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

difference that would make it obvious that magic was afoot. She twisted her lip up. She bared her teeth. All the while making certain that her reflection did exactly what she was doing.

A slight misstep made her notice that it blinked once in a delayed fashion. Letting out an exclamation, she pointed two fingers at her eyes and then at her reflection.

“I’m watching you,” she muttered.

The shower would fog the reflective surface anyways. She supposed she didn’t have too much to worry about. Her life had taken a turn for the worse anyways.

As the water hit her back, she heard the door to her bathroom open and close.

Sighing, she rolled her eyes. “Even in the bathroom, huh?”

“You need to be more honest with me,” Jasper grumbled as he seated himself on her toilet. She could hear the creak as the porcelain groaned under his weight.

“And you need to understand the fact that sometimes I just need privacy.”

“What’s bothering you?”

She squeezed the body wash in her hand too hard. Pink soap splattered all over her shower curtain as the seaweed scent quickly became cloying. “I’m just tired.”

“Tired of what?”

“All of it. I’m tired of fighting for people who are always dead when we get there. I’m tired of not knowing what’s next around the corner. I’m tired of ghosts haunting me wherever I go.”

“You know this is our job?”

“I know what I signed on for,” she replied crossly. And she did. She understood the moment she took this job that there were going to be certain problems that would arise.

Lyra just hadn’t imagined that the problems would be a body count that was quickly rising. The deaths felt as though they were on her shoulders. She had been trained to kill, not to save people. Losing someone was harder than taking a life.

“You have to learn to let it go.” Jasper’s voice rumbled through the steam.

“I don’t want to,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to let them go, because then the deaths are meaningless.”

A long silence bubbled in the space between them. She soaked her hair and body in the hopes that the water would somehow cleanse her soul as well. She knew it wouldn’t.

“Is this the same Lyra I’ve known all my life?” Jasper asked. He always teased her when she wasn’t feeling herself. “You don’t care about anybody other than you. Keep it that way, and you’ll be a lot happier.”

“Well maybe I’m getting soft in my old age,” she muttered.

“You aren’t old yet.”

“Getting up there in years for this profession.”

“You’re twenty-seven!” He laughed. “Hurry your ass up, so I can leave.”

“You don’t have wait for me to get out of the shower to leave.”

“I want to look you in the eye when you say you’re fine.”

“Mom!” she shouted and tossed the body wash over the curtain. A wide grin split across her face as she heard Jasper grunt as the sweet smelling soap made contact. “Score.”

“Yeah fine,” he grumbled as he chucked the bottle back into the shower with her. She ducked as it hit the wall and splattered all over the clean interior. “Just promise me you’ll take it easy for a little while?”

“Whatever you say.”

She listened to the sound of the door closing before she let out the breath she was holding. There was so much she couldn’t tell him. So much she couldn’t tell anyone.

The secrets inside her were fluttering. They wanted to burst out of her mouth and fly. She couldn’t let them.

The shower turned off with an angry squeal. Her white towel was perfectly folded on its hanger, and the soft fabric smoothed against her skin as delicately as velvet. At least she still had her material objects. Lyra could be happy about that.

Her hand swiped against the fog on the mirror. She stared hard at the reflection with a morose expression. Her own eyes glared back at her until the last minute when a slow evil grin spread across her reflection. It winked at her.

The damn thing winked at her.

She stomped out of the bathroom while grumbling about curses and ridiculous debts. The towel fell to the floor with a soft sound as she crawled into her bed.

“Noctis,” she muttered.

The lights dimmed as she settled down into the silk sheets. A rattling sound made her pause and reach out into the darkness to wrap her hand around a string of beads hidden under her pillow.

“Jasper,” she whispered.

The beads held meaning to the two of them. They were the first gift he had ever given her. The first time that Lyra had realized she might need someone else in her life other than herself.

She gently wrapped the strand over her fist and tucked it underneath her chin. It would protect her from the nightmares. She hoped.

Chapter 2

20 YEARS AGO

“But I want it!”

“Well you can’t have it.”

“Mommy!”

“Lyra, I’m not going to say it again.”

“But-”

A sharp smack made the little girl silent as a bright red handprint tainted her cheek.

“Enough.”

The woman left her daughter standing at the window. A sullen expression was stuck on her face as she resisted the urge to rub the sore spot her mother had left. Her hands fisted at her sides before she turned back to the window.

It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. It was just a long cord of beads. Surely it wasn’t worth that much money. But the crystals had been polished until they all glittered in the spotlight.

The little girl didn’t know if it was enchanted. She didn’t even care if it was enchanted. Lyra just wanted the sparkling piece because there was something inside her that needed it.

Her fingers clenched so hard she left half moons on her palms. It was beautiful. It sparkled. Her mouth was nearly watering with want.

She reached forward to press her small palms against the glass. The shopkeeper would likely come out soon to yell at her for leaving her grubby little marks. She couldn’t even think about the beads