Page 376 of Shadowblood Souls
Hence talking by the waterfall. I nod.
Griffin’s head dips closer, the side of his face grazing mine. “I’m sorry. This isn’t—I didn’t want us to end up back here. I don’t know…”
He trails off, but the anguish in his words is unmistakable. Any lingering doubts I felt disintegrate.
I ease closer to him, slipping my arm around his back in a loose embrace. The crisply airy scent that clings to him fills my lungs and tingles through the shadows in my blood.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were worried about Celine?”
Griffin exhales raggedly. “I couldn’t tell if there was really something to be worried about or if I was misreading her. It wasn’t anything obvious. Just here and there, especially when we were in the helicopter, I got flickers of emotion from her that felt upset, or defiant, in ways that didn’t match everyone else. I didn’t want to accuse her of anything when I had no idea what was actually going on with her.”
“You were sure in the end, though.”
“Yeah.” He swallows audibly. “She was so relieved—happy—when she heard the choppers coming for us. And a littletriumphant. It was obvious then that she’d done something… I think she’d brought a device that would send out a location, but one that couldn’t be set up properly if she was trying to carry it on her. I was watching her pretty carefully before Zian pulled us away.”
I have a vague memory of Celine darting out of sight in the middle of our rush out of the facility. She could have grabbed something then.
But I also remember what she said to me when she acknowledged her betrayal. “It might not have been you stopping her before. It’s possible she wasn’t totally sure if she should use it or not… until after I admitted that we might turn to the shadowkind for help.”
“Either way…” I feel Griffin’s wince in the movement of his features next to mine. “I didn’t want her dead. It was just—in the moment, when they’d arrived and they’d already incapacitated most of you, and Dominic’s strategy didn’t work—all I could think was that the guardians were going to take us back either way. And the only way I’d be able to fix things was if Clancy believed I was still on his side.”
“And he wouldn’t have believed that if Celine was alive to tell him she’d signaled them,” I fill in.
“But maybe I was wrong. Maybe there was some way we could have still escaped. It was hard to see clearly with my feelings and my ideas all jumbled together—I’m not used to sorting through them anymore. I thought I saw our best chance, so I took it, because I thought I had to, but I can’t say that was right.”
A tremor runs through his lanky frame. “I’m going to get better. I’ll get used to balancing both again. Andreas managed to arrange to see me yesterday—he’s found out a few things—I have some ideas for using this mission to turn things back in our favor.”
Hope flutters up through my chest. “What?”
“I’ll have to see what I can pull off. Clancy might believe I’m standing with him, but that doesn’t mean he listens to me all that much.” Griffin pauses. “I don’t think we can end this whilehe’sstill alive, though.”
I absorb that statement with only the faintest twinge of uneasiness.
The current head of the guardians is willing to torture us to bend us to his will. Why should we give a shit about his well-being?
“Whatever you figure out, let me know as much as you can,” I tell him, my nerves thrumming with the possibility of a new plan within reach.
“I’ll do my best. He seems to still trust me, but he’s being even more cautious with the rest of you.” Griffin brushes a tentative kiss to my forehead that lights up my nerves in a totally different way and then eases back. “We should probably do a little shooting so he doesn’t wonder why we’d have skipped that part completely.”
I cock my head. “A chance for me to let out my aggression before you start your supposed seduction.”
Griffin chuckles, but his cheeks flush at the same time. “Something like that.”
Farther into the cave, I pick a pistol off the rack somewhat at random, set a pair of earmuffs in place, and let out a few rounds at one of the targets. Griffin takes a more measured approach, selecting his gun with care and then firing each shot with a moment of contemplation in between.
Even so, my bullseyes end up tattered while his shots dapple the two inner rings more haphazardly.
His mouth twists as he studies the result. “Blasting things apart was never something I took to naturally.”
“We all have our own talents,” I say, with a fond smile to show I think that’s a good thing.
He reloads his gun and then gazes down at it. “Do you want to keep going?”
I consider my new target and wrinkle my nose. “I think I’ve worked through all my urge to shoot things. You’re definitely safe now.”
Griffin laughs. “Then maybe we could talk a little more? If there’s anything else you’d want to ask me to feel better about how things went down, you can go ahead.”
I recognize his phrasing as being for the benefit of any guardians listening in. “Yeah. I’m ready to hear you out.”
