Page 523 of Shadowblood Souls
I set down the glass of lemonade I brought her, hesitate, and set my hand carefully on her shoulder. We’ve come a long way from the days when I was afraid of any physical contact with her at all, but I still don’t totally trust my instinctive reactions.
When no jolt of panic shoots through me at the touch, I let myself increase the pressure, rubbing my thumb into the tendons of her shoulder in a slow massage. “You could take a break. You’ve already figured out where some of the kids are at—he hasn’t moved them, right?”
The sigh Riva lets out as she relaxes against my hand sends all kinds of emotions racing through my nerves—a little nervousness, sure, but mostly joy and relief… and enough desire to form an ache in my groin.
I thought it was hard wanting her when I didn’t believe I could have her. Wanting her now that I know that Icanis a challenge on a totally different level.
I don’t think she’s in a mood for me to sweep her out of the chair and charge off to whatever of the guest bedrooms in Rollick’s mansion is closest, even if I was comfortable doing that. So I settle for moving behind her where I can rub both of her shoulders at once.
Riva’s eyes drift shut. “The younger shadowbloods are still where I found them before. I wish they weren’t scattered across different hideouts, but we figured they would be. It’s Balthazar who keeps moving around.”
Rollick materializes out of the shadows next to us, already in one of his casually confident stances as if he’s been standing there all along. “You could leave him be and check back later,” he says. “He’ll have to pause somewhere eventually.”
“He always does,” I agree.
Riva grimaces at us and reaches for the glass of lemonade. “He’s heading back toward that spot where he seems to have set up a fortress in the Carpathians in Romania. We decided if he stops there a third time that we should focus on it for our first strike. If I’m right, I should know in another twenty minutes or so. And I’d rather know as soon as possible. With all the reports coming in… who knows what they’ll destroy next?”
According to the news we’ve seen on TV and the internet, Balthazar’s shadowbloods hit four more cities last night. Major landmarks destroyed, dozens of people dead. My muscles tighten at the memory of the brutal images.
The demon nods. “I think at this point we can assume that mountain base is his main hub of operations, at least for the moment. I’ve gotten a couple more reports back from local scouts of his activities there.”
“I don’t want to assume anything when it comes to Balthazar.” Riva takes a gulp of lemonade and leans back over the tablet. “If you want to go on with planning the attack, I’ve already given my opinion before. And you know what I can do. I’ll join the discussion again when I’ve confirmed his destination.”
My chest tightens with the futile urge to take this weight off her shoulders. She’s the only one who’s gotten close enough to Balthazar that she can do this—and I know she hates it.
Both the fact that she has that kind of tie to him and the constant reaching out toward his presence, becoming more familiar with it every time.
I give her shoulder one last squeeze. “We’re going to take him down. It won’t be too much longer.”
Riva shoots me a smile that looks too weary to really be reassuring, but I don’t know what else I can do except follow Rollick to the dining room that’s become our command center.
The other guys are sitting around the table—well, other than Jacob, who’s pacing with typical agitation. Toni, several of our shadowkind allies, and the other hybrid, Sorsha, have gathered there too.
Billy stands in one corner with his pipes, playing a softly lilting tune. If it’s meant to both soothe and bolster our spirits, I can feel it working a little. I dip my head to the faun with a smile as I sit down.
One of the shadowkind men who seems particularly close to Sorsha, the guy named Thorn who’s so massive he makes even me feel a bit small, is pointing to something on a topographical map of the mountain region. He speaks firmly but with a gloomyexpression as if he’d rather not be here planning a war, even if he’s the best guy for the job.
“We shadowkind will need to focus mainly on deterring reinforcements from coming to Balthazar’s aid. The protections he has embedded in the rocks around his fortress would weaken even the strongest of us to a concerning point if we ventured beyond them.”
I frown, peering at the map even though I don’t have the slightest idea how to decipher the markings. The guardians expected to send us to attack shadowkind in or around areas where lots of people lived—preparing us for vast mountain ranges wasn’t high on their list of priorities.
But I know my strengths. The one good thing that came out of Balthazar’s manipulations was that I can help in more ways than I could before.
“My X-ray vision can cut through rock now,” I say. “Maybe I could carve out some of the protections to give you a way through.”
Rollick rubs his chin. “They’re deeply embedded and there are a lot of them. And chunks of rock crumbling away would draw attention rather quickly when we’re hoping to keep some element of surprise. I’m not sure that’ll be the best use of your talents.”
I glance at Jacob, who’s paused to listen to our exchange. “Maybe if Jake and I worked together, we could do it quickly. He’s shaken up mountains before. And Dominic could feed us extra power to help too.”
Sorsha taps part of the map. “It does seem like the lower face holds a lot of the toxic metals. If they could chop away that whole section, the more powerful shadowkind could probably tolerate the effects of the other surrounding protections.”
Toni leans forward with her hands clasped in front of her. “I don’t know how deeply the layers of protective metalgo. Balthazar has always been very careful about warding his territories.”
The broad, scaled shadowkind named Steel lets out a grunt. “This is mainly the shadowbloods’ battle anyway. Are they so worried about handling the brunt of it?”
My hackles rise automatically, but I will down my temper. “It’s not that we don’t want to fight. We’ll be right in there. But we’re a lot more likely to get rid of Balthazar the more of us can attack at once.”
“Which is good for all of you too, considering he wants to exterminate you,” Andreas puts in, keeping his tone lighter than I managed to. He wets his lips. “Maybe if any of the shadowkind are good with illusions, they could keep up the appearance that everything’s fine down below until we’re all ready to barge in.”
