Page 242 of Shadowblood Souls
My voice comes out in a croak. “I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know if I can do anything else.”
Pearl smooths her hand over Billy’s tan forehead. To my relief, I spot the halting but visible rise and fall of his chest with a breath.
“I think—I think he needs to be back home to totally heal,” the succubus says, and glances at Rollick.
The demon nods. “There’s a rift just down the coast. Take him as quickly as you can. You’ll be able to find me later.”
Pearl gathers her friend up in her arms and murmurs something by his ear. A second later, they both waver out of sight into the shadows along the dock.
My chest feels hollowed out. I look up, my thoughts shooting back to Riva, and find her standing near the railing, watching.
She still looks sickly, and in my first glimpse, another shiver ripples through her frame. But she pulls my trench coat tighter around her and draws her back up straighter as if ready to face judgment.
Seeing her in my clothes sends a strange wobble through my gut that’s not at all unpleasant. Somehow I manage to reach the ladder before Jacob or Zian do, hurtling up the rungs so I can sling my arm around her.
Riva leans into me, taking comfort in my embrace. Just like that, I’m complete.
I don’t care that my mutations are out for everyone to see. I don’t care if I look like a monster to anyone looking on.
I am what I am, and I am hers. If she can love me like this, then I’m damn well going to figure out how to at least like what I’ve become.
“Are you really going to just let them off after what she did to Cinder and the wimp?” Kudzu demands, scowling down at Rollick but, I notice, not daring to step right up to the railing.
Rollick’s attention shifts to the gangly shadowkind with a mild glower. Before my eyes, his body contracts.
The ruddy skin pales to a peachier tone. His frame shrinks to a more realistic six-foot-and-a-few.
The horns vanish, and an elegant suit reforms over the planes of now more subdued muscle.
But the aura of power doesn’t diminish. It’s as if he twisted a dial up to max, and the force of it keeps humming through the air like the peal of a warning bell.
The demon crosses his arms over his chest. “I never said anything about ‘letting them off.’ There are gradations between turning a blind eye and slaughtering people.”
“Sheshouldbe slaughtered—she tore Cinder apart! They all?—”
I can’t keep my own anger bottled up any longer. I step away from Riva to face him with my hand still on her shoulder.
“You were going to massacre us! Why the hell should we just roll over and die because it’ll make you feel better?”
Kudzu bares his teeth at me, but his attention snaps back to Rollick at the clearing of the demon’s throat.
“I will decide what’s to be done with them on my own time. But frankly, Cinder got what she asked for.”
Kudzu’s face hardens. He glances at his companions, some silent communication passing between them.
“Fine,” he spits out. “Have fun with your psychotic playthings. We aren’t sticking around to help.”
He leaps into the shadows, there and then gone, and the other four blink out of view within the next thump of my heart. Then it’s just the five of us on the deck, clustered around Riva, staring down at the demon who might have saved us… or might be planning a more complicated doom.
Rollick brushes his hands together as if washing them of bad business and meets our gazes steadily.
“You’d better come with me back to the ship. I have some news about your ‘facilities,’ but it wouldn’t be wise to stick around here any longer what with all the commotion we’ve already caused.”
The harbor area we picked is secluded from the rest of the city by a strip of brush, but the faint grumble of early morning traffic reaches my ears. Has some part of this conversation been seen or overheard?
All the same, I balk. “What news?”
Rollick shoots me a baleful look. “Nothing earth-shattering, but enough to potentially point you in the right direction. Are you coming or not?”
