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

remarked. “I am a more civilized version, but still the same.”

“You called yourself a nightmare.”

“And I am still that.”

Her heart broke as he pulled away from her. The tragic words echoing in her ears as he gently lifted her into his arms. Neither said a word as he carried her back to the opulent room which had become her prison.

Chapter 6

Blue smoke swirled in the calm night air. It twisted in patterns of vines and thorny stalks before dissipating, colors swirling into the dusty dim twilight.

The cigar in Pitch’s hand flared as he inhaled the sweet smoke. He lay upon the roof, staring up at the stars.

He raised a knee and puffed rings of smoke into the air which circled the full moon.

“Pitch?” a deep voice asked, grating his nerves.

Duty called, he supposed.

“Up here!” Pitch called out.

He glanced back to look at the distinctly catlike face. Unlike his father Leo, Louis had the most misshapen head Pitch had ever seen. His ears sat on top of his head, leaving him with a rather startled expression.

Pitch had promised to take care of Leo’s family. If that meant employing his useless son, then Pitch would have taken the burden willingly.

“What is it, Louis?” he grumbled.

“Just wondering where you were, is all.”

“I am here.”

“I can see that.”

More clattering noises echoed as Louis attempted to climb out onto the roof. Pitch ground his teeth together and blew out a calming breath.

“You know,” Pitch said, “for a cat, you’re not very graceful.”

“I inherited the hearing and only a small amount of the natural grace.”

A few shingles slid past Pitch and shattered on the ground. “None of the grace, it seems.”

Louis landed next to him with a large huff of breath. One of his ears flicked to the side. “So.”

Pitch didn’t want to do this. Leo had always been a silent companion who kept to the shadows. That was why Pitch had gotten along with him so well. Silence was important. Subtlety was important. He did not like people who stomped through every situation without a care in the world.

“What do you want, Louis? If this is another attempt at a heart to heart, I swear-”

“Well someone has to have a heart to heart with you,” Louis blurted out. “You’ve had a woman locked up in this house for years. No one knows what you did to her! What you’re doing to her! And I for one am concerned.”

“Do you think I’m mistreating her?”

The tone of Pitch’s voice conveyed his anger, simmering underneath the surface. Louis’s face turned bright red and his ears flattened against his skull. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“It’s just… Well. A lady ought to get out and about every now and then.”

“She’s sick.”

“Then we should bring her a doctor.”

“Not that kind of sick,” Pitch leaned up onto his elbow and inhaled a lungful of smoke. “She’s the kind of sick that doesn’t go away. She’s managing well, given the circumstances.”

“I’d still like to help.”

“How could you help?”

Louis twisted like a small child caught with their hand in a candy jar. He muttered something that Pitch couldn’t hear.

“Speak up boy.”

“I could watch over her.”

Pitch couldn’t contain the bark of laughter. “Excuse me?”

“Well, she must be old by now! Father said she was young and beautiful when he met her, but that was fifty years ago! The old folks like me.”

“The old folks,” he repeated in an amused tone.

“Yeah. Do you not believe me?”

“She’s not old, Louis.” Pitch speared a meaningful look at the young Shifter, smoke swirling around the two of them. “She’s the same as I. Frozen in time.”

“Oh,” Louis bit his lip. “I could still watch over her.”

“Do you think you’d be any good at it?”

“I could fetch her oatmeal?”

Pitch sighed. He didn’t want to crush the boy’s dreams. If he wanted to be a servant, then so be it.

Then again, Louis’s father would be disappointed. Leo’s relationship with his son was tenuous at best.

Pitch remembered how excited Leo had been to have a son. He had planned to train the most legendary cat assassin to ever exist. That was not the son life gave him. Louis had been incapable of such things since the day he was born. Pitch swore the awkward Cat Shifter had entered the world with glasses on his nose, duct taped together at the seams.

Employing him permanently would ease the old man’s mind, if they avoided telling the job title. No one needed to mention Louis was a maid.

“Fine,” Pitch grumbled.

“Really?” Louis’s ears twitched back and forth. “Truly?”

“If she likes you.”

“I have to make her like me?”

Pitch begrudgingly admitted, “It shouldn’t be too hard. She likes everyone, even me.”

“I won’t let you down!” Louis jumped to his feet.

The Cat Shifter slid down the steep incline of the roof. Pitch cursed, reached out, and hooked a hand in Louis’s shirt.

“Would you get off the roof?” he shouted.

“Yes! Yes! I’ll be back tomorrow with all my things!”

“You aren’t moving in!” But the boy was already shoving himself through the window in a tangle of limbs.

“How am I supposed to take care of her if I don’t live here? See you tomorrow!”

Pitch wiggled a finger in his ringing ears, cursing Louis in the old tongue and the new. He could only hope that by employing the boy, he kept Leo’s pride intact.

The old man needed all the help he could get.

He lay back on the cool ceramic tiles. He raised his cigar, inhaling until smoke filled the air. This was the way he wanted to live forever, nearly disappearing into the shadows with a good cigar in his hand.

Another smoke ring rose toward the moon as he chuckled.

“I wonder what the boy will do when he realizes she will be asleep for a very long time.”

The thought was both humorous and sobering. He wanted to see the startled expression upon Louis’s face when he walked into a room cleaning itself with a mistress who would not move for years.

But he also wanted her to