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

played through her mind, their voices teasing her for worrying about a crowd. Whispering that she would be fine, to remember all the times they had stayed up too late teasing each other.

Pitch hesitated, hand pressed against the worn wooden door. His dark eyes caught hers, a question lingering in their depths. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

“I won’t ever be ready. I’ve been dreading and wanting this moment for the greater part of two hundred years. There are thousands of endings to this moment, and I would very much like to know which one is the true ending.”

“Then we will enter as ourselves. No more pretenses, no more secrets.”

She could admit to peeking at the Future if only to calm the nerves in her belly. Even that future was uncertain with this group of people who were so vastly different that she couldn’t predict their choices. She would simply have to find out.

Pitch nodded and shoved the door open so hard it banged against the wall.

“Hello, friends. I brought you a gift,” he said.

And there they were. In the flesh. Lydia’s eyes tingled with the threat of tears as she looked all of them over. They weren’t looking back at her, instead, they were all staring at Pitch who was larger than life. His shadows swelled around him, hooking around his throat and billowing backward through the door like a mantle of night. Lydia didn’t have to look to know his crown of mirror shards was seated carefully in his dark curls.

There were fine lines around Jiminy’s eyes she had never noticed before. He stood with an arm around Wren’s waist behind the kitchen counter. There were fine grey hairs at her temple. When had they aged? Or were they aging because of the stress?

Jasper turned from the sink, his hands covered in white suds. Mercy perched on the counter next to him. Ignes meandered across the window sink, carefully stepping over the specks of water Jasper had flicked at him.

“What’s going on?” Lyra asked as she stepped into the room. Her long waterfall of dark hair fell to her waist, swaying with her movements.

Blue electricity crackled along the floor, rising to form a shield in front of her. Lydia’s eyes caught upon the glowing runes. They sparked so bright it hurt her eyes.

“Oh,” a ruined raspy voice muttered and the shield drop. “It’s you.”

Wolfgang’s appearance was the final straw. There were so many scars lacing across his body, intertwining with black tattoos, that he looked like a patchwork man. A gasping sob burst out of Lydia’s mouth.

They all froze and finally looked at her.

She clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide as she met their gaze. Now, she understood what an ant beneath a microscope felt like. They were here! They were standing in front of her and actually looking at her. Not her magic. Not their creatures. Them.

“You’re-” she choked on the words. “You’re all here.”

Another sob echoed through the room and tears splashed from her eyes. Magic glowed at her fingertips. Each tear she caught stained her fingers gold.

“I’m sorry. I just… It’s really you!”

This was quickly becoming her nightmare. Wolfgang replaced the shield, isolating them from Pitch and Lydia. They stepped away from her as though they were frightened as though she was some kind of monsters.

“No, no wait. Please!” she gasped.

They didn’t wait. They continued to step backward until they were gathered near the door, staring at them with horror in their eyes.

Her hands shook against her lips. Her tears darkened, bronzing with disappointment. The silver chains wrapped around her horns clanked as she shook her head. She desperately wanted them to like her. She wanted them to be her friends, her family. And now?

Now they looked at her as if she were a monster.

“That’s it,” Pitch growled.

His hand slashed forward, cracking Wolfgang’s shield and shattering it into shimmers of blue magic. The door slammed behind them. Lydia heard the harsh sound of the lock turning from the other side. Each person in the room was dragged forward by inky shadows that slammed them to their seats on top of the counters or in the few barstools around the kitchen island.

“Sit. Everyone.” Pitch raised a hand and rubbed between his eyes. “Gods save me from these ridiculous humans. Wolfgang, stop fighting me.”

“Then stop trying to cage me.”

“I will not until you calm down, so stop it!”

He then wrapped a hand around one of Lydia’s horns and yanked her against him. A squeak escaped her as they collided. His arms wrapped around her and shadows coiled around her legs protectively.

Thankfully, he didn’t turn her head away from them. Even though they pulled away, she wanted to drink in the sight of them. Her memory would make their expressions fuzzy, their fear softer, their anger quiet.

“Now,” Pitch began. “We’re all going to sit down and have a nice conversation. This is Lydia. Everyone say hello.”

Shadows flowed from the floor, wrapped around their jaws, and yanked them open. She couldn’t understand a thing they said, but they all spoke.

“Good. Now, Lydia has waited for a very long time to meet all of you. You will give her the respect she deserves. Is that clear?”

No one responded.

Pitch sighed. “I can force you to agree with me. So if you wouldn’t mind answering that would be easier for all of us.”

Wren was the first to speak up. “Pitch, you know we won't hurt her.”

“Really? It didn’t seem like that.”

“You startled us. You both startled us, walking in here with all that power riding your shoulders. What did you expect us to do? These are dark times.”

“I’m sorry,” Lydia said. “That’s my fault.”

“Excuse me?”

“I- I started all of this. Or, well, I brought all you here. Malachi was going to exist no matter what I did, but you were all the people I needed to fulfill my prophecy.”

She could have cut the silence with a knife. Their eyes bugged out and she could smell their fear.

Burke struggled against the shadows.