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

response. Obviously the Graverobber hadn’t been prepared for her reaction. Or lack thereof. He certainly hadn’t been expecting her to throw it back in his face.

Cold air hitting her face made her realize how deep she was traveling. She had assumed that this was some kind of morgue. Seconds passed, then minutes, and still she was walking down the steps.

Was it magic? Or was she walking into the underbelly of the city and into a situation she was vulnerable in?

“Lyra.”

The voice was one that she easily recognized. Light flared around Wolfgang as he stood at the bottom of the stairs.

She sniffed. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I came here for the Graverobber.”

He bowed and swept his arm out. “And the Graverobber you shall meet.”

“Really.” She cocked a hip sideways to stare at him with an unimpressed expression on her face. “And yet, I do not see the Graverobber here.”

Wolfgang looked up at her. Mismatched eyes captivated her, yet there was still a dull quality to the way she felt. Sirens found everyone attractive. She enjoyed human bodies and really anybody that was around her. But with Wolfgang it felt different in a way that wasn’t strong enough for her to put a finger on. A muffled emotion that had yet to fully emerge from her mind.

“Lyra.” His voice caught her attention once more. “What if I told you that I am the Graverobber?”

“I would say that you were lying.”

She clicked down the rest of the stairs. Sauntering over towards him, she raised a hand to wave through his torso.

He flinched backwards as her hand passed through his shoulder a second time.

“Don’t do that,” he scolded.

“I happen to know for a fact that the Graverobber is a real person.”

“Do you? Does anyone know that?”

Her brows pulled together in a fierce frown. “You are an anomaly I haven’t figured out, Wolfgang. But you are not the Graverobber. Enough games.”

“Games are what make the Graverobber who he is.”

“Then he will have to learn that I always win.”

Unfortunately, she had no way to back up that statement. She wasn’t likely to win when she was alone in this dungeon. The smell of wet earth assaulted her senses and sounds were dulled. This was not her world, yet it vaguely reminded her of being underwater.

In a way, she supposed that being deep within the belly of the earth was similar to being in the abyss of the sea.

Wolfgang appeared conflicted until all expression on his face disappeared. She was struck by how he barely looked like a living thing. Porcelain skin and glass eyes met her gaze until he dissolved entirely.

Deep within the tunnel behind him, she heard the sound of an opening door.

“Really?” she grumbled. “More of this nonsense?”

She stomped in the direction of the noise, all the while grumbling that theatrical men were going to be the death of her. Why was it that men with power always had to make a scene? It was ridiculous. Just meet her at a normal place. Like a hotel or a restaurant.

“No, Lyra. You have to meet people in a graveyard,” she muttered. “Better yet, you have to meet them deep in a crypt where no one will hear you scream.”

She laughed at her own words.

As if she would ever let anyone kill her. Whoever tried would find themselves in the fight of their life with her claws at their throat.

More lights, which led her to a plain door set into the earthen wall, flickered to life. Fisting the knob in her hand, she pushed. The door did not budge.

“Of all the ridiculous—” She huffed and pressed her forehead against the smooth wood. “I’m tired of this. Open the damn door.”

It slowly eased open under her hand.

She grunted as she shoved hard causing a loud bang as the door slammed against the opposite wall and rattled the ceiling above her head. Dirt crumbled and fell in chunks into her hair. For a moment she worried she might have buried herself, but it settled quickly enough.

Her eyes found the figure hunched over an altar at the center of the room. The form was covered by a faded brown cloak. However, she could see how painfully thin the person was.

He was tall. Much taller than her and perhaps equal in height with Jasper. But the bony edges of its shoulders betrayed a fragility she had not expected to see. Lyra could see the heaving breaths that shuddered the ribcage and made the cloak quake.

Suddenly, the entire situation felt real. This was the Graverobber. This was the man whom so many people were afraid of. And he was physically weak.

She cleared her throat.

There was no response from the man before her. So once more, she cleared her throat. This time, she followed the sound with a shuffling of her feet.

“So you have finally come.”

His voice was hardly what she would have expected. With the state of his body, or at least that much she could see of him, Lyra had expected a much older voice. She certainly had not expected a strong voice that rumbled with the power of avalanches and lightning strikes.

That voice made a shiver dance down her spine. Lyra had met many powerful creatures in her life. But none of them, other than the Five, had made the hair on her arms stand up as their strength danced across her skin.

This Graverobber had more substance than anyone gave him credit for.

“Yes,” she squeaked. Was that voice hers? That wouldn’t do at all. “No thanks to your helper. Wolfgang did everything he could to prevent me from seeing you.”

A loud coughing sound made her frown and take a step back from him. It took her a few seconds to realize that he was laughing. His voice was so deep that any sound of mirth was foreign to her ears.

“Yes. Wolfgang.”

She rocked back and forth as she waited for him to continue. Of course, that was all he had to say. “So…”

He was not as talkative