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Nadia strokes her fingers over Booker’s cheek with a choked wail. She stares at the blood that’s still pulsing from his throat to soak into her clothes.
Then her gaze jerks up toward me.
Fury hardens her features. She lurches upright, her lips pulling back from her teeth to bare them.
“You brought him here! You got him killed! You don’t care about any of us!”
My jaw goes slack. I don’t know what to say in the face of her rage. Can’t she see that it was one of her allies’ bullets that killed him?
But Booker couldn’t have taken that bullet if he hadn’t come here with us. If we hadn’t been trying to stop her and the other rogue shadowbloods.
“I—I’m sorry,” I stammer out. “Nadia, I swear, I only want to help you. I—”
She lets out a scream that’s pure agony and flings out her hands. Light so sharp it gives off tangible heat blazes out in all directions, not just from her palms but every inch of her skin.
She’s close enough that her fingers slash across my cheek. In the instant before I flinch backward, my skin sears with a physical burn.
“No!” she screeches. “You’re all the same. You’re all against us. You fucked us up and you screwed us over and you should all fucking die!”
I’m not sure who all she’s talking to right now. From the groans and yelps around me, she’s hurting her fellow shadowbloods as much as the rest of us.
But she definitely means me. Girding myself, I reach for her again, but she whips her hand straight toward my face.
An even sharper spear of light spikes straight through my eyeballs. My forehead and cheeks sting with the sensation of scorching. The pain echoes the agony that laced her voice, shooting straight into my brain with the fizzling of my vision.
The pit of my stomach hollows out. In every way that matters, I think my friend might be gone too.
Then a heavier force rams into the back of my head, and the blazing light gives way to total darkness.
Twenty-Five
Riva
Sunlight pierces through my eyelids and wakes up a dull throbbing at the base of my skull. I wince before I’ve opened my eyes, and clothing rustles nearby.
Dominic’s voice reaches me, soft and soothing. “Hey. You’re okay now.”
With a thin line of pressure, one of his tentacles slides along my arm. A waft of warm healing energy washes through my body, and the lingering pain in my head melts away.
I blink and stare up at him—at all of my guys, who are standing around the bed I’m lying on.They’reall okay and wearing matching expressions of concern.
With a lurch of my pulse, I shove myself upright. We’re surrounded by the muted beige walls and chic furnishings of a hotel room, though not one I recognize from before.
The last thing I remember before waking up is the battle. Crossbow bolts flying, cries ringing out, light blazing—Booker, Nadia…
My voice comes out raspy. “What happened? How did we get here? The other shadowbloods…”
Griffin sits down on the bed by my other side and rests his hand on my shoulder. A faint caress of calm seeps from his palm through my mind—not really changing my emotions, just helping me focus despite the sudden swell of anguish.
Jacob is gripping the oak footboard, his fingers clenched as tight as his jaw. “It was a shitstorm. After you fell, we pulled out as fast as we could. Zian grabbed you. The assholes took off down the street as soon as they had the opening. I messed up their vehicles, but we know they can steal new ones.”
He sounds almost annoyed that the rogue shadowbloods decided to prioritize staying alive over continuing the fight.
“We did get a few of them,” Zian says in a hopeful tone that clashes with the unhappy cast to his face. “We picked up three of the shadowbloods we managed to knock out—a couple of the kids and one of the criminals.”
I swallow thickly. “Some of them were more than knocked out. And the shadowkind they attacked—I saw Steel get shot, and Willow…”
Andreas nods, not even his normally animated eyes managing to offer any light. “I think six or seven of the shadowkind didn’t make it out. It’s hard to keep track when we didn’t know for sure who all was going to come out of the shadows. We lost about as many of the other shadowbloods too, in the fighting. Mostly the kids and a couple of the criminals. Tegan and Booker…”
