Page 126 of Shadowblood Souls
Biting my lip against the pain, I jerk my shirts down over the cut and the puff of smoky stuff that started to waft from it and spin around. The wound throbs against my pressing elbow.
Zian has come up by the windows, his massive body looming more than a foot taller than me even in totally human form. He studies me with his dark brown eyes, probably wondering why I flinched so badly.
Or wondering if I’m going to hurl my power at him in response.
Before he can outright ask anything, I let out a stilted giggle. “Just a little jumpy after… all this. I’m going to check the second floor.”
I hustle over to the stairs and dart up them, gritting my teeth against the deepening ache in my side. I amnotgoing to beg Dominic for help, not when he’s already wiped out.
Not when I now know that every bit of healing talent he uses, the beastly appendages he’s so ashamed of grow even longer.
Engel’s bedroom is painfully tidy, not a drawer ajar, not a wrinkle in her duvet. I can’t help wondering whether she’d be more pissed off about the fact that I killed her or the mess I’ve made of her home below.
In the ensuite bathroom, I tear a chunk of thick fabric off a towel and fold it into a pad to stem the bleeding. Then I tie that firmly in place with a strip of one of Engel’s sheets.
Such lovely linens she’s outfitted her home with. I’m sure the thread count made her proud.
They bind my wound well enough. With my baggy hoodie overtop, you can’t tell there’s anything unusual underneath.
I stand in front of the bathroom mirror for a moment, digging my hands into my pockets and pressing the hasty bandage against my side. The throbbing makes my jaw tick, but a strange sense of peace settles over me.
This is one small fragment of what I inflicted on all our attackers downstairs. A reminder of what I did—what I don’t ever want to have to do again.
If having that reminder helps ensure that I keep my most vicious hungers under control, it’s a good thing.
The stairs creak, and I pull myself out of the ensuite into Engel’s bedroom where I can make myself useful again.
It isn’t Andreas coming upstairs after me, I realize with a faint tingling on my clavicle. I can sense him moving around on the level below through the little dark blotch on my skin—the mark that formed after we merged our bodies in more ways than we recognized at the time.
The mark that also appeared at the top of his sternum, that maybe he now wishes he could scrub off along with any other association with me.
I yank open the bedside and dresser drawers and find an envelope with a wad of hundred dollar bills in one and a jewelry box tucked into another. Well, we need any extra cash we can get from pawning Engel’s valuables more than she’s inclined to wear them in her current state.
I stuff the envelope into the ebony jewelry box and carry it into the hall just as Jacob makes an eager noise from the room next door. He comes out with a laptop clutched in his hands.
“Who knows how much useful info she’s got stashed on this,” he says, aiming a sharp but seemingly genuine smile at me.
I don’t know how to respond when the vast majority of the smiles Jacob has shot at me in the past couple of weeks were cold and cruel. But I’m saved from needing to when Dominic calls up from the first floor.
“I found Engel’s cell phone—and her car keys.”
Jacob’s smile widens. “All right. We make a swift getaway and then ditch it as soon as possible.”
As we hustle back down the stairs, Zian rubs his jaw. “Should we drive back to the car we took most of the way here?”
Andreas shakes his head. “We don’t know who might have found it by now. I say we head straight to the nearest active trainline and hitch a few more rides.”
“Perfect.” Jacob tucks the laptop under his arm. “Let’s get moving.”
His motion toward the door encompasses me as well as the guys. We all stoop to grab a couple more guns from the pile on our way out.
None of the other men look at me. As we tramp around the log house to the 4x4 parked off to the side, uneasiness prickles over my limbs.
We all need to leave—me getting caught would be a danger to the guys. Are they going to kick me to the curb after that?
Don’t Iwantto leave, after everything they put me through?
We are blood, we always said to each other. But they’ve broken the promise of those words so many times since I found my way back to them.
