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

capable of a great many things. The magic within you should have dissolved your body. It should have fractured your mind. But here you are.”

“It feels like a dream,” she replied. “I’m going to wake up soon aren’t I?”

“Sadly, no. This is our reality as much as it is our nightmare.”

He pushed her into his office. Lydia’s eyes caught upon the books that lined the walls. They stretched two stories high. Thousands of books, in all shapes and sizes, assaulted her senses and her fingers itched to touch them.

She had forgotten how much she adored reading.

Golden lettering sparkled in the dim light, calling out to her. Clouds of glimmering gold dust shimmered between each book. She saw fingerprints on the spines, each a mark of love, of a single person handling each book with exquisite care.

“What are these?” Lydia asked.

“Her.”

His voice echoed in her mind while her eyes followed the lines of rich mahogany shelves. Along the edges of each bookcase, angels reached outstretched hands. It was the only place in the house that did not depict demons or gargoyles.

Fitting, she supposed, for the only place which he considered being hers.

She reached down, grasped the wheels of her chair, and propelled herself forward. A hidden part of herself was holding its breath. Each inch of space she devoured was a moment where she may discover the truth about herself. About her future.

The spines of the books were cold against her fingers. They did not heat at her touch or spark with magic. Disappointment made her sigh.

“They’re just books, Pitch,” she whispered.

“Yes, they are.”

She glanced over her shoulder. He leaned against the door frame, one leg hooked over the other and his arms crossed over his chest. Raising an eyebrow, he caught her gaze.

“Go ahead,” he encouraged. “They’re just as much yours as they are mine.”

“It feels wrong.”

They weren’t really hers. Well, they were hers, but not Lydia’s. Reading Sil’s words felt like prying.

But she couldn’t stop herself from reaching for a leather bound book. She chose the thinnest volume she could find, turned it over in her hands to feel the supple quality, the give of the binding, and the smoothness of gold leaf lettering.

“Volume one hundred and sixteen,” she read aloud.

“A personal favorite of mine,” Pitch replied.

Lydia shivered. What sort of book was this dark man’s favorite?

Curiosity won against the voice screaming in her mind to put the book down. She flipped open the first pages and started in the center of the book.

Yet how shall I describe falling in love with the night sky? He is both sanity and madness. Beauty and loathsome. He frightens me and yet I find I cannot breathe when I leave him.

He is the darkness inside of me. He is the beast which unfurls inside my breast at nightfall. To love him would be to love the perilous things I long for.

And yet…

I wish to see him. I wish to feel him. The smell of roses, the softness of his unmarred hands, the hymn of his beastly yearning….

She snapped the book shut. Her cheeks burned and her heart beat against the cage of her ribs.

This was a dangerous path to walk. Lydia should not step in this direction, she knew that even as her mind projected the image of Pitch on his knees before her.

She could not. And yet...

The ghost of the other woman’s voice rang in her ears as she looked toward the doorway. He lingered in the shadows which pulled at his arms and hair like strands of ink that floated around him.

Pitch, a man made of darkness who touched her softly when she was ill.

Lydia licked her lips and took the plunge. “This is your favorite?”

“It was the first moment she realized she loved me.”

“This is her declaration of love?” She waved the book at him. “This thin little volume?”

“There were more important things to her than our love.”

“Oh,” her voice was thin. “That’s rather sad, isn’t it?”

“In the grand scheme of things, it was how it needed to be.”

His shoes clipped the ground as he strode to her. His breath fanned across her face as he leaned down. She feared he would devour her. But all he did was pluck the book from her hands and gently slide it back into its place.

“This is not where you should begin,” he said. He walked two shelves down and pulled out a much larger book. “I have found starting at the beginning assists in understanding the story.”

“That is usually where people start,” Lydia’s eyes narrowed as she watched a strange expression cross his face. It was both dark and light. “What is it?”

“She told me once that we were starting in the middle of our story,” he murmured. “Perhaps now I am understanding why.”

Pitch handed her the thicker volume. It was chocolate leather, engraved with thorny vines. She traced the pattern with a finger before catching his gaze.

“Why?”

An arched eyebrow was his response.

She tried to find the right words. “Why are you having me read her story? Why do you want me to know these things?”

“So you understand.”

“What should I understand that you cannot tell me yourself? Reading through her personal diaries seems... wrong.”

He rounded the chair and pushed her to the back of the room. A large desk swallowed the space, framed by a circular window that peered into the shadowed and snowy yard. Soft cushions and a thin stream of light were to be her reading nook, so it seemed.

He didn’t give her a chance to speak. His arms scooped underneath her legs and behind her shoulders, pulled her out of her chair, and deposited her into the nest of pillows.

“Do you need anything else?” he asked her.

“What if I don’t want to read?”

Pitch leaned down and brushed a strand of white hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered and warmth spread like wildfire from the single point of contact. “You do.”

With that, he strode from the room.

“Men,” she grumbled as she flipped the pages of the book.