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

what she was talking about. But the trickster part of himself wanted to hear her say the words. So he did not respond. Instead, he waited.

She grew more upset as the seconds ticked by. The tips of her ears turned red and her bottom lip trembled. “The mirrors, Pitch. Where are they?”

“I had them removed.”

“You what?”

“They are no longer in the house.”

“Why would you do that!” Her shout echoed, but he knew she understood why he had taken them.

Her body was undergoing even further changes. She could feel those changes all she wanted, but he refused to allow her to look. Just touching the nubs of her horns had caused her to go into a panic.

The last thing she needed to see was the pale tint of her skin, how the color had drained from her body until she was a ghost of her former self. She did not need to see how large the horns had grown, nor how thin she had become.

Pitch had known the transition would be difficult. But he had never thought it would tear her apart.

He had never thought she would bring him down with her.

Distraught, she gripped the banister with both hands. “You don’t want me to see what you have done to me.”

“It is not my choice-”

“Who let it out?” Her words ripped through him. “Who let this soul into my body? Who kidnapped me? Took me from my family, my friends, my home!”

Pitch wasn’t certain how she expected him to redeem himself when she refused to listen. Perhaps it was part of the problem. She didn’t want him to be good or kind.

He knew what it was like to love a woman made of starlight. A woman so out of reach that looking upon her visage was both cold and burning at the same time. But he did not know how to be around this woman whose soul was a blooming garden that grew and died at his slightest touch.

His hands were resting upon the railing, and then they weren’t. He hadn’t noticed he had moved. One foot stepped on the first stair that would lead him to her. His captivating creature who so was strong, so vibrant, and so very angry at him.

“You stay where you are,” she said. “You do not deserve to be anywhere near me.”

“Is that what you wish?”

“I am not some fainting female in a romance novel, who falls in love with a man because he is the only option provided to her. I will rot in that room before I ever permit you to touch me again!”

He took another step toward his own personal heaven — or hell. The stair felt weak beneath the sole of his foot. “I said nothing about touching.”

“You think I am some goddess you used to love.” The words were cutting and cruel. “I am not her. She’s gone and I’m dying because of what you did to me!”

“I do not think you are Sil.”

“You do! You do because every time you look at me, I see the way you used to look at her. And I will not become this woman who you have in your memory. Nor do I wish to be! My humanity is important.”

Pitch climbed a few more stairs. Halfway up the first landing now, he hesitated. “I will admit that you hold part of a woman I loved dearly. That within you is the last bit of her I have carried upon my person for the better part of two thousand years. Is that what you wish to hear?”

“No,” she choked upon the words. “No I don’t want to hear that!”

“Have you not heard of the rumors? That I am not of this world, a creature of the night?”

“There are many creatures of the night.”

He ascended further. Pitch kept his body carefully relaxed but each time his hand moved upon the banister he clutched it so hard he felt the wood creak.

“But I am different, am I not? There are some who call me a god. Some who call me Trickster. Others who whisper I am the voice in the shadows of nightmares.”

She visibly trembled. “You are just a man.”

“Yes,” he replied. “Yes, you did always tell me that. Long ago.”

“You see?” She raised a shaking hand to point at him. He was still a story below her on the stairs, but he could see her as clear as if she were before him. “You keep saying things like that. I have never said that to you before!”

“You did in another life.”

“I have had no other lives!” Her shriek echoed throughout the house which groaned in response.

He should be kinder to her. He should ease her into this life that she could not expect to understand. But they did not have the luxury of Time on their side. Time had died with the rest of his friends long ago.

“Perhaps you should go back to your room and lie down.” He murmured as he rounded another corner of the winding staircase and paused. He was mere feet from her now. Close enough to touch.

“I am tired of laying down. I’m tired of dreaming.”

“Dreaming is innocent.”

“Dreaming is dangerous for me.” She wiped her cracked lips with the back of her hand. “I see things now. Things I don’t want to see.”

“Webs?”

“More than just webs,” Lydia spat at him. “I don’t know how to travel them. I see connections between people and things. I see the future as dark and bloody. I am tired of watching people die over and over again.”

“You will learn how to control it.”

“I want it to go away.”

He was at a loss. She looked so fragile, standing upon his stairwell in nothing but a nightgown with her vulnerability wrapped around her body like a cloak. And he, the dark creature at her feet, waiting for her to look at him with earthen eyes.

A rumble of thunder crashed through the house and made it quake. She flinched. Her body curled in on itself as though