Page 494 of Shadowblood Souls
If what I just experienced means what I think it does… our connection is so much more than even Clancy ever suspected.
So much more than Balthazar can possibly be prepared for.
I pull Griffin to me for one last kiss and then hook my elbow over the side of the pool. “We need to get the other guys.”
Thirty
Riva
When all six of us are standing in the back garden, as far from the villa as we can get, the guys look at me with an unspoken question. They know better than to ask out loud when Balthazar could hear us, but I’ve got to give some kind of explanation for dragging them over here.
“I had an idea—it might sound kind of strange,” I say with the improvised excuse I came up with while Griffin and I gathered everyone. “We should meditate, all of us together, and maybe the right idea will come to us that way.”
It’s an excuse for our silence while we work out the rest. Jacob gives a bemused snort, but they all nod.
“Sure,” Andreas says, with a sparkle in his eyes that tells me he knows perfectly well I’m up to something else. “Can’t hurt to give it a shot.”
The new awareness of the shadowy bonds between us remains, the whispers of energy tickling my senses. Are they picking up on the change too?
I think they must have. I don’t have the vivid understanding of their emotions that hit me in that moment in the pool, but quivers of curiosity and anticipation have filtered through the connection between us from the first moment Griffin and I went to talk to them.
I suspect they also know what must have happened to cause that shift. When Jacob saw Griffin and me together, his lips twitched with a knowing smirk that erased my worries about how he’d react to our new closeness.
We’re all together, all meant for each other. No need for competition or jealousy.
And that might be true now beyond what any of us could have predicted.
I sink down onto the grass below the level of the nearby hedges, folding my legs. No one will be able to see what we’re doing from inside the house, and Zian will hear footsteps before any intruder gets close enough to spy.
After what I experienced with Griffin, I thought I might feel the need to sit at the center of our circle, the hub to the wheel. But now that the guys are here with me, we settle naturally into a simple ring with me alongside them.
The deeper connection might have blazed forth from my body, but it tingles between us now not like spokes but a more intricate web, tying all of us together. The guys’ essence reaches out to one another just as it does to mine.
Good. If I’m right, then that means our advantage is even bigger than I’d hoped.
While we were assembling our group, my mind was whirling through the possibilities of how I’d begin my demonstration. I need something that’ll be clear—and clearly not from me.
I wet my lips and extend my hand toward Andreas at the opposite end of the circle.
He starts to shift toward me as if he thinks I want to grasp his hand, but I shake my head. I suspect we can do this without physical contact.
It’d be useful to know for sure.
If you asked me to describe it, I’d have to say the impression of shadowy energy that winds through each of us is pretty much the same, in every way I have concrete words for. But there’s a vibe to each of the guys that’s distinctlythem.
Just as I always know where each of them is through my marks, never confusing one tug of sensation with another, I’d feel that it’s Andreas’s essence I’m reaching toward even with my eyes closed.
I do close my eyes then, concentrating hard on the whisper of energy he gives off. It’s not all one sound but two separate murmurs. I can taste the idea of what they offer on a level below conscious understanding.
I grasp hold of the one I want and yank it into me.
The power flows into me without resistance. It coils through my own essence, etching the patterns of its function inside my skull.
It tells my body how to use it. All I need to do is hold that thrum of energy tightly and contract in on myself, peeling my presence out of view.
Zian lets out a startled grunt. My eyes pop open to find all five of the guys staring at me.
Or not really at me. At the spot where they saw me a moment ago, before I appeared to vanish.
