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

deserved someone who would love him. Even if it was secret. Lyra might be a vain and selfish animal, but she would tear anyone apart who dared insult him.

“No, I didn’t at all.”

A shadow tasted the air in front of her, sliding up her cheek to leave a tingle of electricity. Pitch chuckled. “I know you’re lying to me.”

“I would never.”

He swayed back and forth, his arms gentle as he guided her into a simple dance. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Maybe a little bit. But only a white lie.”

“I think you are only capable of light things, m’lady.”

“M’lady?” She tossed her head back in laughter. “What century did you step out of? Where did you put my growling angry phantom?”

“Are you paying attention at all?”

Lydia stepped forward, placing her feet on top of his so she wouldn’t trip. “We’re talking about Wren.”

“And how we’re planning to help her.”

“Why are you so set on talking about her?”

“I can’t get her out of my head. There’s something tragic about a strong woman crying. I don’t like it.”

Her heart throbbed. “Hold me up, I’ll take a peek.”

“You’ve been exhausting yourself far more than you need to.”

“I won't change any threads, I’m just going to look at her past. There might be something, you never know.”

She felt his arms tighten around her waist and allowed herself to drift. The longer she stayed wrapped in the comfortable presence of Time, the less real she felt. It was almost too easy to detach from her body. Her mind could float along the lines and experience life without ever having to make the difficult choices herself.

Lyra’s thread tasted like salt water and a soft spray of ocean misted across Lydia’s senses. There was a certain calm quality to such a thread although Lyra was not a calm person herself. But Lydia preferred her thread over all others connected to their prophecy.

She plucked through the history as though she were playing a harp. Tiny details were easily ignored, but people were not. There was one person in particular who seemed consistent in Lyra’s life, to the point of even being in her thoughts.

“Bones,” Lydia murmured.

“We’re digging someone up?”

“No, it’s a person’s name. Do you recognize it?”

“The man from the Black Market? He’s a dangerous one to be involved with. What has he got to do with Lyra?”

“He helped raise her, strange as it is.” Lydia blinked her eyes open. The colors of the room had faded with the overuse of her power. “He taught her everything she knows and considers himself to be something of a father figure. An overbearing one who chased her away, but a father nonetheless.”

“Would he help her?”

“There’s really no way of knowing unless I pull the threads.”

“You aren’t doing that for a while. You’re too weak, Lydia!”

“Then there isn’t any way to know unless we try.”

He glowered down at her. “You don’t even have a guess?”

“Would I have suggested it if I thought it wouldn’t work?”

This man would be the end of her. She simultaneously wanted to hit him upside the head and yank him down to kiss. One of these days, she would do both at the same time just to see what would happen.

Pitch grumbled. “We’re quarreling like an old married couple.”

“Just like we were meant to.”

“Bones is dangerous. I’m going to say that a few times to drill it through your stubborn skull. Bones is a very dangerous man with skills few people fully understand. By bringing him into this mess, we might end up stirring the pot a little too much.”

“Oh it’s not like we’re asking him to move in, we’re just asking him to dinner.”

She didn’t need to see his face to know his eyebrows had shot up.

Pitch stammered, “To dinner?”

“Yes of course. How else is he going to help us?”

“With a diplomatic inquiry and a safe neutral territory for a meeting place.”

“Or with a glass of port in his hand and a full belly. Go get him, darling.”

“Go get him?” Pitch nearly shouted the words. The shadows of his arms jerked up toward the ceiling. “If I wasn’t considered a God already, I’d be begging them for help. You can’t just ‘go get’ an Illusionist!”

“Why not?”

Lydia stared at him through the silence. She could almost hear the gears turning in his mind as he tried to find another reason to argue with her.

“Be-because you don’t!”

Sauntering, Lydia reached up and patted him on the cheek. “Just go.”

“You owe me.”

“Yes, yes. Bring me back a hungry Illusionist and you can have whatever you want, Shadow Man.”

Pitch snapped his hand forward, dragging her forcefully back against him. His mouth devoured hers, tasting, searching, branding. He wrenched away only to growl, “You are going to be the death of me.”

“You keep saying that, but you’re still fighting me tooth and nail.”

He dissolved into shadows, leaving her standing in the center of the room with her arms outstretched. Lydia didn’t have the heart to tell him that she worried he wouldn’t be the one dying. There was a sick feeling in her stomach refusing to go away.

Every time she tried to see her own future, it remained covered in fog. The only thing she saw snippets of was a blindingly bright, white light.

Heaven? Perhaps, if she gave it enough weight. Death was not as terrifying as it had been when she was a Red Blood. There was a beauty to it, a release she thought might be pleasant rather than horrible.

But there was much to do here. Pitch couldn’t know she had such thoughts. The weight of the world’s guilt stood on her shoulders, she was bound to think of darker things.

She ran her hands down her torso and stilled the ragged breaths sawing out of her mouth. Tonight, she would stay alive. Tonight, she would plan a dinner for two of the most dangerous men the world had ever known.

It would be a good evening.

Chapter 16

Lydia squeezed the fork in her hand so hard she feared the metal might bend. She had never