Page 311 of Shadowblood Souls
I freeze and then back up. If he needs space, I’ll give it to him, even if it kills me to see his distress.
The last thing I want to do is add to it.
With a click, Clancy’s voice drifts into the room again. “There’s no need to get so worked up about the situation. You’ll both enjoy yourselves. If you?—”
I don’t find out what fantastic tips he has for us now, because Zian’s roar cuts off our captor’s voice. He barrels out of his corner with a ferocity that makes me flinch.
His full wolf-man face has taken over, fangs protruding from a wrinkled muzzle. His body looks at least half a foot taller and broader than his usual size.
He hurls himself at the bed and gouges his claws right through the duvet into the mattress. Chunks of fabric and foam careen through the air.
I scramble backward and leap onto the loveseat, my pulse racing. I’ve never seen Zian quite this wild before—and I’m the only person in the room.
I don’t want to think he’d hurt me, but if he’s so upset that he isn’t even aware of what he’s doing…
His arms swing, smashing the bed’s plain wooden frame. Splinters fly across the floor.
When he spins around toward me with a feral howl, my heart nearly stops. His eyes blaze with fury and anguish.
He lunges forward—and the door bursts open. Several guardians hurtle into the room, two zapping him with batons, another stabbing him with a syringe as his body spasms.
“Don’t hurt him!” I shout through my constricted throat. Tears burn behind my eyes.
It isn’t his fault. They pushed him until he snapped.
As Zian slumps on the floor, Clancy himself appears in the doorway. He meets my gaze with just a little regret in his expression.
“I’m sorry this attempt went so badly,” he says. “Let’s get you out of here. We can try again with a new approach another day.”
“Are youinsane?” I sputter.
Before I can say anything else, the prick of a needle radiates from my shoulder. I hadn’t heard the guardian turning toward me.
I teeter over, the rest of my caustic words dying in my mouth.
Thirteen
Riva
Iscale the mountainside with swift, efficient movements, ignoring the growing burn in my arms. Whenever the terrain ahead of me is predictable enough that I can risk it, I take swift glances around at my surroundings.
I specifically picked this training exercise today so that I could get a better sense of the island’s landscape. Maybe even catch a glimpse of something that’d indicate a potential escape route.
We can’t fly away using Clancy’s private jet, since none of us knows how to pilot a plane. But if I could spot an obvious route through the mountains to a harbor or any sign of human civilization beyond the facility…
The latter option feels more and more impossible. It would make sense for Clancy to buy an entire island for his purposes rather than take the chance that we’d be discovered.
But surely they havesomemethod of transportation other than the air route. He doesn’t seem like the type to put all his eggs in one basket.
Hell, I’d be willing to attempt a swim to the mainland if it turns out there’s some in sight.
Anything to not get dragged into more of his sick schemes.
When I reach the top of the climbing path and perch on the shallow ledge there, the view doesn’t offer much. There’s no easy way to scale the last fifty or so feet to the very top of the cliff, which is smooth and sheer probably by design, so I can’t look over the other side of this peak.
All I see sprawled out in front of me is the dense jungle that once looked so appealing. Now it seems to glower ominously at me.
I worry at my lip in the few minutes I can reasonably rest before I should start the climb down to avoid raising suspicion. Maybe we do need to focus on getting a plane—hijacking it, forcing one of the guardian pilots to take us off the island.
