Page 585 of Shadowblood Souls
Rollick nods. “She saw how upset you were by his death. She thought you’d want to give him a proper burial rather than leaving him to your crazed counterparts or whoever else would have found him.”
“Yeah.” My arms come up to hug myself. I can’t see Booker through the sheet, but the image of his sagging face after the crossbow bolt hit him is emblazoned in my memory.
The rogues killed him—a shadowblood just like them, simply because he was trying to get through to Nadia in the most peaceful possible way.
I don’t like considering what that says about them and how far gone they are.
I turn to Rollick. “Will you be able to help us with that? We don’t have the money or the contacts to arrange any kind of regular burial.”
The demon offers a small sympathetic smile. “We’ll sort it out.”
He motions for us to follow him to one of the other bedrooms off the common room. As we walk over, several shadowkind materialize to trail after us.
Among them, Shanty sweeps her deep blue hair back over her shoulders, her features pinched with what looks like grief. Fang lumbers forward, his muscular prowl making my limbs tense with the memory of his bear form tearing into Tegan.
Crag brings up the rear with a steady stride that reassures me that the injury I saw him take didn’t do any permanent damage. Even so, his harsh face with its rocky jaw looks even grimmer than usual.
The room we step into holds two queen beds. One appears to be empty. Sorsha lies on the other, her head tipped back against the pillow, but she pushes herself into a sitting position at our entrance.
And promptly sways as if she can’t find her balance. Beside her, Snap catches her shoulder with a noise of concern, his bright green eyes wide with worry. Across from him, Thorn looms taller as if he can intimidate whatever’s bothering the phoenix into submission.
My heartbeat stutters. I dart forward to the foot of the bed. “Are you all right? What happened?”
Sorsha rubs her temple and offers me a crooked smile. “Those friends of yours have quite the assortment of powers. One of them hit me with something that seems to have rattled my brain around. If I move at all quickly, I get very dizzy.”
Jacob speaks in a growl. “They’re not ourfriends.”
“She’s got vertigo,” Rollick clarifies from where he’s positioned himself by the wall. He glances at me. “We’re monitoring the condition. Your tentacled friend hasn’t been able to identify a physical source to fully heal it, but we’re hopeful it’ll clear up with rest.”
Nausea wraps around my gut. If Sorsha can’t even sit up without getting dizzy, there’s no way she’ll be able to fly.
The rogue shadowbloods managed to disable our most powerful ally with one blow.
With a shifting of the duvet, a figure pops into being in the other bed, her legs tucked under the covers. Pearl grins at me as if oblivious to the thin trail of essence trickling up from her arm. “And I’m going to be okay too.”
I dash to her bed, my throat constricting. I’d almost forgotten that I thought I heard her yelp during the fight. “Pearl…”
A bunch of other shadowkind have emerged with her arrival. Billy is among them, closest to the bed. He shakes his head at her with a swish of his dark brown waves and yanks a roll of gauze from his pocket. “When you jump in and out of the shadows, you lose your bandage.”
The succubus glances down at her arm while her friend wraps enough gauze around the wound to suppress the flow of essence. “The cut is almost all healed up anyway.” She meets my eyes again and lets out a laugh. “You should have seen how it looked last night.Thatwas scary.”
She doesn’t sound scared, but guilt chokes me anyway. The shadowbloodsIinsisted we try to capture could have killed my closest friend among the shadowkind.
This is all my fault. How do we come back from this?
My skin prickles with my awareness of the other shadowkind who’ve joined us in the room, the small crowd scattered around the two beds. They’re all watching my reaction.
“I’m sorry,” I say to Pearl, pushing the words past the lump in my throat, and turn toward the others. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know they’d have those weapons, or that they’d be able to use their powers against the devices emitting the sirens—I never wanted any of you to get hurt.”
I brace myself for accusations and recriminations. Instead, surprise ripples across the shadowkind faces before me.
Shanty speaks first, in a low tone. “One of the young ones like you nearly shot me. I saw you finish him before he could hurt anyone else. You killed your own blood to protect us.”
Lance pipes up from where he’s hopped up to perch on the room’s dresser. “Jacob took down one of the other shadowbloods too. You fought for us like you wanted to fight for them.”
Fang peers at me with a wary air. “I thought—I wouldn’t have wanted to kill that girl, but I saw her attacking the others, and… Aren’t you angry with me?”
I gulp air, overwhelmed by the response so different from what I expected. “I mean, I wish she was still alive, but I can’t blame you for protecting your people.”
