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

her fingers together as she swallowed hard. “I was getting tired of staring at the ceiling.”

“Is that so?”

“And I need you to look at my eyes.”

“I would be doing that now if you would look at me instead of your hands.”

“No, no,” she said. “I think there’s something wrong with them.”

He rolled onto his hands and knees. She clenched her fingers harder as he crawled to her. His fingers sunk into plush red carpeting that she was certain would feel as comfortable as a bed.

But no beds, she chided herself. No beds. No blushes. No thoughts like that when the man who kidnapped her was crawling on hands and knees toward her.

A decidedly wicked grin spread across his face. His eyes narrowed with concentration as he knelt on his knees before her.

“What are you doing?” her voice shook as his hands skimmed her neck.

“Holding you still.”

“For what?”

One of his hands remained a steady heat against her throat while the other scooped under her hair to hold the back of her head. “So I can look into your eyes.”

Her lips trembled. “Why?”

“Because you asked me to.”

What was she doing? Her teeth ground hard until she could hear the creaking groan of her jaw. “My left eye.”

He leaned in close. Lydia could smell him now. Roses and cigar smoke. Chocolate and fir trees.

“Yes, you are correct,” he murmured. “It does appear your eyes are now different sizes.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do you not know?”

“I wish I could say I knew everything, but it would be a lie.”

He leaned closer, peering at her odd sized eye. The movement brought him closer to her. Close enough that his nose might have grazed hers if he moved slightly to the side.

She didn’t want that. Lydia did not want to lean forward so she could inhale his scent deeper into her lungs. She didn’t want to breathe him in to see if his shadows would chill her overheated flesh.

“You seem more like yourself,” he sounded amused. His hand flexed against the back of her skull.

The words doused the fires burning in her stomach. “You don’t know what is normal for me. You don’t know me.”

“I know you well enough. I’ve kept you alive for so long, I think I could say I know you better than most.”

Her brows furrowed. “How long?”

Pitch took a while to answer her. His hand pulled away from her neck only to smooth the hair away from her face. His fingers danced along the tines of her horns. “I have the perfect jewelry for these.”

“I don’t want pretty things.”

“But you would look lovely covered in diamonds.”

“I don’t want diamonds. I want the truth.”

The look he gave her felt dangerously close to pity. “You have been asleep for a very long time.”

“Which is?”

“Somewhere around fifty years. I do not count them as others might, but I believe it has been that long.”

“Fifty years?” she repeated.

Although Lydia had understood that learning the future would have taken time, she hadn’t thought it would take so long.

“My friends?” she asked. “My family?”

“I did my best to find them while you were resting,” his hand continued the soothing rhythm. “They were concerned, particularly the Gorgon. She tried to turn me to stone.”

“She would have. She’s protective of me,” Lydia couldn't hear herself over the ringing in her ears.

“They love you a great deal.”

“I don’t look older.” Lydia remembered her reflection in the mirror, touching her face to find wrinkles she knew weren’t there.

He pulled her hand away from her face. “You are no longer human. Sil’s magic is powerful. You will not live a mortal life.”

“But I’m not-” She didn’t have the words. Immortal? Her mind threatened to snap. “It can’t be. Can it?”

“It can,” his thumbs wiped away her tears. “I think it’s time to show you the rest of Sil’s secrets. Would you like to see?”

Lydia nodded, though she was capable of little else.

Pitch stood. His body was as fluid as water, or perhaps as the shadows moving at the edges of her vision. The entire wheelchair shook as he rounded behind her and pulled her out of his room.

Lights sprung to life around them as he pushed her down the hallway. Sconces flickered with white magic, burning her sensitive weak eye. The bite of pain pulled her mind away from immortality and back into the present.

“How did you keep me alive?” Lydia asked as they approached a new set of stairs.

“Your body didn’t want to stay alive,” his voice was soft like the beat of an owl’s wings. “I watched you age until you stopped. Then you reversed time and became young again.”

“I did?”

“Perhaps unknowingly. Your power recognizes a healthy young body is more suitable to its purpose.”

It made sense, but also made her nervous.

“Pitch?” she asked. “If I wanted to die, do you think the magic would let me?”

He hesitated, but she felt an answer deep within her own breast. Something stirred inside her as though she had swallowed a snake. It writhed and coiled around her heart.

His voice was deeper than usual, “I don’t think it would.”

Something inside her cracked, revealing her future. If she ended her existence, then her body would continue on. She would be a doll for the magic to continue its work. Pretty and porcelain, she would spout prophecies until this world ended.

The magic would continue on without her.

“Oh,” she whispered.

The magic within her was silver with the light of the moon, and sharp as the edge of a blade.

“I am sorry,” Pitch told her. “It is not a fate I would wish for you.”

“You don’t know me,” she reminded him. “Maybe I was a serial killer before I was possessed. Maybe I hurt people in my spare time. Or just liked to make people cry because I knew the words to hurt them.”

He snorted as he guided her chair down a stairwell. “Highly unlikely.”

“You don’t believe I’m capable of it?”

His breath caught in the shell of her ear as he whispered, “I believe you are