Page 197 of Shadowblood Souls
I guess we have to assume that would be enough. Unless the guardians have found other connections we’re unaware of.
Jacob pushes his rolled-up sleeve right over his elbow. The purple spines laced with his innate poison spring from his forearm.
He mustn’t be affected by his own venom, because he twists his arm and scratches open the heel of his opposite hand without hesitation.
He dug in a little deeper than I did. A thicker spurt of smoky stuff streaks up toward the stark blue of the sky.
Jacob closes his eyes, his face turning into a mask of concentration.
After just a few seconds, the stream of haze curves. It wavers through the air across the deck toward the four of us.
Rollick hums to himself. When the trickle of smoke has nearly reached us, he gestures to what seems to be thin air on the other side of the deck.
A couple of shadowkind—Cinder and a slim man I saw at dinner yesterday materialize by a plastic storage box and shove it toward us before opening the lid. The guy cringes backward, and Cinder makes a face.
“Get yourselves some shields,” Rollick tells us. “Let’s see if the essence can still seek you out through that.”
Essence. That’s what he calls the smoky stuff. He told us earlier that it’sallshadowkind bleed, no liquid at all.
The four of us march over to the container and find gleaming serving dishes inside. When I shoot Rollick a quizzical look, he offers a wry smile.
“Shadowkind can’t handle silver and iron. Those were the easiest large pieces of silver we could obtain on short notice. Hybrids don’t seem to have the same issues with the metals, but maybe it’ll deflect the particularly shadowy parts of you.”
Silver. Something twigs in my brain—the big purple shadowkind who confronted us in Toronto accused us of using silver, didn’t he? With the guns?
Were Engel’s murderous guardians shooting at us with silver bullets like we’re werewolves out of a horror story?
Considering both those guardians and their guns are long gone, I guess it doesn’t really matter.
I heft one of the serving platters, which stretches from my chin to my waist when I hold it in front of me, and position myself across from Jacob with the plate held firm.
The other guys join me. Jacob stares at us as if he finds the whole thing ridiculous but squeezes a little more blood from the puncture wound on his hand.
The smoke wavers up—and veers straight toward us within seconds of him closing his eyes again.
Rollick gives another pensive hum. “All right. That’s not doing it. I figured it was wishful thinking. If it takes concentration to establish the connection, maybe concentration can ward it off too. All of you, focus on pushing back any essence that might be flowing your way.”
I can’t see how this is going to help us in the long run. We can’t exactly wander through life constantly thinking about pushing monster-blood smoke away from us.
But to humor him, I close my own eyes. Draw up a mental picture of the waft of smoke drifting away from me. Narrow all my attention down to that image.
When Rollick coughs meaningfully, my eyes pop open. The first thing I see is the stream of dark haze that’s yet again stretched out toward us.
I exhale with a grunt. “So much for psychic shielding.”
The demon trains his gaze on me. “You mentioned something about there being other ways you were in tune with each other beyond your blood. What specifically did you mean by that?”
“I think we’re all a little extra aware of each other when we’re nearby,” Jacob puts in, pressing his other hand over his cut to stop the bleeding. “I knew something was going on the night Riva came to break us out, even though I hadn’t seen her yet. But I don’t think that effect is strong enough that anyone could track us from a distance using it—if it’s even a general strategy and not something specific to us because we grew up together.”
He’s never mentioned that to me before—that he sensed my presence in some way like that. But I’m too distracted by the actual thing I meant to give much thought to his assertion.
I resist the urge to hug myself against the awkwardness the subject stirs up inside me. Instead, I hook my fingers into the neckline of my tank top.
“It’s more than that. There’s—when one of the guys and I have, um, hooked up, we both had a mark appear on our chest. And since then, I’ve been able to sense where they are through it.”
I ease down the fabric just enough to show the two small black splotches that mark my collarbone on either side of my sternum. Zian’s head jerks around, and Jacob stares from the other side of the deck.
Looks like Andreas and Dominic never mentioned that little side effect to their friends.
