Black Blood (Series of Blood Book 4) Emma Hamm (popular novels txt) 📖

She ached. Her head felt as though it would split in two.

“I don’t want to die,” she croaked.

His expression was fierce as thunder on the horizon as he gripped her arms tighter. “I will not let you die. Not again.”

God help her, but Lydia believed him. Was this Stockholm Syndrome, she wondered? Could this be the beginning sign she was becoming dependent upon him even though he was planning on killing her?

She could not make hide nor tail of why she was here. Why he had dragged her to the end of the earth only to leave her alone? She had grown weary.

Lydia was tired of hiding traps all over this house when she had yet to see him ensnared. She was tired of aching. But most of all, she was tired of fighting.

As though he understood, Pitch raised a hand to press against her forehead. His palm was cool as night air after a storm. Relaxing as the soft patter of rain on the roof as twilight descended.

“Let me take your pain from you,” he murmured. “Let it feed my shadows.”

So she did. Lydia didn’t know how she knew what he wanted. There was an ingrained knowledge buried deep within her which understood what his words meant. She let go of the tight control she held over her pain.

He pulled it from her. The shadows all around him grew stronger and more wild. They pulled in inky strands at her hair and hands. But they did not hurt. They eased her torment.

She could breathe again. She sucked air into her lungs, stinging and sharp.

“Thank you. Thank you," she said the words as a hymn.

“You should have asked me sooner, mouse.” He stroked damp strands of tangled hair off her forehead.

“I don’t think I can trust you.”

“Humans are so fragile.”

He did not insist she could trust him. In some way, Lydia understood what this meant.

“You didn’t do this to hurt me, did you?” Her words were not a question, but a statement.

This strange man was opening his pages to her. Leather bound, worn, and ugly as sin, the journal of his mind smelled faintly of dust and ancient pages. But she could see inside him now.

“No.”

The canopy around her bed was white and gauzy, and he still blocked out all light. She could only see him and the vastness of the universe hidden within his shadow.

“What is happening to me?” she croaked.

“Are you ready to listen?”

Lydia nodded.

He shifted upon her bed. She hadn’t noticed how he was perched upon the edge of the mattress. Now, his hip pressed firmly against hers. He leaned forward until his elbow propped him above her. His hand remained soothing against her forehead while his thumb stroked her temple.

“Her name was Sil, and she was a goddess.” He began. “I do not say these things because I was fond of her. There are few between dimensions who can call themselves such, and she was one of them. A goddess of light and song. She was the power between space. Everlasting vibrancy without color or name and filled with movement.

“She stepped in my dimension and brought with her the knowledge of everything. For in the space between thought, there are the infinite possibilities of time.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. Lydia watched as he coiled a long strand of her white hair around his thumb. “She knew every step of every life. Every tiny circumstance that may or may not happen.”

“That sounds impossible,” Lydia interrupted.

“So I thought. But she was not special just for her vast power. She was special for the endless well of knowledge she could contain. Her mind could follow the webs of future times down every line until she knew the right raindrop to flick into a pool that could cause a waterfall of response. She was, in a word, magnificent.”

“What happened to her?” she asked.

“That is for another time.”

“Is she really gone then?” Lydia wasn’t certain why the question stuck in her throat. “I can’t hear her.”

“I believe she is,” he nodded, his gaze remaining fixed upon her hair. “Even I have trouble admitting that. And for me, she has been gone for much longer.”

“Then why am I hurting so bad?”

“The magic she left behind for you is too strong for your body to contain. It is turning you into something else, so you can contain it. You’re very important.”

Lydia swallowed hard. “I don’t feel important.”

“You will become very important. Sil left this magic for you to complete her work. You will finish her prophecies. Guide us to the correct end so this world does not meet the same fate as mine.”

Lydia should have known speaking with him would put another nail in her coffin, just like all the holes she had punched into his home.

“That’s a lot of pressure,” she told him.

“I do not worry. She never would have chosen you if she did not believe you could do this.”

“What does finishing her work entail?”

“Finding the webs of time, traveling down them, ensuring that from this point on, we save the world.”

Her heart stopped. “Save the world?”

“Both Sil’s world and mine fell prey to the same folly. Fear. We breed war and violence until our people see only in black and white. We wish to prevent it here. War came to this realm in the form of a Void who is controlled by puppeteers who care very little for the humans who were here first.”

“Like me.”

Pitch nodded. He unraveled the strand of her hair from his fingers. “Yes, like you.”

“It is a lot.”

“I never said it wasn’t, little mouse.”

“I’m not a mouse,” her nose wrinkled. “And that’s a rude nickname.”

“What would you have me call you?”

“Lydia.”

She stared into his dark eyes searching hers. It was almost as though he did not know how to respond to such a request.

He dropped his hand and gently laid her hair back on the pillow. “Lydia.”

Her head was spinning with all the knowledge she needed