Red Blood (Series of Blood Book 2) Emma Hamm (the beginning after the end read novel .TXT) 📖

made men think she was older. The confident set of her shoulders and the way she stood with her breasts pushed out made her sexier than someone her age had a right to be.

Everything known about her was an exaggerated story of the truth. Lyra was a little girl. A child. A teenager who thought she was stronger and more important than she actually was. But it was this bravado that made her so enticing to many.

The heels she wore clicked against the cobblestone as she made her way up well worn stairs. She could feel the eyes that were watching the sway of her hips as she made her way into the building she now called home.

Flicking her long hair, Lyra glanced over her shoulder. Her coy expression caused many of the Trolls staring at her to turn a dark green. Others tried to pretend that they hadn’t been staring at the curves of her body. Lyra knew better.

Blowing a kiss to the crowd that was starting to form, she slipped into Red Velvet. It was a well known shop on the main street of the Black Market. There were plenty of things one could buy here. Love potions, quills that wrote in prose, bottles of bath bubbles laced with Juice. Mood enhancing magic had never been off limits for this store.

Red Velvet was known for much more than romantic gifts. In the upper levels of the building were a grouping of women who could be “borrowed” for a price. They were not prostitutes; they were escorts. Some were accepting of more than just a night out, others were so expensive that barely anyone could afford them.

Lyra was not one of those women. Everyone knew of the little Siren who hadn’t seen her family in years. She was young, she was lithe, and every man wanted to be seen with her on his arm.

Thankfully, demand meant that her price was going to go up soon. At least that was what Hermon told her. He ran the establishment and had the unfortunate luck of being a Hydra. Snake scales in awkward places made him a difficult man to talk to; not to mention, he had two heads and a forked tongue that gave him a horrible lisp.

Lyra considered him to be somewhat of a boss. He told her where to go, who to go with, and how long to be out. He also made certain that she was safe on the way home. He wasn’t a terrible boss, but he wasn’t a traditional boss either.

She trailed her hand along the wall in waves as she walked towards his office. She could often be found tracing the same pattern on whatever her fingers could find. The movement soothed her overactive mind and frequently gave her something else to think about.

The door to Hermon’s office was once a brilliant red. Now it was a faded peach color that looked rather sickly. He was going to have to paint it someday, but until then she would always make fun of him for it.

“Every time I walk in here I think I’m going to get my nails done,” she said as she plopped herself down.

He looked up from the newspaper spread wide across his table. Glasses perched on the scales that danced down the bridge of his nose. His pupils were slitted and had always unnerved her. Hermon was more animal than he was man.

His tongue tasted the air before he spoke. “You apparently have not managed to learn how to knock.”

“Raised in a barn. What can I tell ya?” To rub it in a little bit more, she raised her feet up onto his desk.

With a sigh, he leaned over to shove her heels away. “Really. You’re supposed to be an adult.”

“I am an adult. I just like to annoy you.”

“Adults don’t annoy. Have you forgotten everything that we’ve taught you here?”

“I never did listen in school.” She stared down at her nails, which were much more interesting than Hermon. “What do I have tonight?”

“Did you ask the front desk?”

“They don’t schedule appointments. You know the girls are always too interested in the mirrors you put back there.”

Most of the girls here were Nymphs. Their kind was notoriously difficult to pull away from mirrors, almost as bad as Sirens. Lyra was the only one of her kind although she did have something akin to a cousin. Hermon was the only person in the Black Market lucky enough to have in his employ twin Mermaids.

“You are far more trouble than you are worth,” Hermon grumbled as he pulled open a door to pull out his files. The man might be peddling escorts, but somehow he managed to keep a book that would have made a banker proud. One head tilted down to look through the drawer, while the other remained glaring at her.

“I’m worth a lot, so I have to be trouble.”

He grunted as he licked a thumb to start thumbing through pages. Lyra didn’t know what information he kept on all those pages, but it must have been a lot. He had to flip through at least fifteen pages before he stopped.

“Mr. Sneep at the opera house tonight.”

She groaned and tossed her head back against her chair. “Sneep? Again?”

“Mr. Sneep is a very respectable businessman who has requested to pay double for your company because he enjoys you so much.”

“He’s a pedofile wannabe who only hires me because he thinks he’s being sneaky.”

Hermon did not seem impressed by her rant. “You knew what you were going to have to deal with the moment you walked through my doors. This is your job. It isn’t the prettiest job in the world most times, but it keeps you fed and warm.”

“I’ve heard this rant a million times,” she grumbled.

“If you aren’t appreciative of what we do here then you can leave. The streets of the Black Market are unlikely to suit your standards, especially with that creature inside of you. Sirens have never been well