Page 417 of Shadowblood Souls
It’s become a sort of ritual, these joint breakfasts. A way of giving ourselves some semblance of normalcy in this horrible situation.
We carry all the trappings to the dining room on serving trays. Jacob has just finished setting the long table.
The six of us usually sit around one end while the younger shadowbloods gather at the other. Riva looks at the few empty chairs between us with a quiver of disappointment, but I think the kids need their allegiance to their own smaller group just as much as they need to belong with the rest of us. They know how to move over if they want to mingle.
It’s a little easier to pretend this is somehow normal if they avoid the strategy discussions the six of us inevitably fall into while we dig into our meal.
As we sit down, Jacob gives my shoulder a swift pat that’s almost a cuff. He’s never been the most demonstrative guy, even when we were kids, but he’s been offering that brief contact at least once a day since we got here.
I don’t think he imagines he’s helping me like Riva is. From the constant storm of emotion inside him—and the shudder of relief that runs through it at the gesture—I suspect he’s reassuring himself that I really am still here.
A lump forms at the base of my throat. I’m grateful that my presence matters that much to my brother, after everything.
Picking up his fork, Zian glances over at me. “Anything interesting this morning?”
They all know about the most important new part of my morning routine. The trick is discussing it without potentially giving away to unknown listeners what I’m actually up to.
Reluctantly, I shake my head. “I saw a flower that made me happy, but I don’t know what would make more grow.”
Jake lets out a huff. “We could give ‘you’ plenty to feel something about.”
Riva shoots a warning glance his way, and he clamps his mouth shut. He doesn’t need my power to know she’s worried about retaliation if he expresses too much of his hostility toward our captor.
But he doesn’t know what else is churning inside our woman with her hair like moonbeams through the night. Only I can taste the fury simmering under her fear-driven caution.
She’s in almost as much turmoil as Jacob. It barely shows in her movements, in the occasional brusqueness of her words, but she’s got her own storm raging to be let out.
She found a way to get us free from our former jailers.Twice.
And yet here we are.
I don’t have any words that could make her feel better about how badly our hopes have been upended. So I don’t say anything about it.
I can’t tell if she’d want me to try to comfort her anyway.
Zian compliments Andreas on the eggs—both the flavor and the quantity—and Drey launches into a tale of a mountain climber whose memories he once sifted through. Jacob and Riva chew thoughtfully as they take in his account, Jake tossing in a few sardonic questions. A subdued laugh ripples through the group that I don’t totally understand.
They went through an awful lot before I pushed my way back into their lives. And for a lot of the time afterward, I was working against them, even if I didn’t see it that way.
Even sitting right here with them, I can’t shake the sense that I haven’t really returned. I’m not even as much a part of their group as Dominic is.
And with whatI’vebeen through and who it’s turned me into, this might be the best I’ll ever get. Hanging on the fringes, playing a supporting role to the five people who used to be my entire world.
Unless I can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt how fully I’m standing with them.
Eight
Riva
Irest my fingers lightly on the doorknob and give it the gentlest turn. My supernatural strength, which could wrench an ordinary knob right out of its socket, also allows me minute control.
My testing gets me nowhere, though. After less than half an inch of give, the knob jars against its lock.
Thanks to my care, no sound comes with the resistance. If Balthazar has guards posted in the western wing as a second line of defense against intrusion, they should have no idea what I attempted.
I sit back on my heels in the dark hallway. I can barely see the door in front of me, even with my eyes adjusted to the night.
Other doors around me are shut, and the hall has no windows of its own. Only the faintest hint of diluted light seeps from under one or another room to keep this part of the villa from being cloaked in pitch blackness.
