Page 602 of Shadowblood Souls
A weird sense of peace wells up inside me that I know has come from myself, not Griffin. They’re done growing now. The tentacles are what they’re meant to be. And they helped me do whatI’mmeant to be doing.
I don’t know yet if I’m going to see whether Sorsha can remove them, but for the first time, it doesn’t seem to matter all that much whether I keep them or try to give them up.
I don’t have much chance to revel in my newfound contentment. A fresh bolt of anguish bursts behind my collarbone as if shot through my chest from my bond with Riva.
I lurch forward, clapping my hand to my sternum. Andreas flinches.
My head whips toward the door. Something’s gonereallywrong—she’s struggling.
She needs help.
Andreas meets my eyes, his wide with panic. “Go. Griffin and I can handle this right now.”
My jaw clenches. I sweep my tentacles forward once more to send the rest of the extra energy I gathered into him in one huge surge, until I’m sure his nerves are buzzing with it and he won’t falter again.
Then I hurtle toward the door to do whatever I can to see Riva through the next few minutes too.
Thirty
Riva
If I’ve learned anything from my twenty-one years as a monster, it’s that killing is never as easy as you’d imagine, no matter how naturally it comes to you.
With Cutler’s warning shout still echoing off the high ceiling, my banshee shriek bursts from my throat. My power shoots forward to smack into the mass of shadowbloods standing around the makeshift machine—but a few of them have already leapt away.
I don’t have time to divert my focus to them. I’ve got to deal with the ones I have, or they could all end up turning the tables on us.
A blast of Sorsha’s fire roars toward the twenty or so figures my scream has locked in place. I wrench at them one by one as quickly as I can, snapping necks and sending shards of skull through brains without catering to my inner hunger’s desire for extended pain.
The fire consumes most of them before I need to shift my focus that far and ripples over the few corpses I’ve sent to the floor as well. They barely even had time to yelp.
A knot of guilt condenses in my gut—and a flare of blinding light sears through the room.
Obviously Nadia was one of the rogues who sprang out of range. I sway, swiping at my stinging eyes, knowing that the light will have brought my body back into visibility too.
Now I’m a target as much as the remaining rogues are.
Heat and smoke flood the room from the inferno of burning bodies around the supposed weapon. Then a wordless bellow splits the air, followed by an ominous creaking sound.
Blinking hard, I scramble sideways mostly on instinct. My vision is still blurred.
The air whooshes against my skin, and one of the concrete columns that lines the room crashes to the ground, just a couple of feet from where I’m standing. Broken concrete shards fly out to jab at my limbs.
“Let us out!” a voice hollers—I think it’s Cutler.
With another wordless roar, the gymnasium door rattles, the hinges groaning. A bolt of fire shoots toward it.
When I look again, the thick slab of the door looks fused into the frame. But Sorsha didn’t manage to hit Cutler. I can’t see him or any of the other rogue shadowbloods who escaped our initial attack.
If Sorsha were here alone, she could send the entire room up in flames. But if she does that now, she’ll incinerate me and Jacob too.
She won’t risk it, not unless it looks like the rogues will break out of the building if she doesn’t act.
I’d want her to, but I’d really prefer the battle doesn’t end like that.
I back up to the relative security of the wall to at least give me protection from behind. My gaze sweeps across the room, the images fragmented even now that my sight is clearing. The raging flames make the shadows dart and gyrate.
Cutler lets loose his earth-shaking bellow again. A crack ripples through the base of another column—the one Sorsha was braced behind.
