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

another person until the form was nearly as solid as the others. It didn’t have a face, but she supposed that it didn’t really need one. Any person would done. All they had to do was say something which would change the fabric of time.

Lydia walked toward the figure and whispered words in its ear. She tried many phrases ranging from “We shouldn’t do this” to “Let her run off” but none seemed to work. No matter what she had the figure say, the ending remained the same.

The crowd did not want to be deterred from its purpose. It wanted to kill this Amazon and Lydia simply could not let them do that. Her gut screeched and her heart ached every time she watched the Amazon die. It became an obsession to save this woman, not just because the world needed her, but because Lydia couldn’t watch her die again.

“One more nudge?” She requested quietly. “Sorry. I’m pretty bad at this, but I’m trying.”

A calming heat brushed through her veins before words began to appear in her mind. She glided over to the figure she had made and whispered the suggested words in its ear.

“Let’s not kill it. Let’s lock it up.”

The faceless figure said the words loud and clear. They rang so pure through the forest that the others paused.

Like a doll, it repeated her words in a male’s voice. “Let’s stick it in a prison no one could get out of, so we might use her later.”

“A prison?” The leader of the mob turned toward her. “There’s no prison like that around here.”

“There’s the World Tree,” Lydia didn’t know how she knew that tidbit of information. It was just there for her to pluck off a branch. Like all the other threads of the future around her. “Just in case.”

This time, everything played out differently. Although they dragged the Amazon through the forest, and she left the same scorched handprint, they dragged her to a tree instead. It was so large, she could hardly fathom its existence.

The Amazon struggled. She fought with the strength of five men, but they were more than five. They tucked her limbs into the roots and didn’t listen to her pleas for mercy. Only Lydia heard them and felt the sting of guilt.

Time faded away from her. The blinding bright strands of the Future burned as they pulled her away and thrust her mind back into her body.

It was like sinking into cement. Her limbs felt heavy, her head ached, her mouth dry. But more than that, she felt accomplished.

For the first time since being kidnapped, since being turned into something other than human, Lydia had a purpose. She had justification that she was alive and should be alive. The future was at her fingertips.

Oracles could look into the future. Seers could as well. But there was no species alive who could change the future.

Her eyes blinked open through sheer will power. She wanted to be awake to enjoy her triumph.

The lights were on.

She struggled to turn her head, but she found him. Somehow, Lydia could always feel the weight of Pitch’s gaze.

He sat in the corner. Shadows blanketed his figure until he nearly disappeared into their great fog-like billows. His elbows rested against the arms of the chair and his fingers steepled before him. Mouth pressed against his pointer fingers, his eyes locked upon hers.

Lydia licked her lips. “I know Kung Fu.”

One of his eyebrows arched.

“It’s a reference to an old movie,” she advised.

“I regrettably have never had the pleasure.”

“I think I figured out how to see the future. And change it.”

“Bravo.”

Though it was a struggle, Lydia wrinkled her brow. “You don’t sound impressed.”

“Should I be?”

There was a dangerous edge to his tone. He had always been a sharp blade, but now Lydia wondered just how sharp he was.

If he wanted to frighten someone, he would do so with pleasure. There was a tension sitting on his shoulders which reeked of violence. His lips peeled back from his teeth to flash a snarl he did not try to contain. All while speaking words laced with poison.

“Are you angry at me?” she asked him.

“Now why would I be angry?”

“That’s why I’m asking.” She was begging as she laid upon her bed completely at his mercy. Her body did not respond to her silent cries to move.

“Can you lift your arm?”

He knew she couldn’t. Lydia could see it in the way his brow twitched when he asked. She attempted, but her arm did not move.

“Your finger?”

Again she tried, but to no avail.

“Perhaps you could try to do anything other than lay there?”

Now he was being intentionally cruel. She swallowed hard but couldn't shake her head to tell him no. Her lips moved, but her body did not want to listen.

“No,” Lydia whispered. “No, I can’t do any of that.”

He sighed. The evil expression which marred his usually haunting face disappeared as he passed a hand over it. The tension drained from his limbs until he slumped against the chair.

And she thought she was tired.

“What is it?” she asked him. “Why are you so angry?”

“Do you know how long you have been lying there like that?”

“No.”

“Four days.”

She blinked a few times in confusion. “I’ve been asleep for four days?”

“You’ve been so close to death! When you go into trances like that, your body slips into a coma. Your mind leaves your human body. Do you have any idea what that does?”

It made her a vegetable, Lydia thought. Nothing more than an empty shell.

“Is that why I’m so weak?”

“You’re weak because the only thing I could get into your system was an IV, and it took three days to get even that.”

Her eyes flicked down. Lo-and-behold, there was a needle in her arm. A long tube connected it to a humming machine. He had not only taken care of her, again, but he had kept her alive.

“All this, just to keep a memory alive?” The murmur slipped from her tongue before she could think about it.

The