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

to know what she would need long before she thought it. And she was the one who saw the future.

Grasping the handles, she lifted one leg and then the other into the chair. She was breathing hard by the time she settled herself. But she had done it. Lydia hadn’t had to yell for Pitch to help her.

“Not half bad,” she told herself with a solid pat on the shoulder. “Now, to the bathroom.”

She struggled to release the brakes. Lydia had spent plenty of her time in a hospital, but she never wheeled herself around. Her fingers skittered over a rusted latch which released the brakes with a satisfying click. Proud of herself, Lydia wheeled to the bathroom for a drink of water.

She opened the door and froze. Across from her was a mirrored wall which revealed a woman who was not at all like she remembered.

Sitting in the wheelchair was a ghost. Her hair — once mousy brown — now hung pin straight and white. Nestled in the delicate strands were two graceful horns which curled from the sides of her head. Prongs jutting off the horns created a strange silhouette.

There was no color to her skin, now pale and milky white. A fine dusting of glitter made her skin sparkle. She might have found the effect pretty if she hadn’t looked like a corpse.

Inhuman. Strange. Otherworldly.

Lydia raised a hand to her colorless lips and watched her reflection do the same.

“Have I changed so much?” she asked herself. “In such a short amount of time?”

She lifted her hands to touch the curved antlers. Their fuzzy newness had disappeared, now smooth as ivory against her fingertips.

“Strange,” she said. “But not… terrible.”

It was the first time she had looked at herself in a mirror and thought she was beautiful. Not in the traditional sense, she was something new.

She still held the melodies of bells in her quiet voice. At least some things had not yet changed.

As she wheeled herself over to the sink, she muttered, “It’s not as if being in a wheelchair is all that bad. Being pretty is a decent enough trade.”

She reached for the glass waiting for her, but paused in her stretch. Lydia met her own gaze in the mirror.

“What?”

She pulled down the corner of her eye. That color wasn’t right. She had brown eyes. But A strange milky whiteness was encroaching around the edges, making one iris appear much smaller than the other.

The glass in her free hand dropped to the floor and shattered. Lydia barely registered the sound of crunching under her wheels as she pulled herself closer to the mirror.

“Yet another thing broken,” she muttered. “Another change to endure.”

But this was a more dangerous change. One she wasn’t certain that her body would heal from. She could survive a wheelchair. She could survive the future and all the burdens it placed upon her shoulders.

“Please don’t make me blind,” her plea was to the universe and to the magic boiling inside of her. “Please don’t take my eyes too.”

Pitch would understand what was happening. It was his captive soul inside of her.

Her lungs expanded but refused to deflate. She needed to talk to the mysterious Shadow Man.

Losing her eyes was a price she would not pay.

The wheels squeaked as she rushed from her room. Down the hallway she pushed herself, the banister at her side guiding her to the stairs — her greatest obstacle.

Lydia blew out a frustrated breath. “House,” she ordered, “Make it easier for me to find him.”

A great rumble made the boards under her wheelchair shudder. The stairs shifted subtly, enough that the decline would not be jarring and she could control the chair with the hand brakes.

She made her way down one set of stairs, then the next. Her body was weak. The small amount of physical labor made her breathe hard. Her arms shook and turned to rubber. Her hands slicked with sweat.

She made it down the stairs. A thrill of excitement tingled in her aching muscles. She had done it.

“Where is he?” Lydia asked the house. “Take me to him.”

A door creaked open down the hall.

Her wheels squeaked as she turned into the room, then fell silent as her hands clenched upon them. This was his bedroom. Dark as the man who lived in it, black satin draped from the ceiling and walls. It created an abysmal feeling that made her both uncomfortable and calm. The plush red rug drew her eye away from the large four poster bed.

Lying amidst the splash of color, Pitch was a dark smudge. She blinked away the impression of blood oozing all around him. He lay stretched upon the floor, his hands crossed on his chest.

All around him, like stars decorating the night sky, white moths fluttered. Three had arranged themselves over his eyes and mouth.

Their wings opened and closed with his breaths. She watched his body for movement, but could find none.

Pitch was the night sky, she realized. He was terrifying and dark. Full of monsters and madness, but also promises, adventure, and new worlds. He made her dream of endless possibilities limited only by time and space.

His lips moved and her breath caught. She could hear his words, but she read them like a book.

I love you.

Something in her splintered.

She would have given him Sil if she could have. He was tormented by her ghost, but Lydia couldn’t bring back the dead.

Pitch brought an empty vial to his lips. Her hand slid from the brake of her chair and thumped hard against the wheel.

“I’m sorry,” she burst out as great clouds of darkness gathered around him. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

The shadows stilled, undulating around him in a shield of darkness. His head tilted back to look at her. “You’re up.”

“Yes. I’m feeling much better.”

“That is surprising.”

“I’ve been working on it.”

“Getting better?” He asked as he rolled onto an elbow.

“I hadn’t planned on staying in that bed for the rest of my life.”

He arched an eyebrow.

Her cheeks burned, and she twisted