Page 495 of Shadowblood Souls
Dominic’s head swings around toward Andreas, but Drey gives a sharp shake of his head to indicate that he didn’t have anything to do with my vanishing. His eyes have widened.
Zian cranes his neck around as if searching to see if I’ve simply slipped away. Jacob studies the spot where I’m sitting with a calculating air.
Griffin knows I’m still there. I must show up to his empathic sense as clearly as ever.
He lifts his hand and sets it on my shoulder. Showing the others that I haven’t moved.
Did he already know what I did back in the pool, when I stole his talent from him just for a moment? Or did he only figure it out now, seeing this?
I push myself back into visibility—and nudge the thread of essence I grasped back into Andreas. He looks down at his hands and then back at me, speechless.
We can’t say anything about this out loud. If Balthazar finds out we can trade talents…
Before I can follow that unnerving line of thought any farther, Jacob shoves his hand toward me. Offering himself, watching avidly to see the results.
I might as well confirm this part for them before we try anything else. I focus on his energies and tease out the more potent one to wrap through my limbs.
Oh, that’s a power all right. It vibrates through my nerves almost as insistently as my urge to shriek.
I glance around for a suitable test object. My gaze locks on to a planter that’s a few feet long, set in front of one of the hedges, its flowers wilting.
At a motion of my hand and a heave of the borrowed power, it lifts several inches off the ground.
The weight radiates into my body, but I can feel even without any further practice that I’ve taken in the strength to lift and shake so much more than this one object.
Discomfort twists in my chest at the thought of stealing so much of Jacob’s power, though. I release it and let it stream back into him.
Shocked silence has descended over our group. None of us could have expected this.
I have no idea how to explain it. I doubt even Engel suspected that raising us so closely, allowing us to bond so deeply on every level, would mean we’d find ourselves able to exchange our powers as well.
I glance at Dominic, whose forehead has furrowed with a pensive line. I know he’ll handle any experiment I offer him cautiously.
Catching his gaze, I touch my chest and move my hand toward him—but not as if I’m asking for something from him. As if I’m trying to pass something over.
Startled comprehension lights in his hazel eyes. They become both more intent and more distant as he focuses on me.
The whisper ripples through my veins, as if I’ve shed a layer of fabric as filmy as gauze. Dominic stares down at his hands and flexes his fingers.
Claws spring from the tips.
An awed laugh sputters from his lips before he catches himself. As he tests the supernatural speed that came with my bodily powers, swiping at a nearby hedge, Griffin turns to Zian at his other side.
At Griffin’s gesture, Zee blinks in confusion. Then, with a lift of his eyebrows, he nods.
Griffin hovers his palm next to Zian’s arm, his face tensing with concentration. Then he lowers his head.
His body twitches, and muscles bulge across his arms. Dark fur sprouts from his neck. His face warps with the start of a wolf-man muzzle before he reverses the shift.
Throughout our ring, bewilderment falls away in the wake of exhilaration. For several eager minutes, we don’t do anything except borrow one power and then another: Jacob burning a few tufts of grass with Zian’s X-ray vision, Andreas bringing the blades back to green life with Dominic’s healing touch, Zee adding Jake’s toxic spines to his arsenal, and on and on.
As the thrill tapers off, we sort ourselves back into the powers that belong to us. Using the others’ talents doesn’t feel quite as natural and innate as my own—I don’t think I’d ever feel comfortable trying to keep any of theirs for an extended period of time.
But in the short-term? The possibilities are endless.
Dominic pulls out a paper and a pencil, because of course he’d have thought about alternate methods of communication when I indicated I wanted this meeting. He scrawls a hasty question at the top.
How can we use this in the escape plan?
