Page 515 of Shadowblood Souls
“She grounded Mr. Balthazar,” Toni continues, her voice getting a bit rough. “She and Peter both did. But then—Peter fell in with a rowdy bunch of friends in high school. There was some kind of altercation, and he ended up shot. Mr. Balthazar always claimed a monster was involved, that they were attacking his family now. I’m not sure anymore if that’s true.”
Zian frowns. “Is that when he got so crazy?”
Toni’s mouth twists. “He definitely ramped up his efforts—working more aggressively, branching off more from the Guardianship with plans they didn’t know about. But it was really… He launched a major offensive against shadowkind in his home city. Had silver and iron embedded around areas they liked to congregate, places where they’d feed in their variousways. Figured out where a nearby portal was and messed with that too.”
Rollick’s head comes up. “I heard something about that, a few years ago.”
“Yes.” Toni sighs. “He must have slipped up somewhere, though. Maybe with the shadowkind contacts he manipulates into giving up intel. A few of the… monsters… realized who was behind the offensive and tracked him down. When they got to his house, he was away, but Willa was there. So they tore her apart. Literally.”
Her voice has gone outright ragged with the last few words. I know without any mind-reading ability that she saw the results of that attack. And maybe I can understand a little why she would have found it hard to sympathize with anyone connected to the monsters who destroyed the woman she loved.
“It broke something in him,” Toni says. “Losing both of them. Knowing it was his mistake that put Willa in danger. He never admitted it—I heard him rant so many times about how incompetent everyone else was to let the monsters continue to threaten us—but he knew. He left the Guardianship and threw all his time, energy, and money into building up his economic influence and political power.”
“So he can take over the world,” I fill in, remembering what Balthazar told me. “He wants to convince or force all the major governments into launching assaults on the shadowkind.”
Toni inclines her head. “That was why he wanted all of you shadowbloods too. Especially after he found out the six of you had escaped and it’d taken the Guardianship so long to recapture you. He didn’t trust them to use you properly.”
Jacob takes a step toward her, his stance menacing. “You stood with him through all of that—through everything he did to us. After youknewhow badly it went before.”
“I thought he was right,” Toni protests. “I hadn’t seen anything from the shadowkind except violence. It seemed like the lesser of two evils. And Willa always asked me to look after him for her when she couldn’t be there… She wouldn’t have wanted me to abandon him after he’d already lost so much.”
She stops and shakes her head. “At least, that’s what I thought for the last three years. But I didn’t know just how cruel he could be. I didn’t know how muchshedidn’t even matter to him anymore.”
Andreas knits his brow. “What do you mean?”
Toni looks at me rather than him. “You’re his daughter—but you’reherstoo. The last piece of her still alive. And he was willing to torture you for not immediately doing everything his way. He put you through so much…”
The pieces click together in my head. Toni was there when Balthazar revealed my full genetic heritage to me. I’d thought she seemed shaken, but I hadn’t realized why.
I’d been too busy reeling from my own feelings on the subject.
It was soon after that meeting when she approached us and said she’d try to help us escape. Her loyalties didn’t really change, though. She just realized that the woman whose values she’d attempted to uphold would have been on our side rather than her employer’s.
On my side.
A wild giggle bubbles at the base of my throat. I spent all that time horrified and frightened of my connection to Balthazar, but the same connection was what won us our freedom in the end.
“I’m sorry,” Toni says. “It shouldn’t have taken that long for me to see the truth. It shouldn’t have taken that much. I didn’tlikea lot of what I saw him doing, and I knew he’d gotten dangerously obsessed with his quest, but after Willa died, I kindof shut off a lot of my mind. I went on autopilot, being who I thought I was supposed to be.”
When her voice peters out, the guys remain silent. I feel their attention shift to me, as if my response is the one that matters most.
Maybe it does. It’s because of me that she’s here.
I sort through the whirling emotions inside me and settle on one true thing I can say. “I’m glad you came to us. Even if it took a long time, it’s better now than never.”
A hesitant smile crosses Toni’s lips. “I’d like to think so.”
She glances around at all of us again. “But whatever we’re going to do to interfere with Mr. Balthazar’s plans, we can’t take our time with it. Now that he’s confirmed his method for creating new adult shadowbloods, I don’t know how much havoc he’s going to wreak—but he’ll be working fast. And he won’t let anyone stand in his way.”
Two
Riva
As the group Rollick has called together takes seats around the long table in his Spanish mansion’s vast dining room, I can’t suppress a prickle of apprehension.
It’s not our surroundings that unnerve me. The house’s interior is reassuringly different from our previous digs, the walls the same stark white as the outer ones and the furniture sleekly modern.
My concern is more about the company we’re keeping. All of the shadowkind joining us were vetted by our demonic host… but beings working under him have attacked us before.
