Page 135 of Shadowblood Souls
I suppress a laugh. “Mostly stuff we don’t have to worry about going bad anytime soon, like protein bars and dried fruit. But for tonight I did find some premade subs. Yours is meatball.”
Despite his obvious tension, his eyes light up. I pick up that bag and stick the subs in the fridge before he gets any ideas about having that dinner just a couple of hours after the drive-through lunch we gulped down on the way here.
At his frown, I toss him an apple. “You do need a few nutrients other than protein.”
He glowers at my teasing tone but takes a bite as he goes back to his pacing.
Jacob carries one fresh change of clothes into the bathroom and takes the world’s fastest shower, probably worried we’ll somehow descend into catastrophe if he leaves us alone for more than a few minutes. The hiss of the running water tugs my thoughts back to Riva in the other room.
Is she soaking in her bathtub right now? My mind conjures the image of her small but soft curves, the pert nipples I stroked my fingers over, the slim hips that rose to meet me…
Heat floods my body. NowIneed a shower—a cold one.
Maybe one day she’ll trust me enough to invite me into a bath with her.
That idea sets my mind down on another dangerous path. I borrow Jacob’s tactic and start pacing to distract myself.
Jake stalks out of the bathroom with a flick of his gaze toward the door to Riva’s room. I can tell from the momentary tensingof his expression that he wants to go check on her and is holding himself back.
He looks at me next, and the heat that filled me earlier fades away under his scrutiny.
I’m not totally sure if Zee and Dom realize just how close Riva and I got the other night, but Jacob has definitely guessed. Knowing that sends a weird pang of guilt through me.
As far as I know, I’m the only one of us who’s experienced sex once, let alone twice. Even if the first time wasn’t by choice, some part of me enjoyed it by the end.
It’s pretty hard for a teenage boy to convince his body not to react to certain kinds of stimulation.
I sure as hell hope the other guys don’t envy me that first time. The suffocating agony of fighting against your physical reactions with all your willpower and still losing… I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
They might envy me about Riva, though.
She turned to me out of the four of us because I was the one who was there for her. But the allegiance I offered her was partly under false pretenses.
I’m not sure I really deserved to get to know her that way first. She admitted she had feelings for all of us.
There’s nothing I can do about it now, though.
I hold up another apple. “Hungry?”
Jacob is just tossing the gnawed core into the trash bin when Dominic shoves open the adjoining door, the laptop clutched in his hands. We all freeze.
“I’m in,” he says breathlessly, his hazel eyes unusually wild. “And I found something—we had no idea?—“
Riva nudges open the door opposite, obviously having heard him. She’s rebraided her hair, but a few strands stick damply to the sides of her pretty face, and I can’t repress a shiver of satisfaction that she used my gift.
“What?” she demands. “What have you got?”
Dominic motions us over and sits on the end of one of the beds where we can easily gather around him. The open folds of his parka pool around him.
He points to a file open on the screen. A tremor runs through his hand.
“There could be others,” he says. “Other shadowbloods like us.”
Four
Riva
In the first few moments after Dominic’s declaration, all of us simply stare—at him, at the laptop screen. My head is spinning too fast for me to concentrate on the words.
