Page 95 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Chunks of stone roar down into the narrow lane. In a matter of seconds, the alley is blocked off as high as the second-floor windows still standing on the opposite side.

I get a glimpse of the wreckage, and then Zian’s arm is whipping around me. He scoops me up against his brawny frame and hauls Jacob off the ground too.

“I’ve got them!” he shouts to Dominic, and heaves us through the remains of the fence.

Zian is supernaturally strong, but even I wouldn’t have thought he could carry both me and Jacob at a sprint. Either I didn’t give him enough credit, or I should be incredibly grateful for the effects of adrenaline.

I can’t focus well enough to really think about it. The pain of my failing lung radiates through my body and my mind, and the next span of time fades into nothing but ragged gasps for breath and the caustic throbbing.

I’m vaguely aware of a cool breeze lapping over my face. My ass hits the ground, and a tendril it takes me a moment to recognize as one of Dominic’s tentacles wraps around my torso.

“Bring him over here!” he shouts out.

Warmth washes through my chest. The pain jabs deeper—and then starts to melt away.

My wheezing smooths out. Air flows into both lungs with a renewed pang of pain, but also the relief of oxygen.

I open my eyes. We’re sprawled under a short stretch of trees.

The one right over me is starting to sag, its leaves shriveling.

There’s a creaking sound, and a crash. I jolt upright to see a car rocking where it’s tipped on its side.

“Jake!” Zian snaps, grasping the other guy’s shoulder.

Jacob has sat up too, his face so wan you’d think all the blood from it had drained into the splotch soaking his shirt. No fresh blood streams from his side now, but his face is frozen in a mask of tension, his eyes both dazed and fiercely frantic.

“They shot her!” he rasps out. “They fucking shot her.”

Another car flips off its tires.

Andreas swears and waves his hand in front of Jacob’s face. “We got away. We’re all okay now. But we won’t stay that way if you make it obvious where we’ve ended up.”

“Fucking—asshole—pricks—I’ll kill—every one—of them.”

The words grate out in anguished hitches. A telephone pole snaps off its base like a twig.

I’ve seen Jacob like this before—not this bad, but the same basic state. After the guardians ambushed us on the university campus.

Ignoring the splinters of pain lingering in my lungs, I shove myself toward him. I can take the same tactic that brought him back to reality then.

Straddling his sprawled legs, I smack my palms against the sides of his face and yank it toward me. “We’re out. You stopped them. It’s done.”

Jacob’s pupils jitter in his eyes. His hands snatch at the air.

“Riva—they shot her—the fucking bastards—they tried to kill her?—”

This time, one of the trees crashes over. My gut twists into a ball.

It’s me he’s so agonized about. Me he’s still fighting for in whatever battle he’s gotten trapped in inside his mind.

I shake him. “I’m right here. Dom healed me. I’m okay.”

His twitching eyes don’t see me. His body shudders in my grasp.

Dominic at least partly healed Jacob’s physical wound like he did mine, but I have no idea how much other kinds of damage our escape has taken out on him.

I had no idea he even could tear down an entire building—let alone two of them—with his talent. And that was after he’d already deflected dozens of bullets.

“Jake!” I yell, as loud as I dare, and slap his cheek with a prick of claws. “I’m here. Listen to me.”

The blow has no discernable effect. Jacob lets out another anguished groan, and something thuds and shatters down the street.

“Riva!” he calls out like I’m not there at all.

The shadows inside me tug me toward him, and I’m so worried that I let them.

I lean in with one last-ditch effort of convincing him I’m with him and slam my mouth into his.

Jacob’s breath stutters against my lips. His hands fly up, fingers curling around my neck, tangling in my hair.

But not to choke me or torment me like he might have weeks ago. He holds me in a desperate embrace as another shudder passes through him.

His mouth drops from mine as his head bows.

“Riva,” he murmurs in what’s little more than a breath.

My insides feel as if they’ve been entirely rearranged all over again. “I—I’m okay. I’m here.”

I push myself farther back so I can see his face. Jacob stares at me, still dazed but back with us.

I will down the flush burning my cheeks and scramble right off him. “We need to get out of here before they catch up with us. Can you walk?”

His mouth opens and closes. Instead of answering with words, he sways to his feet.

My own chest is aching, but I hold myself as steady as I can and glance around at the others. “Where do we go?”

A tremor runs through Dominic’s body where he’s leaning against the tree he sucked most of the life out of. He’s burned out most of his energy too.

His gaze slides along the landscape beyond the trees. Following it, I realize we’ve come down to the coast again, though not the same stretch as the harbor where the yacht was.

In the near distance, a range of smaller boats bob in the water along narrower docks, stretching as far as I can see.

“We could find a boat no one’s using,” Dominic says hoarsely. “One we can figure out how to start if we need to. It’d be easier getting away on the water.”

Zian hesitates. “Should we see if we can find Rollick?”

Andreas’s mouth twists. “We don’t know for sure that he wasn’t in on that attack. And even if he wasn’t, we’re obviously not safe anywhere near his ship until he’s dealt with the others.”

I might have protested if I didn’t feel so weak myself. We’re in no condition to fight with several shadowkind along with any other unwitting human accomplices they rope into their campaign against us.

“We rest and then we regroup,” I say.

Dominic’s gaze slides to the wreckage around us. “We should definitely put some distance between us and this spot.”

Jacob winces and trudges forward on wobbly feet. Zian falls back to steady him with a hand against his back.

Dom and Andreas fall in on either side of me. I reach to grasp Dominic’s hand, as concerned about his well-being as he clearly is about mine.

We walk until I think I’m going to collapse. Zian picks out one of the larger private boats nearby and peers through the walls to confirm it’s empty.

After we scramble on board, Jacob extends a little jolt of pressure to start the ignition. Andreas steers the craft away from its harbor, in search of a hiding spot where it won’t be noticed in the descending darkness of evening.

The rest of us tramp down into the cabin area. There’s only one level, but it has two cramped bedrooms and a set of freestanding bunks behind the stairs.

I don’t bother to ask, just flop right down on the double bed in the first of the bedrooms. Before I can relax, Jacob sinks down next to me.

“I’m not leaving you alone,” he says in a raw voice. “I’m not letting them get one more chance to come at you.”

I could point out that I don’t have to be alone even if he isn’t in the room. Or that he can stand between me and any attackers just fine from anywhere else on the boat.

But I don’t have the energy to fight with him. Not after all the fighting we’ve already done.

Not after seeing how desperate he was to defend me even after he’d already saved me.

“Fine,” I mutter, and squirm under the blankets so there are at least two layers of fabric as a barrier between me and his side of the bed.

Then I close my eyes and sink into oblivion.