Page 190 of Shadowblood Souls
There’s a boom, maybe from that gun Zian saw, and a large black mark appears on one of the cement columns. The shadowkind don’t even slow down.
Gurgles and pained grunts fill the air. I spot a few figures fleeing out up the entrance ramp, away from the bodies now littering the floor.
That’s what we called down on the guardians. That’s what we asked for.
I’m as responsible for the carnage here as I was when my scream wrenched through our attackers before.
But I can’t say I regret it. Not when the vision of Griffin crumpling flashes behind my eyes.
Not when I think of all the torment they put us through over the years and the stories the guys have told me about what happened after I was dragged away.
The guardians don’t see us as anything but tools. They’d kill us too if they didn’t want so badly to use us.
Two final figures scramble out into the streaks of sunlight. Several shadowkind emerge into view among the slumped corpses.
“Some army,” one of them mutters disdainfully.
We hustle over to join them. My gaze skims over the fallen guardians—and jars on a smaller, skinnier form.
It’s the girl I spotted during the ambush in Toronto.
Her dark hair fans out around her pale face, which is smeared with blood. Her chest has been gouged open, innards spilling across the ground and puffs of smoky essence drifting up.
Nausea rolls over me. I cringe away and jerk my attention toward Rollick. “You weren’t supposed to kill the kids.”
Rollick glances at the girl and shrugs. I can’t read the emotion behind his dark blue eyes.
“In every battle, there’ll be a few unexpected casualties. It’s rarely a scenario that allows perfect precision. Would you rather that wasyoubrought down by the mortals we just saved you from?”
A shiver runs through me. “No.”
But I didn’t exactly want this either.
Did we really make the right choice?
Rollick doesn’t allow us any time to debate that question. He makes a sweeping motion toward the entrance.
“Mortals or not, they managed to find us here—and slip past my sentries, which I’ll have to investigate. Clearly I underestimated this group. We need to get you out of Miami, now.”
Eighteen
Riva
The ocean air gusts across the pier, filling my nose with the scents of seaweed and salt. And my mouth too, because my jaw is hanging slack as I take in the big white boat ahead of us.
Big is an understatement.Boatmight be an understatement.
The vessel docked at the end of the pier is the seafaring version of a castle. The sleek white walls stretch across three floors above the deck to the gleaming metal bars of some kind of radio tower.
Several padded lounge chairs already sit in a couple of semi-circles across the open area of the deck, beckoning us to sprawl in them. Rectangular windows decorate the sides below deck, where that massive hull could hold an entire football field, as far as I can tell.
Andreas lets out a low whistle. “And I thought the RV was fancy.”
Zian’s eyes look ready to pop out of his head. “You couldn’t fit that on a highway.”
The Miami warmth still wraps around us, but the breeze licks a chill over my skin. I rub my arms. “I don’t know about this. If we don’t like how things are going, it’s not like we’ll be able to just leave.”
The vast stretch of ocean around and beyond the ship makes my nerves itch. That is way more water than belongs in any place all at once—at least, any place I’m going to be.
