by Emma Hamm
Red Blood
Series of Blood #2
Emma Hamm
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Emma Hamm
Copyright © 2017 by Emma Hamm
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Book cover by- Mirella Santana http://mirellasantana.deviantart.com/
Editing by Sarah Collingwood - [email protected]
Created with Vellum
There are a lot of people to thank nowadays for my books and the inspiration I find. Of course, as per usual, I have to thank my family for their continued support in everything that I do. And some of that is pretty crazy so, I appreciate it.
Second, thank you to all of my friends who listen to me prattle on and on about the characters that don’t exist. Yeah I know guys. I’m more invested in the lives of characters I make up, but thanks for listening to me hash out what might happen if X met Y in a world that’s in my head. You have no idea how much it means to me.
Third, thank you to my fearless editor Sarah who never fails to remind me how much I need her. This book wouldn’t be what it is without you. So much love sent your way!
And finally, thank you to my readers. I wouldn’t be able to live my dream without your loving support and kindness every day.
Chapter 1
The store held expected items. Clothing, jewelry, necessary bits and pieces of human life. However, normal was not something this store specialized in.
The woman standing on the center podium was a particularly strange creature. Her hair was left free to swing along her waist in a smooth waterfall. Her hair was so dark that in the right lights it looked blue. She was all of five feet tall on a good day in heels, but she had never let anyone think her small simply because of her height.
She was a Siren. Or at least used to shared a headspace with one. Lyra had been lucky enough to have a rather quiet soul sharing her body. Sirens weren’t the kind of creatures that wanted to fight or argue. Her Siren had decided when Lyra was very young that they would merge their souls. She was tired of living as long as she had and quite liked the little girl whom she had just met.
All of their knowledge was shared in the moment their souls had combined. Lyra knew everything the Siren did, and the creature was no longer a separate entity. In the end, it was likely easier for both to them to be combined. Lyra was too headstrong to be comfortable with another voice in her head, and the Siren was tired.
She tilted on the podium to see how the boots looked from behind. They were knee high black leather with silver spikes for heels. She shimmied just a bit to see how they affected the height of her behind. Not bad at all. Lyra thought they were incredibly good looking and also practical.
After all, she did have to fight on a daily basis.
“Jasper?”
Seated near the door, the large man stirred and shook his lion-like mane. He had clearly not been paying attention in the slightest. His eyes were half mast, and he met her angry gaze with a bored expression.
“What is it now, Lyra?”
“What do you think?” She twirled once again.
“They look stupid.”
She blinked at him. Lyra wasn’t happy with that answer. She liked the shoes. She liked sparkly things and every item that would make her feel as though she was also sparkly. Lyra frowned at him. “That’s not very nice.”
“They’d look good on someone else.” Jasper pulled a switchblade out of his pocket and began to clean underneath his nails. “Just not you.”
“Wow,” she muttered. “What got stuck up your behind today?”
Lyra turned around on the pedestal to look at herself in the mirror. She thought they looked lovely. Paired with tight black pants and her glitter tiger shirt on it, Lyra thought she was radiating “badass”.
Apparently not.
She smoothed a hand down her stomach. The tiger shirt was supposed to be enchanted to give the owner a sense of confidence. “Waste of money,” she muttered. It wasn’t working at all.
She’d have to get back at the Hag who had sold it to her. There were plenty of people who wanted that enchantment peddler locked away for good. Lyra would have to let a couple words slip out to the right people.
“Lyra.” Jasper stood up and stretched his back. “We’re supposed to be scouting. Not shopping.”
“Scouting for what anyway?” She turned a little to see how the boots made her behind look again.
“They already told us that when they sent us out. Were you not paying attention again?” he replied. When she did not stop staring at herself, Jasper cleared his throat.
“I’m not turning around.”
Once more, he cleared his throat.
“What!” She spun on her heel and tossed her hands up in the air. “What do you want with the throat clearing?”
He nodded towards the pretty woman in the corner who was staring at them with wide eyes. She obviously wasn’t prepared to have people arguing in her shop. Likely, she dealt with much more civilized people than Jasper and Lyra. They were both known for causing trouble wherever they went. Especially when they were together, and they were always together.
“She’s not going to repeat anything we say,” Lyra growled. “Right?”
The woman was nodding before Lyra even had to ask. “O-of course not.”
“Lyra, anything we say is confidential. We can’t risk it.”
Jasper was always the one who wanted to do the right thing. Lyra thought it was ridiculous. She just wanted to have fun.
“Fine,” she grumbled. “I’m not taking the boots off for this conversation.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a glass orb. There didn’t appear to be anything inside it. But somehow, the glass appeared more fragile in her hand than normal. With a bored expression on her face, she chucked the orb towards the woman behind the counter. It shattered as it touched the attendant’s smooth skin and released a cloud of glitter.
The shopkeeper froze where she stood. Her hand was raised halfway up to her mouth, and her eyes were wide open as she stared at Jasper and Lyra. She did not blink. Her chest did not rise to breathe.
“What did you do to her?” Jasper asked.
“Time’s just stopped in that corner of the store.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not repeating myself. Listen the first time.” She turned back towards the mirror so she could slowly rotate in circles.
“You should listen to your own advice. Also, it sure would be nice if I knew where you got these spells from,” Jasper grumbled. “Would you stop looking at yourself in the mirror for a few moments?”
“No.”
Lyra liked the way she looked. She wasn’t going to be modest or even try to hide the fact that she thought so. Sure, she was tiny. But she had hips for days and boobs that were perky. Not to mention that her butt was almost comically large for her size. She was a looker or at least what men called lookers these days.
Besides, there wasn’t anything wrong with appreciating the female form. It
was pretty. She was pretty. And Lyra was lucky enough to own the body that she was staring at in the mirror.
Maybe it was the Siren part of her coming out. But she loved her body. No matter what her shape, size, or look had become, Lyra would have loved every inch of herself. Sirens were always proud of what they had.
“Lyra. Dammit what has gotten into you lately?”
What had gotten into her? She wasn’t any different than she usually was… Well that was a lie. She maybe had fallen off the deep end lately.
But the Black Market wasn’t a safe place for Lyra. It wasn’t a safe place for anyone but particularly not a safe place for her. She had been there before. Many times. And now she had tipped off the person who happened to literally own her soul that she was still around. Lyra had sold it a long time ago to the wrong person for the wrong price.
The weight of the old contract was heavy upon her shoulders. She worried with every breath that this was the last moment of her freedom. Anxiety made her act out. She didn’t like being worried, because life was supposed to be fun.
Her reflection in the mirror warped. It was her but not quite her. The eyes weren’t right in her head. Lyra knew for a fact that her eyes were ocean blue. Those eyes were darker. In fact, they looked like very familiar eyes, which shouldn’t be in her head.
The woman in the mirror smiled at her, but Lyra wasn’t smiling.
She flinched back and spun to look at Jasper. “Right. Sorry.”
“You okay, Fish?”
Jasper was far too protective of her. He looked like a lion and acted like one more times than not. Wearing jeans and a simple, white, button-down shirt made him seem slightly more civilized. But he was still well over six feet tall with wild, dirty blonde hair that created a mane around his chiseled features. Not to mention the full beard that was rarely trimmed.
“Silly.” Lyra stepped off of the pedestal to pat his arm. “I’m always fine. Now that prying ears can’t hear us, what do you want?”
“We need to get going. The Five aren’t going to wait for you to find the right kind of shoes.”
“The shoes are for the mission.”
“No, they aren’t,” he argued.
“Of course they are.”
“Lyra.”
“You just aren’t open minded enough to see that this is for the mission. They’re enchanted.” She raised one leg in the air to brandish her foot at him while balancing on the other. “See?”
“I see shoes that are impractical for running. I see shoes that likely aren’t enchanted at all.”
Lyra pouted. She really would need to get them tested to see if they were actually enchanted. But if they were, and she was right, then she got to rub it in his face. “At least they look good.”
“They make your legs look shorter than they already are.”
Now that was a sore spot. Lyra had a little bit of a Napoleon complex, and Jasper played that to his advantage. Ridiculous man. He thought that by saying those words he could manipulate her.
“They do not make me look short.”
“They absolutely do. They’re nearly up to your thighs and they’re supposed to be knee high boots. You look like you’re part Gnome.”
She grit her teeth. “Take that back.”
“Can’t take back the truth.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Take them off, and let’s go find the distress signal that Gaia found. If it’s not survivors from Malachi’s last attack, then we need to find out who it is. Yeah?”
Lyra was angry. She didn’t know if she was angry that he had insulted her, that he didn’t think she looked attractive, or that she felt as though her world was crashing down around her. The boots she could control. She could spend her money and get whatever she wanted. Jasper wasn’t taking that away from her, but his words turned the pedestal she had built for herself to dust.
But even without that in her life, what was she? The girl who owed more debts than she could count.
Her cheeks must have been tinged red in anger because Jasper flashed a toothy grin. He always had to push. She knew exactly what he was going to say before he even opened his big fat mouth.
“Come on, rich girl. You’ve got a hundred shoes back home.”
The shopkeeper’s world wasn’t the only one that froze then. He knew how much she hated that nickname. He knew how much she hated it when people knew she came from a background that not many people had been lucky enough to experience.
He knew her story, dammit. And still he had to push her. He just had to.
Lyra’s hand raised, and she snapped her fingers. The magic that had been controlling the woman suddenly shattered with the sound of breaking glass. She blinked in confusion and looked around her before focusing on the two people in her store once more.
“You just had to go there didn’t you,” she growled. A drip of water leaked out of Lyra’s ear and traveled down her neck.
Sirens weren’t really capable of a lot of harm. Some species could do damage to everything around them. But Sirens had their looks and their charms. As well as a few hidden secrets that not many other creatures knew about.
The warning signs were very easy to catch. Jasper’s eyes widened as he watched the water drop. Leaking always meant that she was either incredibly sad or she was going to break something. He had a good reason to be worried.
“Lyra-” he started as he raised his hands.
“You are the worst!” Lyra shouted as she reached down to yank one of the boots off of her foot. “Go back to your tree, Fairy boy!”
This time, he was the one to growl at her. “Now that isn’t necessary.”
“Oh yes it is.”
She cocked her arm back and threw the boot at him as hard as she could. He dodged the boot, which struck the mirror behind him. Shards of magical glass exploded around them as the enchanted boot hit its match. Too much magic in one place was bound to cause trouble.
That was enough for Lyra to make her move. She darted forward to place her hands square against his hips and shoved. Jasper was a lot bigger than her but even he wasn’t prepared for her to throw him towards the glass shards.
She didn’t care if he got hurt. He would heal faster than a human and deserved whatever he got. Maybe a little blood would teach him that he couldn’t insult her like that.
Lyra didn’t wait to see if he fell all the way down. She was already stomping out of the store and onto the street. Limping was more accurate, as she still had one of the boots on her foot.
“Stupid man,” she muttered as she made her way down the street. “Stupid, stupid, inconsiderate man.”
He shouldn’t have insulted her like that. Jasper was well aware Although she hadn’t traveled very far, she had very short legs, but Jasper was the other half of her. He had been her dearest friend and a kind of brother since before she could remember.
He was right. She was a rich girl who tried to fix her problems with material objects. But it was so much easier to just buy something when she grew upset. It felt better. She suddenly had something new and shiny that wasn’t contaminated by her touch yet.
She stopped and looked down at her palms. They looked like anyone else’s. There were a few callouses and a few scrapes. One fingernail had dirt underneath it. Yet every time she looked at them, she remembered a time when her hands hadn’t looked like this at all.
She saw smooth, unmarred, pale skin and perfectly manicured nails that were curved into claws. Lyra saw hands that were meant to be on a lady. Hands that had done more damage than any hands had a right to do. She never saw the hands that were actually hers, only the ones she had once owned in a time long past.
Boots couldn’t fix her problems. She knew that. But they would make her feel better for a little while.
Lyra sighed. “Fine.” She turned to go back to the store. “I’ll go back and deal with my stupid, idiot, good for nothing-”
A body was behind her. She didn’t remember seeing anyone on the street when she had walked out of the store, b
ut there it was. A man. One she almost ran into so hard that he probably would have bruised her.
At the last moment, he flinched backwards so quickly she stumbled and nearly dropped onto her knee. The uncomfortable height of boot versus bootless leg made her far more clumsy than she usually would have been.
She let out an angry shriek as she righted herself. A glare was leveled towards the man who was now at the very center of her anger.
“Really? Do you just walk around hitting every woman you see or is it just me?”
“Excuse me?”
It was then that she actually looked at the man in front of her. “Wowee,” she whispered.
He was…perfect. For her. He wasn’t particularly tall for a man, but he was broad shouldered and clearly strong. His sleeves were rolled up his forearms, and she was such a sucker for that style. A vest was stretched tight across his chest. He had a strong square jaw and the strangest eyes she had ever seen. One was a blinding blue and the other the darkest brown. Although, she stared a little deeper into his gaze, and realized there was a ring of dull yellow in the brown. Patterns were shaved into the sides of his head while the top had been left long.
Dangerous. Wickedly handsome. Obviously so incredibly out of her league. But that did not mean she wasn’t going to try her damnedest.
A girl had to try.
“Well, hello there.” She cocked her head to the side and put her hand on her hip. “And you are?”
“No one,” he muttered as he tried to sidle past her.
Lyra made herself as big as she could and stepped in his way. “Oh, I doubt that. Darling, you look like someone who is definitely someone.”
“Is that a complete sentence?” he asked her as he looked for another escape route.
Two could play at that game. She danced around him as he tried to turn. “Does it matter? I’m Lyra.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” She pouted. “That’s all I get?”
“I don’t know you.”