Page 325 of Shadowblood Souls
Griffin laughs, a strangely rough sound after the eerie calm I’ve gotten so used to. His voice drops until it’s barely a whisper. “You have no idea how much is my fault.”
What is he talking about?
Anguish shines in his eyes, there and then gone so quickly I can’t tell whether I only imagined it. I let myself step closer, lifting one hand, meaning to touch his face?—
But Griffin pulls back, dragging his hand from my grasp.
Whatever tenuous connection I forged vanishes. He blinks, his expression evening out.
Before I can try again, the door behind him opens. A guardian pokes her head into the room.
“Griffin, Riva—since your talk is going well, Clancy wants me to move you on to dinner.”
Your talk is going well. The words roll over me, and something clicks in my head.
Horrified certainty spikes through my veins. I jerk my gaze back to Griffin. “For fuck’s sake. You know what this is, don’t you?”
Griffin knits his brow. “Whatwhatis?”
I can’t read his mind even as much as he can read mine, but I think he genuinely didn’t realize.
I step farther away from him and cross my arms over my chest defensively. “You said Clancy learned from his mistakes? He’s only gotten sneakier about them. This is a fuckingdate. He wanted us to get friendly again—why now, after he couldn’t force me to hook up with Zian? Why would he care other than because you’re the only other guy from our original six I haven’t already been with?”
Griffin stares at me. Before he can respond, whether he’d deny it or argue in Clancy’s defense, I decide I can’t stand to hear any more from him.
I march over to the guardian at the door. “I’d like dinner, but I’m not having it with Griffin. Let me go to the cafeteria.Now.And tell Clancy he can fuck off to the goddamn moon, if he isn’t already listening to hear me say it himself.”
Seventeen
Griffin
The twining melodies of violin and piano swell through my room. They wind around me as I lean back in my armchair.
The music stirs emotion in some people. I’ve seen videos of audiences weeping while listening to this song.
But nothing rises up inside my chest. My heart beats on at the same steady pace.
I used to put on music like this to test myself. To confirm just how deep the guardians’ training ran.
This is one of the rare moments when I can’t help thinking I might prefer it if I noticed it getting to me just a little. If I knew the things that affect other people could still affect me, if only slightly.
A normal person would be irritated, even angry, that Clancy was taking so long to come talk to me. I told the guardian who tried to bring me and Riva to dinner that I wanted to see him immediately, in the firmest tone I’m capable of.
But it’s been… hours? Definitely at least one of those.
My sense of time has gotten foggy with the fading of my emotions, as if feeling things about what was happening helped define those events concretely in my head.
By any measure, it’s been a lot more time thanimmediately. My thoughts won’t settle until I can address him directly.
And yet with each passing minute, my heart thumps on in the same steady rhythm. My gut stays relaxed.
The tension in my mind doesn’t seep beyond my skull.
Maybe he’s gone to talk to Riva first, which might be fair, and that’s what’s keeping him.
At the thought of Riva, one of my hands brushes over the other unbidden. The graze of my fingertips over my knuckles doesn’t summon even a ghost of the sensation I’m unconsciously seeking, but it does provoke a flicker of memory.
Her hands, tucking around my own. Her fingers stroking my skin.
