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

And so help was provided. She felt another force place gentle hands upon her shoulders. They pulled her backward until she stepped out of the person whose future she watched.

Lydia was herself again. Her mind stopped whirling with emotions that were not hers, and she could breathe. But the scene continued to play as though she were not watching it at all.

A man stepped forward. Bulky and strong, he held his torch high, casting his sharp features into harsh edges. “Monster.”

His voice echoed in what she recognized as a forest. Lydia did not recognize this place. Her vision sharpened as she tried to catch details until the guiding hands tilted her chin to the figure she had stepped from. It was a woman.

She had stepped out of another woman.

Lydia looked up at the Amazon before her. The woman’s bright red haired flashed in the torchlight. No, she realized, not the torchlight at all. The woman was glowing as fire trailed through her hair.

“I am no monster!” the Amazon cried.

“We will not have your kind in this village.”

“Then I will leave.”

Lydia felt a tug, her heart aching as something in her mind said this woman was important. Something terrible would happen if she did not survive. It was a spider’s web Lydia was weaving, and this woman could not afford to become a fly caught in it.

Her hands were shaking. Keeping hold of the vision was taxing both her mind and her physical body. But she had to watch. She had to know where this woman was going so she could find her.

The pressure in her chest eased. Yes, that was it. She had to find her. To bring her to safety and home so that Lydia could meet her. There was strength in this woman that the world needed.

She was not offered the luxury of relief. The crowd surged forward. Their hands were harsh and hungry as they grasped whatever flesh of hers they could find.

Fire danced upon the woman’s arms. Lydia gasped as a great billow of it exploded toward her, only to pass through her body as though she were not there.

Heart hammering, she followed the mob as they dragged the other woman away. Lydia’s feet glided over the earth but never touched the twigs which crunched underneath their feet. She winced when they pulled too hard at the Amazon’s skin and gasped when they ripped her clothing.

She was fighting, but Lydia had expected her to fight. This woman was a fierce adversary. Growls and shouts echoed as the Amazon ripped her arms away from them. She was so strong.

Lydia hesitated for only a moment to brush her hand over the charcoal handprint burned into a tree. Fingers dancing over the much larger mark, she sighed. There was a certain sadness to a future such as this.

Even if the woman didn’t die, she would forever live with these scars. Her own people had tried to kill her. Her own people wanted to see her die.

The other woman screamed. Lydia’s gaze snapped up, and she ran to the sound. They couldn’t be killing her already. Surely they wouldn’t be so quick? She couldn’t die. Lydia couldn’t lose this one, she was too important.

She skidded to a halt in front of a river and watched with horror. They dunked the Amazon into the raging water. Their clawed hands held her under the great current until steam rose from the churning waves.

Long strands of red hair coiled around their fists as the Amazon’s body floated to the surface.

Tears streaked down Lydia’s face. “Why?” she choked out. “Why would you make me see this?”

The bodies stopped moving. Time paused, then rewound as the Amazon’s body returned to the man’s hands who were now moving in reverse. Lydia jerked backward until she was staring at an angry mob gesturing with a torch at the Amazon who stared defiantly back at them.

Time then halted once more.

She blinked a few times, shook her head to get her bearings, and tried to piece the puzzle together. Exhaustion made such thoughts difficult. She wasn’t certain how she was supposed to make sense of a rewind when the creature in her head refused to speak.

There was a certain pattern to it. Lydia raised her hand and concentrated. If she thought about it enough, she could start time moving at a normal speed again. Every time she moved the scene forward, it would pull her back to this exact moment in time.

Lydia spent hours playing the scene forward and back. She analyzed every face until she was certain she could pick them out of a crowd. She knew the nuances of anger, sadness, and hopelessness upon the Amazon’s face.

None of these details were helpful. She had even spent quite a few minutes exploring the surrounding forest as though it might hold some kind of answer in its shadows. It did not.

Placing her hands firmly on her hips, she sighed loudly. “Alright fine. I tried to play your game. I tried to understand what you want me to know. I can’t figure it out.”

Soft hands played with her hair. White strands lifted into the air and curled on their own before she felt hands upon her own. They lifted, using her body to point a finger at the crowd.

Something was in her head. Not a person. Not a separate creature, but something she could only describe as ‘other’. It jumbled her memories until it sparked the tiniest imagination.

What if someone else was in that crowd?

The more she blinked, the more she began to see another figure standing where there had not been one before. Unassuming and dark, it lingered in the shadows behind the other.

“You want me to add someone else to this story?” she asked.

A bloom of happiness burst inside her skull. So powerful and so overwhelming, Lydia listed to the side before she caught herself. Apparently, she had made something very proud.

“Okay,” Lydia nodded. “Okay, I think I get it.”

Concentrating, she imagined