Page 238 of Shadowblood Souls
The tremor spreads through my limbs beneath my skin. I want to tear through every one of them—but I don’t know if I can.
I don’t know how bad the backlash might be if I try and fail. I could make things even worse.
And there’s still a chance—Rollick has stood up for us through everything, hasn’t he?
The demon is eyeing us with the same edge of skepticism I sensed at first glance. “You did make an awful mess of this city. Pulling down entire buildings, leaving mutilated bodies strewn around parking lots.”
Andreas raises his chin, and I remember that Jacob said Drey came with him on his mission tonight. “We did what we had to do to protect ourselves. It’d have been a lot less messy if your people hadn’t set us up to be attacked.”
“And if they hadn’t kicked us off the ship in the first place,” Zian growls.
A fierce crackle runs through Cinder’s voice. “We were protectingourown. You’re like rabid dogs—and we all know what humans do with those. Is it so awful for us to take the same tactic?”
Her sneering words fling me back to Ursula Engel’s living room, to hearing the woman who created us call us abominations she couldn’t wait to see slaughtered. My claws shoot from my knife hand, pricking into my palm.
“We didn’t ask to be this way,” I snap.
She narrows her eyes at me. “You’re not trying very hard to rein yourselves in. You’ve been arguing with Rollick every step of the way.”
“Well, forgive me for not wanting to go around torturing random creatures for my own training.” My claws dig right into the flesh of my hand, the pang of pain grounding me just a little against the internal claws scrabbling to break free from my lungs.
The shadowkind woman in front of me isn’t an innocent creature. She’s made it amply clear that she’s my enemy.
But lashing out at her is exactly what they all expect, isn’t it? It’d be an excuse to justify slaughtering us all if I can’t carry through.
And then where will we be? Stuck here in a country we’re not familiar with, where only two of us even speak the language, with resources that’ll quickly dwindle and possibly more hunters already on the alert?
“We all make sacrifices,” Kudzu mutters. “It’s obvious you’d rather hold on to your delicate sensibilities than do what’s necessary to keep anyone else safe.”
I can’t hold back a snort.Mydelicate sensibilities?
Maybe when I was two years old, if then.
Jacob has turned his full attention on Rollick. I can tell from the tension in his stance that he’s braced to whip out his telekinetic talent the second it’s needed.
“What about you?” he demands. “They tossed us out against your orders, and that’s just fine with you?”
Rollick’s voice turns slightly brittle. “No, it’s not. And they’ll face consequences for their actions. But that doesn’t mean I can’t reevaluate my own decisions in light of new information.”
“You’re really blaming us for fighting back when those hunters nearly killed us?” I burst out. The quiver of a shriek climbs partway up my throat, nipping at my vocal cords.
“Your methods appear rather overblown compared to the actual threat. I have mentioned at least once or twice how important it is that we keep our abilities under wraps around the regular mortal population.”
Cinder nods sharply. “Exactly so that more of those pricks don’t decide to take up arms against us.”
Dominic speaks up, his voice as even as always but propelled with more force than usual. “We wouldn’t have needed to fight at all ifyouhadn’t tipped them off. It wasn’t because of us. None of us had done more than walk up the street and buy some dinner.”
Kudzu grunts. “It makes a lot more sense that you fucked up than that we went running to ally with humans.”
“Except one of you already did before,” I remind them, my temper flaring hotter. “It wouldn’t even be the first time this week.”
Rollick swivels on his heel to contemplate his companions. “It is true that there’s a precedent for sending murderous mortals after this bunch. If you deliberately provoked them, then?—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Cinder breaks in, her words warbling with frustration. “Let’s just end this.She’sthe biggest problem.”
Her slender forefinger jabs at me, and in the same instant, the four shadowkind standing with her spring into action.
Kudzu and one of the beings hurl themselves right over the railing onto the deck of the yacht. Another flings his hand forward, and blazing light sears across my eyes.
