to be able to work with you a little if you can focus them enough.”

I nod. “We can do that. I’ll get the guys together.”

I’ll even work with Jacob if it means we come up with better protection against the guardians.

But after the yacht docks, I linger for a few minutes by the railing, watching the activity in the harbor and the cars cruising by on the streets beyond. Whiffs of brine and gasoline reach my nose.

A strange pang forms in my chest, like I’m homesick for a place I’ve never been before.

Even though I have no marked connection to him, I recognize the solid footsteps that tread across the deck toward me as Zian’s. He comes to a stop by the railing a couple of feet away from me and hesitates.

“Everything okay, Shrimp?”

He says the old, teasing nickname like he’s testing it out. The sound of it in his gruff voice brings a sudden shock of heat to the back of my eyes.

“You mean, other than the fact that we’re being hunted across the continent by slave-drivers who want to use us as weapons?” I say, matching the vibe he’s offering.

Zian lets out a huff. “Yeah, I guess it’s a silly question. You just looked kind of… sad. In a different way from usual.” He glances down awkwardly and moves as if to walk away. “I didn’t mean to?—”

“No, it’s fine.” I turn my attention back to the city. “I was just thinking that maybe we could get away from the guardians if we just settled down in some distant country. They can’t be all over the world, right?”

“It would be pretty crazy if they were. Drey says all the memories he saw from them, it seemed like they weren’t talking with people far away.”

“Yeah.” I swipe my hand across my mouth.

“But then I realized that they’d find us eventually anyway.

Given enough time, they could probably track us down anywhere on the planet.

Maybe we’d buy ourselves a week or a month, but would that really be worth it if we’d just have to pick up and run again? ”

Zian stands in silence for a moment, contemplating the question. “No. Not really.”

“And there’s the other shadowbloods too. I don’t want to just abandon those kids.”

Not to the same horrors we went through. Not if we can spare them some of that torment.

Zian’s muscles bulge as if he’s already imagining an assault on a facility. “We won’t. We’ll get them out. You managed to get us four free, so with all five of us together, we’ve got to be able to pull off a whole lot of prison breaks.”

In spite of the uncertainty lingering between us, the determination in his words makes me smile. “Let’s hope so.”

Maybe because of that momentary sense of understanding, I find myself glancing over at him. “Zee… Is something bothering you—about me?”

His gaze jerks from the scene ahead of us to me, startled. “What?”

My fingers tighten around the railing. “You obviously don’t have to want to dance with me or whatever.

But sometimes it seems like you’re still upset with me or concerned about what I might do, or something .

You apologized for distrusting me—it seemed like you weren’t scared about my power—but if you still have doubts about anything that happened?—”

Zian shakes his head so forcefully I stop speaking. “No. No, Riva, I—” He extends his hand toward me and then catches it before it’s quite reached me.

We both gaze down at that truncated gesture for a moment before he lifts his head again, his mouth tight.

“It’s not you,” he says. “I swear it’s not you. You have been so… incredible. Fuck, I’m grateful you’re even talking to me after… after everything.”

“Then…?”

He swallows audibly. “It’s me. I don’t know what I might do—I don’t trust myself.”

That doesn’t make any sense. If he doesn’t hold any animosity toward me, then why would he need to worry about doing something that could hurt me?

I drag in a breath, struggling for the words to ask him, and just then the other three guys come hustling out onto the deck.

As Zian and I spin toward them, several shadowkind, including Cinder and Kudzu, emerge as if ushering our friends out. None of the guys look happy, Jacob scowling darkly enough that it’s a wonder the sun hasn’t blinked out.

My pulse stutters. I push toward them, Zian stalking over at my side. “What’s going on?”

Kudzu turns to us with his ropey arms folded over his chest. “It’s time for you to go.”

I blink at him. “What?”

“The five of you mutants. Get the fuck off our ship. Stay the hell away from Miami.”

“But—Rollick said to?—”

Cinder slashes her hand through the air with a crackle of electricity. “Rollick’s got millennia under his belt. Staying alive even longer either doesn’t mean that much to him or he’s too curious to do the right thing. So we’re deciding now. We’re done with you.”

She’s serious. They all are.

My gaze travels over the faces of Rollick’s colleagues, and every single one of them stares back at me with hardened eyes and determined expressions.

They waited until he was out of reach, and now they’re staging a mutiny… against us.

“This is ridiculous,” Jacob snaps. “It’s not your call to make.”