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Toni absorbs all that and squares her shoulders. “I’ll do whatever I can to direct them toward that outcome.” She turns to Rollick. “I assume you have some method for me to communicate with the current leaders of the guardians. We might as well get it over with.”
“Might as well,” he agrees with a chuckle. “Come on—I’ll get you set up.”
He lifts his gaze to the rest of us. “And you all should start preparing for the most crucial battle of your lives.”
Fifteen
Dominic
I’m just adjusting my tentacles around the collar of a fresh long-sleeved tee when a knock rattles against my door. I open it expecting to see one of my friends, not paying enough attention to my sense of our talents to realize that’s unlikely.
Instead, I find myself looking at the wild-haired, viciously clawed shadowkind man who’s one of Rollick’s closer companions. I dredge his name up from my memory: Lance.
“The boss thinks you should do some practice before the big day,” the unnerving guy announces with a wide grin.
I hesitate, my fingers curling around the doorknob. “Practice what?”
Lance twitches his claws toward my tentacles. “You suck the life out of things, right? Getting better at it? We want to see how good.”
A trickle of nausea winds through my gut. I guess I should have expected this development. Rollick insisted on Riva testing her killing power, after all.
I just do my best to forget I even have a killing power when there’s no desperate need for it. I’d rather think of myself as only a healer.
We’re not likely to have a more desperate need than taking down Balthazar ASAP, though.
I peel my hand off the doorknob and ease out of the room. “All right. Where’s Rollick?”
Lance beckons me to follow him. “He thought outside would be good for this. Lots of plants for you to work with.”
Plants? Okay, I can deal with that. I don’t love destroying them either—something inside me always shrivels a little watching the leaves curl and the stems crumple—but it’s a much lesser guilt. No big deal.
The clawed shadowkind leads me out the front door and across the grounds to a stretch of trees. In a clearing up ahead, the sunlight shines off Rollick’s tawny hair.
And not just his hair. Red and silver gleam on either side of him. We emerge from the thicker patch of trees to find the demon flanked by Sorsha the phoenix and Riva.
Riva moves to join me, automatically reaching for my hand. Her bright brown gaze searches mine. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. You don’t have to use this part of your ability at all if you don’t want to.”
The fierceness of her tone makes me wonder if she’s argued with Rollick on my behalf. This is obviously about more than just offing some vegetation.
But what can I say? That one of the other guys should borrow my murderous talent so that I don’t have to carry the burden of the guilt?
We’ve all got our own shit to deal with. We all need to carry our own weight. There’ve been a lot of times in the past when I felt like I couldn’t contribute anywhere close to enough, and that was bad enough without backing away when I actually can.
I give Riva’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “It’s fine.” My gaze slides past her to Rollick. “What exactly are you going to ask me to do?”
Rollick’s slanted smile holds a trace of an apology. “I thought we’d start with plants first, to get you warmed up. We should see just how far you can extend your abilities now. Once we’re clear on that… Have you ever siphoned energy from a shadowkind or your fellow shadowbloods?”
Somehow, as obvious as the question sounds once he’s said it, I hadn’t considered it as the logical focus of this training. It’s what he wanted to know with Riva too.
My insides recoil so abruptly that my tentacles quiver in turn. I have the urge to spit out an automatic denial, but I hold myself back and think through all the times I’ve needed to use my power so I can be absolutely sure of my answer.
It remains the same. “Not that I’m sure of. I’ve mostly relied on plants. The guardians and Balthazar’s people made me experiment on animals. And a few times I’ve drained regular human beings when I had to. Once I took one of the younger shadowbloods hostage, and I think I might have absorbed a little of her energy without meaning to, but it was hard to tell at the time and I didn’t take any on purpose.”
That moment with Celine during our failed escape from Clancy’s island facility was the first time I realized that my powers might be starting to work from a distance. Back then, I got the impression from only a few feet away.
After all Matteo’s procedures at Balthazar’s command, how much farther has my ability expanded? Under Matteo’s supervision, I never revealed the new dimension I’d discovered to my talent, and he never stumbled on it.
“I can’t use my powers tohealshadowkind,” I add. “Not totally. When Billy… was hurt, I could patch him up a little, but that’s it. It felt completely different from healing a person—or a shadowblood.”
