Red Blood (Series of Blood Book 2)

by Emma Hamm

  “A shield,” she whispered.

  Of course it was a shield. She had seen magic like this in books but never in person. There weren’t any creatures left that could naturally create shields such as this. She felt a cold touch shift as though an arm was sliding around the delicate curve of her waist.

  “Wolfgang?” she asked.

  “Still here.” His voice sounded strained.

  “Are you doing this?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Magic.”

  Lyra could hear the sound of teeth grinding as Wolfgang’s hand raised. Palm up, he held his concentration upon keeping the shield around them. Shockingly, no matter how many times someone threw something at it or their attackers threw their bodies against it, the shield wall held.

  “I thought you said you were a Red Blood,” she questioned.

  “I am.”

  “But you don’t have a form, and you’re using magic. You must be lying.”

  There wasn’t a Red Blood in existence that could use magic. Humans weren’t capable of it. They never had been before. Lyra wondered if perhaps he did have a creature inside of him but simply did not know it.

  “I rarely lie.”

  She snorted. “And you would tell me when you were lying? I’m not so gullible.”

  “No, you are bitter,” he grumbled in response. His hand trembled, and the shield shrunk towards them.

  Lyra felt him grunt against her back. The deep sound growled through her conscious, but she could have sworn she did not hear the sound with her ears. “I’m not bitter.”

  “You are bitter. You just haven’t admitted it to yourself yet.”

  A man slammed against the shield. Her eyes locked onto the hand pressed against Wolfgang’s shield. The strange warped orb around them bent towards them like a bubble being stretched. She felt another grunt, and Wolfgang pressed his hand firmly in the direction of the man.

  The fire swirled over the wall and continued to grow. She could see the beauty in the orange licks of flame but found that anger was once more growing inside her body. How dare he? She was having an intelligent conversation with a man who had suddenly grown even more interesting.

  This other man thought he could interrupt her? He thought that somehow he could distract her? A irrational part of her brain was convinced that this man wanted to separate her and Wolfgang. That simply would not do.

  Lyra’s eyes flicked towards the door as yet more men streamed towards them. Five, ten more. She couldn’t tell how many, but she knew what that meant for the people she cared about. Death. Only death would await them if she didn’t do something.

  The heat upon her neck cooled as a slow drip of water slid out of her ear and down her neck. Did they think they would win? Did they think that she was helpless against them? Did they think they could hurt Wolfgang?

  The drip quickly became a leak. The ends of her hair grew sodden with water as a primal part of her welcomed the possessive side of her Siren abilities. No man was ever going to take away something that was hers.

  Lyra didn’t stop to think that Wolfgang wasn’t hers. He was off limits. They were working together. Her entire being knew without a doubt that he was an object she liked. A perfect shiny little coin that she was going to add to her collection no matter what anyone said to her about it. A strand of sodden hair fell in front of her face.

  “Lyra?” It was almost as though Wolfgang knew what was going through her mind.

  Lyra wouldn’t be surprised at this point; he had proven to be a very unpredictable little Red Blood. Something inside of her hummed happily at the thought that her man needed her to take care of him. Her Siren had always adored pampering men.

  “Let the shield down, Wolfgang.”

  She could see him stare down at her in shock. “Excuse me?”

  “Now.”

  He reacted to that tone. He stepped away from her as his calculating eyes glanced up and down her body. “You’re dripping.”

  “I know,” she growled.

  His eyes met hers. Lyra didn’t know what he was searching for, but he must have found it. His hand shook once before he slowly lowered it.

  A sense of relief nearly dried the terribly emotions that were running through her. Everything was ruined when the man now covered in flames ran towards Wolfgang. Not her. He didn’t run towards the tiny woman who was now dripping significant amounts of water onto the floor. He ran towards the man.

  “Enough!” she shouted. Laced with her voice was a darker sound. A scream. An inhuman sound that vibrated from deep within her person and pierced through the air like a blade.

  She could hear the word she was waiting for. The shout that Jasper screamed towards his teammates was a warning they had only recently realized they needed.

  “Ears!”

  Those who knew what she was and worked directly with her reached into their pockets and slammed their hands over their ears. Their palms were covered with reflective sheen. The substance was the only thing that Lyra knew could block out the scream of a Siren. Luckily, the Black Market had plenty of it.

  She waited until she knew she wouldn’t harm those whom she cared about. Wolfgang was an anomaly she could only hope wouldn’t be affected by the scream she was about to unleash. He wasn’t real. Certainly that would help?

  But he was real. He wasn’t a ghost, or so he said. If he had a physical body somewhere she couldn’t be certain that he wouldn’t be harmed.

  Worry couldn’t stop the sound from spewing out of her mouth. Her lips parted to release a sound that started too high pitched for humans to hear. Then the tone changed and a scream unlike any scream heard before shattered the remaining glass around them.

  A Siren’s scream wasn’t really a scream at all. It was a nightmare locked inside a sound. Men fell to their knees around her as they clutched their heads. Blood leaked from between their fingers in slow drips that mimicked the water dripping from her fingertips.

  Eventually, she ran out of breath. A single scream had rendered everyone near her immobile as they laid upon the ground. Perhaps she had held the sound for a few moments too long.

  One of the men near her groaned but quickly silenced himself as even that small mumble was too painful to hear. She stumbled as she tried to step over one of the men towards Wolfgang.

  She had expected him to be horrified. They all were when they first saw what she could do, if they weren’t on the ground in pain. She was scared to look at him.

  Movement made her look up, and his eyes caught hers. Held. Those mismatched eyes were so difficult to read as they reached inside her soul. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, couldn’t tell what he thought of her.

  “The cemetery on Ripper Street in three days. Midnight,” he said.

  And then he disappeared.

  She blinked away the tears that made her eyes prick. There was nothing in those words to let her know if he thought her a freak. He had not given her any reason to consider herself unwelcome; in fact, he appeared to have invited her somewhere. But all she could remember were the hundreds of people who had deemed her unworthy.

  Siren. Bitch. Whore. Husband stealer. All the names that were associated with her race that had been thrown at her for her entire life. Like bullets, the words had left wounds upon her soul.

  He left. He simply left, and she felt as though something had been torn from her.

  “Lyra?” Jasper’s voice cut through the fog of her mind. His hand touched her shoulder and left a sticky residue on the leather. “We have to go.”

  “Did you see him?” She couldn’t help but ask. Maybe he was a figment of her imagination. Maybe he was a result of her mind trying to punish her.

  She looked up in time to see the angry expression upon Jasper’s face disappear.

  “Yes, I saw him. That’s no Red Blood.”

  “I don’t think so either,” she murmured as she turned to go back home to Haven.

  Chapter 5

  10 YEA
RS AGO

  Lyra walked down the streets of the Black Market as though she owned the place. In a sense, she did. Every man here wanted to be with her. They would do anything for just a smile from the Siren who had made a name for herself.

  She was only a teenager, but she had the body of a woman. More than that, she had the mind of a woman. The cocky way her mouth would quirk made men think she was older. The confident set of her shoulders and the way she stood with her breasts pushed out made her sexier than someone her age had a right to be.

  Everything known about her was an exaggerated story of the truth. Lyra was a little girl. A child. A teenager who thought she was stronger and more important than she actually was. But it was this bravado that made her so enticing to many.

  The heels she wore clicked against the cobblestone as she made her way up well worn stairs. She could feel the eyes that were watching the sway of her hips as she made her way into the building she now called home.

  Flicking her long hair, Lyra glanced over her shoulder. Her coy expression caused many of the Trolls staring at her to turn a dark green. Others tried to pretend that they hadn’t been staring at the curves of her body. Lyra knew better.

  Blowing a kiss to the crowd that was starting to form, she slipped into Red Velvet. It was a well known shop on the main street of the Black Market. There were plenty of things one could buy here. Love potions, quills that wrote in prose, bottles of bath bubbles laced with Juice. Mood enhancing magic had never been off limits for this store.

  Red Velvet was known for much more than romantic gifts. In the upper levels of the building were a grouping of women who could be “borrowed” for a price. They were not prostitutes; they were escorts. Some were accepting of more than just a night out, others were so expensive that barely anyone could afford them.

  Lyra was not one of those women. Everyone knew of the little Siren who hadn’t seen her family in years. She was young, she was lithe, and every man wanted to be seen with her on his arm.

  Thankfully, demand meant that her price was going to go up soon. At least that was what Hermon told her. He ran the establishment and had the unfortunate luck of being a Hydra. Snake scales in awkward places made him a difficult man to talk to; not to mention, he had two heads and a forked tongue that gave him a horrible lisp.

  Lyra considered him to be somewhat of a boss. He told her where to go, who to go with, and how long to be out. He also made certain that she was safe on the way home. He wasn’t a terrible boss, but he wasn’t a traditional boss either.

  She trailed her hand along the wall in waves as she walked towards his office. She could often be found tracing the same pattern on whatever her fingers could find. The movement soothed her overactive mind and frequently gave her something else to think about.

  The door to Hermon’s office was once a brilliant red. Now it was a faded peach color that looked rather sickly. He was going to have to paint it someday, but until then she would always make fun of him for it.

  “Every time I walk in here I think I’m going to get my nails done,” she said as she plopped herself down.

  He looked up from the newspaper spread wide across his table. Glasses perched on the scales that danced down the bridge of his nose. His pupils were slitted and had always unnerved her. Hermon was more animal than he was man.

  His tongue tasted the air before he spoke. “You apparently have not managed to learn how to knock.”

  “Raised in a barn. What can I tell ya?” To rub it in a little bit more, she raised her feet up onto his desk.

  With a sigh, he leaned over to shove her heels away. “Really. You’re supposed to be an adult.”

  “I am an adult. I just like to annoy you.”

  “Adults don’t annoy. Have you forgotten everything that we’ve taught you here?”

  “I never did listen in school.” She stared down at her nails, which were much more interesting than Hermon. “What do I have tonight?”

  “Did you ask the front desk?”

  “They don’t schedule appointments. You know the girls are always too interested in the mirrors you put back there.”

  Most of the girls here were Nymphs. Their kind was notoriously difficult to pull away from mirrors, almost as bad as Sirens. Lyra was the only one of her kind although she did have something akin to a cousin. Hermon was the only person in the Black Market lucky enough to have in his employ twin Mermaids.

  “You are far more trouble than you are worth,” Hermon grumbled as he pulled open a door to pull out his files. The man might be peddling escorts, but somehow he managed to keep a book that would have made a banker proud. One head tilted down to look through the drawer, while the other remained glaring at her.

  “I’m worth a lot, so I have to be trouble.”

  He grunted as he licked a thumb to start thumbing through pages. Lyra didn’t know what information he kept on all those pages, but it must have been a lot. He had to flip through at least fifteen pages before he stopped.

  “Mr. Sneep at the opera house tonight.”

  She groaned and tossed her head back against her chair. “Sneep? Again?”

  “Mr. Sneep is a very respectable businessman who has requested to pay double for your company because he enjoys you so much.”

  “He’s a pedofile wannabe who only hires me because he thinks he’s being sneaky.”

  Hermon did not seem impressed by her rant. “You knew what you were going to have to deal with the moment you walked through my doors. This is your job. It isn’t the prettiest job in the world most times, but it keeps you fed and warm.”

  “I’ve heard this rant a million times,” she grumbled.

  “If you aren’t appreciative of what we do here then you can leave. The streets of the Black Market are unlikely to suit your standards, especially with that creature inside of you. Sirens have never been well liked and never will be. I’m not doing you a favor, Lyra. I don’t give people favors. I’m offering you a job. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

  At least he never tried to guilt her into staying. Somehow, Hermon always made her feel like she was the employee he wanted. He didn’t fire her. Never even threatened to fire her because he didn’t need to. The girls had all seen what happened to the others whose customers lost interest in them.

  The less money the girls made, the less money Hermon made. He didn’t mind any particular girl dipping in popularity because there were plenty of girls he kept under his roof. But none of them were going to support the others. If one of them didn’t make enough money, the others were more likely to snatch up their clients than be a friend.

  It was a cutthroat way to live, but it beat making potions. They were all too vain for their own good. Jobs that required hard labor meant that they were going to sweat, and no pretty girl looked good sweating.

  Lyra sighed and stood up.

  “Fine. Sneep it is. Again. But I don’t want to see him anymore after this! It’s not worth the money; give him to someone else.”

  “You’ll regret that,” Hermon corrected her as he slid his glasses back up both his noses and flipped a page of the newspaper over.

  “I doubt it,” she mumbled as she walked towards her room to get ready.

  Lyra had never considered that this might be how she spent the rest of her life. She didn’t think of the future much really. There were days when she wondered what client she was going to get in a week, but that was the extent of her consideration.

  She had a small room she shared with a roommate, who was rarely there, and a few things that she called her own. She hadn’t looked back after she snuck out of her parent’s house to live here. The Black Market had called to her soul. This was a place she could truly call home.

  There were far worse things than a tiny, little Siren here. She could walk through the streets without rich people thumbing their noses at the ridiculous child that shouldn’t have been born into their ranks. In fact, most people wanted her around them.

  Sure it wasn’t good attention.
The men most likely wanted to bed her; the women probably wanted to kill her. But that was still better for Lyra than the other option.

  All she had to do was make certain that her clients were happy with her. They were predictable. Most men had never had a woman in their life as pretty as her. They never would.

  She spent hours before she went out with them preening. A orchid scented bath would be drawn, and Lyra always made certain to rub the petals into her skin so that the scent would linger throughout the night. She smelled forbidden and exotic compared to the other girls who used rose and lavender soap.

  Then she would brush her hair until it shone like oil spilled upon the ground. Makeup would be applied to her face with a hand that should have held an artist’s brush. Hermon supplied all of them with clothing that was finer than she had owned when she was just a child.

  Sneep preferred her in blue. Lyra held a light colored dress that was made out of silk up in the air. It would do for tonight. The fabric would cling to her body and show all the lovely curves that she shouldn’t have yet.

  There were certainly perks to being a Siren.

  “Lyra!” The shouts were coming from downstairs. “You’re going to be late!”

  So maybe she had somehow managed to spend a little bit more time than necessary in the bath. Sighing, she rushed through her makeup and ran through the streets to where she was supposed to meet Mr. Sneep.

  Hermon didn’t allow anyone into Red Velvet that was picking up a girl. He didn’t run a brothel, and he didn’t want men sniffing around his girls. That was what he always told them. Lyra had a feeling he simply didn’t want to deal with customers. Hermon hated people in general.

  Smoothing a hand over her head, she rounded the corner to calmly stride towards her customer of the night. She was going to have to focus so that she didn’t vomit all over the man.

  Sneep was abnormally tall, likely because he was an Ent. His arms stretched nearly to his knees, and his fingers were each longer than her hands. The prominent line of his nose was far too pointy, and his eyebrows wisped up from the corner of his brows and nearly reached his shaggy gray hair.