Page 269 of Shadowblood Souls
Where are my guys? Were they caught too?
What happened to the kids we got out—did Rollick and his people get them to safety?
Where the hellamI?
I open my mouth, wanting to call out, but the pressure against my throat chokes off any sound beyond a slurred mumble. A fresh chill winds around me.
I won’t be able to scream like this. I can’t defend myself with my strength, my claws, or my killing shriek.
Whoever’s holding me knows exactly what I can do and figured out a way to chain all of my talents.
I clamp down on the jolt of terror with the instinctive discipline honed by years of training and combat in the ring. Freaking out isn’t going to help me.
I have to focus.
When I draw my awareness inside myself to settle my nerves, I pick up on the faint prick of sensation in the two thumbprint-sized blotches that mark my collarbone. The marks that formed when I slept with Andreas and Dominic for the first time.
They’re here, wherever here is. Somewhere nearby, anyway.
But I can’t tell any more than that they’re within maybe a hundred feet of me in different directions, and that they’re alive. What state they’re in beyond that, I haven’t got a clue.
A soft rasp from behind me jerks me out of my thoughts. A shift in the air that tells me a door has opened.
My pulse stutters, and I hold myself still to track the sounds.
Careful footsteps tread across the floor toward me. As I turn my head toward them, an unfamiliar man comes into view.
He walks until he’s nearly in front of the chair and stops there, facing me. His blue eyes study me assessingly.
I assess him right back.
He’s decently but not epically tall, with a fair bit of muscle under his polo shirt and slacks. Strong but no match for me if it comes down to hand-to-hand combat.
A military-short cropping of carrot-red hair tops his face. His features have a hardness to them that makes me think of military discipline too.
Faint wrinkles mark the corners of his mouth and eyes, and when he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, the light from overhead catches on a few faded strands amid his red hair. I’d guess he’s in his late forties.
He isn’t wearing the typical metal helmet and vest that the guardians usually do. But I was captured in the depths of a facility. He must be with them, right?
I manage to push a few words from my throat, rough and faint but audible. “Who. The fuck. Are you?”
His thin lips form a reserved smile. “Someone who believes you can be more than what’s been offered to you so far, Riva.”
What the hell is that supposed to mean? I grimace.
“Someone. Who can’t. Talk?”
He lets out a light chuckle that makes me want to punch him in the face. I wasn’t making a joke.
Then he motions to my throat. “I’ll take the clamp off as soon as I’m sure you aren’t going to turn that unexpected power of yours on me. It really wouldn’t be in your best interests, and I’m sure you’ll realize that for yourself. But I’d rather not take my chances before then, having seen how dire the consequences can be.”
Yes, enduring one of my screams should not be on anyone’s top ten lists of how to go. My power craves all the pain it can provoke while it’s breaking its targets’ bodies.
That doesn’t mean this prick doesn’t deserve every bit of the pain I could deal out.
“Where. Guys?” I force out. My throat is aching just from the little bit of conversation I’ve been able to carry out.
“Your fellow shadowbloods—the ones you grew up with—are being held in their own rooms. They’ll be given the same opportunity. But you do seem to make a lot more trouble when you’re all together.”
