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

wings. His heart stopped until he heard the slightest sound of her movement.

She was alive.

Pitch couldn’t feel his feet. His knees were made of jello and his arms wet noodles when he saw her walking down the stairs. Tears pricked at his eyes though he refused to allow himself to be unmanned.

She was alive.

This woman was everything. Though she frightened him with magic he didn’t understand, he wouldn’t survive without her. The thought of losing her sent him into a rage. He would destroy the world if anyone dared to lay a finger on her.

She was alive.

“Pitch?” she asked. “What is wrong?”

He wanted to say everything was wrong. The Five were more frustrating than ever. He was losing control over his vast well of self-control, and she still hadn’t regained her sight. How could she even suggest that anything was right?

“You know what’s wrong,” he growled.

“You cannot change the stubbornness of other people, my phantom. Dwelling upon such thoughts will only eat away at you.”

“And yet, my mind lingers.”

His nights were dark. His days lacked light. Everything was falling apart and all he wanted was one more night in her arms. One more night of silence and solitude where the stars looked down at them and they didn’t have to save anyone or anything.

He didn’t think it was too much to ask for.

Pitch’s thoughts shattered as Lydia reached the ground floor. Strands of silver thread hung between her tines of her antlers, tiny bells chiming as she glided to his side.

Dry mouthed and shaking, he locked his knees. There was no doubt in his mind that he would fall to the floor if he tried to move. She was alive, and he had worried for nothing, but how long would that last?

They had only skimmed the surface of all the things he wished to do with her. They still hadn’t walked down a sandy beach. They hadn’t drunk wine from the bottle in Old Italy. Climbed a mountain top and drifted through the clouds on wings of shadow.

He was born for war and she to save them. They collided in times of need but were wrenched apart as soon as they helped. It wasn’t fair.

And here he was, lost in thought, when they were alone once more. He should take advantage of every second she still drew breath.

A gasp echoed in the halls.

Pitch’s muscles locked but Lydia wasn’t looking at him anymore. Her soft gaze turned, eyes widening with shock.

“Oh, you didn’t tell me you brought company, Pitch.”

He hadn’t. Why would he bring company to this place? The only safe home for them?

Swallowing hard, he turned and glanced over his shoulder. The blood drained from his face as he locked eyes with Mercy. The volatile one. The dangerous one.

She could set fire to the world and he would be hard pressed to stop her. He had brought the most dangerous person he knew to this house. And she stood directly in front of Lydia who was smiling as though Mercy wasn’t a Phoenix.

“This was not how it was supposed to go.”

“I came with you,” Mercy replied.

“I can see that.”

The softest brush of white magic teased his mind. As Mercy stood up, he allowed Lydia free access to his mind. This was a new power she had yet to test. Every day she found more and more powers that she shouldn’t have.

“She’s frightened.” Lydia whispered in his mind.

“She should be. If she takes one step toward you-”

“Pitch, sometimes you just need to trust that not everyone is trying to hurt you.”

“You didn’t see what she could do.”

Even as he thought it, Pitch knew it was foolish. Of course she had. Lydia had played with this woman’s line of Time for centuries now. She had read Mercy until her pages were torn and spotted with age.

An involuntary sound of anger escaped his lips as Lydia walked forward. He lurched but caught himself. His body was so tense that shadows were seeping out of his pores.

He wanted the Phoenix out of his house. She had invaded his sacred home, and it felt almost like an invasion of his body. In a way, it was.

The house was imbued with his magic. Even though he had harmed it, shadows still created its form. The screaming souls were straight from his memories, they were just a few of the many victims he punished himself for. The red walls were streaked with his blood and the artwork nightmares from his mind.

Mercy had no right to be here. Not without invitation, and he never would have invited her.

Lydia stepped closer to her.

He growled, “Lydia, now is not the time.”

“She needs it.”

Her tone was eerily familiar. The painful ringing of the Goddess inside her, the whispers of prophecies and burning light.

The women hugged, and he waited for the building to fall down upon their ears. Chest rising with rapid breaths, he counted to one hundred and back down. Maybe, just maybe, this could end well. This was what Lydia had always wanted.

These people were as much a part of her as he was. She had watched them through their entire lives, and before they were even born. This was her purpose, to guide them, to heal them, to create them.

He fisted his hands. There was something wrong. A dark magic stuck to Mercy that he didn’t recognize.

“Lydia, we said we wouldn’t.”

They couldn’t interfere. No one involved in the prophecy could know it was all a ploy that Lydia had made it up while they lay in each other’s arms. It was almost done. He wouldn’t see it fall apart just when they were ready to end it.

“I know.” Lydia’s voice rang with such sadness that his eyes stung. “But she needs it.”

He reached out with a tendril of his own awareness, smoothing the ache from her mind. “She does, my love. But we are so close. Let this play out the way it needs to.”

Lydia almost walked to him, but she paused and cocked her head to the side.