Page 218 of Shadowblood Souls
His tentacles still wind around my shoulders and arms. One makes its way between us to pluck at my breasts, and I can’t hold back another moan.
Dom grunts. “Can’t stop—Riva, I’m going to?—"
I want it all. I down him as far as I can and savor the spurt of his release at the back of my throat.
As I suck him dry, his tentacles ramp up their attentions. My nipples tingle with the squeeze of the suckers.
Andreas bows over my back to kiss my shoulder blade. He tucks his hand around my waist and fingers my clit in time with his frantic strokes.
That’s all it takes. I crackle apart again, bright and hot as a firecracker exploding.
My pussy clamps around Drey’s cock, and he groans as he follows me.
Andreas loops his arm around my waist as he rocks to a stop. He presses more kisses down my spine.
Then he pauses with a shaking inhalation and tips his damp forehead against my flushed skin.
“I love you. Always.”
Emotion swells at the base of my throat. I twist around, tugging him with me so I can nestle between both men on the bed.
“Never leave me again,” I murmur, and I think they both know I don’t mean just physically.
“Not a chance,” Dominic swears. He captures my mouth in a quick but emphatic kiss, heedless of his flavor lingering on my lips.
Andreas hugs me close. “It’d take a goddamn apocalypse to tear me away from you.”
But as I sink into the mellowness of the afterglow, a niggling chill seeps in.
I’m not entirely sure that an apocalypse is off the table.
Twenty-Four
Riva
Rollick leans against the railing around the yacht’s upper deck, the cool breeze ruffling his tawny hair. “What exactly is your objection?”
I lower my gaze to the little crab he’s set in a bowl on the small table between us. It clicks its claws and scrabbles at the sides too steep for it to clamber over.
It looks more like an alien creature than a thinking, feeling being. I wouldn’t be able to make out agony in the stalks of its eyes or catch a gasp of its pain.
But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t feel plenty. It’s stillalive.
It has just as much a right to live that life peacefully as I do, doesn’t it?
I meet the demon’s gaze again. “That’s not who I want to be. I don’t want to use my power—I wish I didn’t even have it.”
Rollick lets out a short sigh. “You know you don’t have much choice. There is no operation that’s going to cleave the talent—orthe urge to use it—out of your body. Your options are master it or be mastered by it when you’re unprepared.”
I grimace. “But how is mastering it better than the alternative if it means I’m willingly torturing animals to get to that point? At least… at least when I’ve used it before, I had a good reason to. It was life or death.”
“And you could be sparing this crustacean some pain now only to inflict much worse on some other innocent being later.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. But?—
I lift my chin. “I haven’t had the urge lately, even when I’ve been upset. The last time I released the power, I managed to only work it on the people attacking us. Maybe… maybe I’ve got enough control already.”
Rollick cocks his head. “You might be satisfied making that gamble, but I’d rather ensure more certainty than ‘maybe.’ As would my associates. If you want my help, this is a necessary condition.”
