Red Blood (Series of Blood Book 2)

by Emma Hamm

  “Call Jasper.” Bones nudged her. “He’ll know what to say.”

  “You remember Jasper?”

  “Hard to forget the big man.”

  Bones turned to walk away from her. She stood alone in the center of his back room where all her troubles had begun. Alone, as she had been the first time she had been brought here.

  “Bones?” Lyra called. Pitch’s words rang loud in her ears like the gong of a bell.

  “Yes?”

  “Can I break our contract?”

  “Why?”

  She smiled because she recognized the patronizing tone from countless hours of training. “I am happy in my life, and I do not wish to live here.”

  “What will you give me in return?”

  “I will visit, for a start. Holidays if you wish. And I will help with any angry girls you find on the streets who ask for impossible things.”

  She heard Bones’ snort of laughter. “Then consider the contract broken. I expect to see you soon! I did not train you so well for nothing.”

  “Wait,” she could hardly believe it. “Really?”

  He leaned against the door jam and crossed his legs at his ankles. “Why do you think I make contracts, Lyra?”

  “Wolfgang says it’s because you have an usual way of protecting people.”

  “But why do you think I do it?”

  She paused to give his words thought. She had always thought it was because he was a twisted man. Now, she was not so sure.

  Lyra found she did not have an answer. So she merely shrugged.

  “Ah,” Bones nodded. “I found you on the streets with a man who would have likely changed your life for the worse. You were weak. You were hungry. And, more than anything else, you were alone.

  “I wanted to give you a life you could be proud of. That is all I want from any of my contracts. You are one of the rare ones who found your life without me.” He chuckled and pushed himself away from the door. “If you want to break the contract you can. There’s no clause that says you can only have the happiness I provide. Congratulations, Lyra. You grew up better than I had expected.”

  With that said, he walked back up the stairs and into his home.

  The smile that stretched across her face was a quiet kind of smile. She hadn’t felt this way in a very long time. Strange that she would feel such acceptance and peace while feeling overwhelmed and lost.

  She knew why Bones had managed to reassure her. No matter what, she knew she had a home here. And though she was embarrassed to say she had hated him for a very long time, she now wondered if he was a bad man at all. She was intrigued to find out the answer to her thoughts.

  In her pocket was a very small stone that she could use to contact Jasper. He had the twin, which would heat up until he answered. They had used these two enchanted stones for nearly their entire lives to speak with each other.

  Now it felt like a weight in her pocket. She had chosen Jasper over Wolfgang, and she was certain why. She had decided to love Wolfgang. He was a selfless man who made her pretty things.

  But he was also more than that. He loved her because of her flaws, not in spite of them. She had many flaws.

  Jasper had done the same thing, and she loved Jasper. Not in the way she loved Wolfgang. Lyra found herself confused. Now that Wolfgang was this other creature, she wanted to go back to Jasper. To curl up in his brotherly arms and to tell him to hide her again.

  It was all very confusing. She couldn’t process these thoughts while trying to prepare herself for a battle they had to win.

  A battle with Malachi who frightened her more than Wolfgang. She didn’t want her friends to be injured protecting the man she loved. Or what was left of him at least.

  Her mind swirled with frantic thoughts and terrible endings. She had no control over this situation. She dearly loved control. To not have it made her feel as though she were bobbing in an ocean with no land in sight.

  For a Siren that shouldn’t have been a frightening feeling. But Lyra had never been to the sea. She didn’t know what to expect.

  Her thumb rubbed the stone. It heated against her palm as she drew it out of her pocket and whispered against its surface, “Jasper.”

  Lips pressed against the hot stone, she closed her eyes and hoped that he would come. He had been so angry at her the last time they had spoken. She knew why. She simply didn’t want to think about it.

  A slight popping noise behind her made the tension slowly drain out of her body. She kept the stone pressed against her lips even when she felt the familiar, heavy weight of his large hand. He held onto her thin shoulder for a moment before his hand fell down the length of her back.

  She had once said that he never knew his own strength. He didn’t understand that even the softest of touches from him felt commanding. Now, even this felt overwhelming.

  “You okay?” Jasper asked her.

  “No.”

  “I thought you wouldn’t be.”

  “Did you see him?” Her tone cracked at the end as a small sob escaped her mouth. Somehow just being around Jasper when she was upset always managed to make her cry.

  “Yup, we were all waiting for him at the Graveyard.” He cleared his throat. “That’s a… That’s a change.”

  “I don’t know how to deal with that.”

  “I might be biased, but I’m not sure how you deal with that either. That’s not a man anymore.”

  She whirled around. Her hair smacked against his arm like a whip as she buried herself into the heat and comfort of his chest. He automatically held her as she knew he would. She should be worried about Wolfgang. She should be finding him immediately.

  But she was afraid. Of him, of the creature he had become. Lyra was afraid of the walking grave who was no longer the man she knew.

  Brother. She kept telling herself she was safe in Jasper’s arms even as she inhaled the earthy scent of him. Brother, family, friend. Not lover.

  His hands tightened on her waist. “We can go.”

  “No, we can’t.”

  “We’ve done it before. We can sneak away, disappear to anywhere in the world you wish. We’ll go to white sand beaches where the air smells like salt water and pineapples. You’ve never seen the ocean. I can take you there.”

  “We can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” He sounded incredulous, as though she was the one talking nonsense. “Why is this different than any other situation when you and I would have run?”

  “I don’t know Jasper.” She pulled away from him then. “Maybe because the world is ending? Maybe because we have to find the people in this prophecy so that we don’t all die?”

  “Like you found him?” He spat the last word. “Like you found the most ridiculous dangerous human in the world who is supposedly going to help us? I don’t wish to find anyone like that. I don’t wish to save the world. I don’t care about the world; I care about you!”,

  The words echoed in the room. They sunk into her ears like tiny teeth until she slowly closed her eyes, so she didn’t have to see him. So she didn’t have to look into those gorgeous blue eyes and think: what could have happened?

  “You know that can’t happen,” she said.

  “Why? Why can’t it happen? Or should I say, why won’t you let it?”

  “You are my brother—”

  “I am no such thing!” He was shouting now. Angry as she had never seen him before. “I am not your brother. I am not your blood.”

  She exhaled long and low. “I know that. I do know that. It just can’t happen.”

  “Because of him?”

  “No.” She shook her head and finally met his gaze. “No even if he had never come along, you and I would never have happened. You know this as well as I, Jasper. You weren’t waiting for me to come to my senses. You were avoiding ever having to live.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

  She didn’t want to be the adult. Lyra wasn’t good at being the adult. But right now, she saw him spir
aling. She felt herself doing the same. And in the end, she had to be the bigger person.

  “I was a safety net,” she told him. “You knew me, and you knew I was outcast just like you. Loving me was safe because you never had to put yourself out there. You knew I would never love you back the way you loved me, and that was the only reason why you chose me. I was safe because I wasn’t real.”

  He appeared stunned. His eyes widened, and he stared at her as though she were a completely different person. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he finally shrugged.

  “You can’t tell me that it’s any different. You know that I am right,” Lyra told him firmly. She knew she didn’t have to convince him. She had always known what he was doing, and in some way he was aware of it as well.

  Jasper shrugged again. “You know what I am.”

  “I do know what you are. And you’ve always used that as a shield to not have to be someone.”

  “I don’t want to be someone. I want to disappear; that’s what I’m good at.”

  “And you’ve been running your entire life because of that.” She stepped towards him. “I don’t want to fight. But please do not use me as an excuse to run.”

  “You’re not safer with him than with me,” he said. His shoulders squared, and he shook himself as though preparing for battle.

  “No one would ever say that Wolfgang is a good man. No one would ever say that he would be a protector of his people, but that is exactly what he is doing. Perhaps you don’t know him as well as you think you do.”

  Jasper’s face twisted into a quizzical expression. “You’re different since meeting him.”

  “I think I’m growing up,” she answered honestly.

  At the same time, they both stuck their tongues out at each other and said, “Yuck.”

  She giggled while he laughed. In their own way, they had addressed the issues that stood between them. Lyra hoped he had heard her concerns. Jasper would need to be more outgoing without her. She wasn’t going to always be the life of the party for him.

  “Growing up sucks,” she muttered. “I don’t want to do anything other than nothing with you.”

  “I’ll miss you and your shopping trips.”

  “We can still go on them?”

  “Probably not.” Jasper shook his head.

  “Yeah. Probably not. But we’ll always be best friends, no matter what else happens. You know that right?”

  He nodded.

  “But you don’t really love me, Jasper. You love the idea of me. Putting a woman on a pedestal and thinking that she’s going to be this perfect golden thing never gets you anywhere.”

  “Enough with the talking.” He rolled his eyes. “I can’t keep hashing it out, Fish. You don’t love me. Maybe I don’t love you that way either. But it’s not something we’ll be figuring out right now.”

  “You’re right.” She nodded firmly. “Where are we going?”

  “The rest of the team is waiting with Wolfgang at the graveyard. He seemed to think that was where Malachi was going to be focusing his efforts.”

  “It’s the opening to the tunnels where everyone lives.”

  “Makes sense then.”

  “Any sign of an army yet?” Lyra asked.

  “No. We keep thinking that we’re feeling eyes on us though, so that’s something.”

  “So we don’t know what weapons we need to bring?”

  They slipped easily into this kind of conversation. They had fought with each other far too many times and knew exactly what to do. Jasper had already brought her favorite weapons. Three jagged knives were in his pack, along with all her usual choices of magic globes. He’d even packed her favorite outfit to wear while fighting.

  “Turn around,” she said while pulling at her shirt.

  He did as told and twisted to stare at the wall. “Are we going full out on this one?”

  “I think it’s about time, don’t you?”

  “Still not exactly comfortable with it.”

  He was referring to himself. Jasper had always held back in a fight because of one particular reason. Lyra let him sit on his own thoughts while she struggled into her leather outfit and quickly turned around.

  Her heels clacked against the ground as she walked towards him. He remained staring at the wall. The broad expanse of his back was turned towards her. She ran her fingers from shoulder to shoulder.

  “I think that whatever tricks we have up our sleeves, we should use.”

  She saw his head move forward and back. At least he was in agreement with her. Lyra patted him once on the shoulder but stepped back when she felt the movement under his shirt.

  He reached behind his head to pull the black cloth off. There appeared to be tattoos upon the backs of his arms and down the length of his back in two delicate looking dragonfly wings. She knew from experience that they covered from shoulder, to elbow, to nearly the backs of his knees.

  They throbbed with violet light before the black lines of the tattoos began to pull away from his skin. They weren’t really tattoos, after all. They were the softest and thinnest membrane of the last remaining set of fairy wings in this world.

  Jasper shook himself slightly as he stretched out the appendages, which were rarely used. They were nearly five feet in length and glittered as the light reflected off of them. Lyra could pick out many colors but could not name a single one that would accurately describe the kaleidoscope of movement that was his wings.

  “It’s a shame you can’t fly with them,” she said.

  “I can teleport. Why fly? It would be slower anyways.”

  She laughed as he turned towards her. “It’s not that bad you know. I don’t think anyone would make fun of you.”

  “A mountain of a man who could snap a man’s neck with one hand, who also has fairy wings?” He snorted. “I’d rather hide them.”

  “They’re so pretty though.”

  He smacked her hand out of the air when she reached out to touch them. “Don’t.”

  “I just wanted to see what they felt like.”

  When she reached out again, he smacked her hand once more. This time, he pointed a finger at her and arched a warning brow. “I warned you once already.”

  She stuck out her bottom lip. “Fine. But I’m still excited to finally try and use some of that Fairy dust.”

  “It’s not to be used as a toy!”

  “This a war.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “So I get to use it however I want, right?”

  He looked like he was ready to throttle her. But she could already see the extremely potent substance gathering at the edges of his wings. Pink and sparkly, it was right on the edges of the membranes. Fairy dust only formed when the wings were exposed to air, and he had the only set of male Fairy wings as far as anyone knew. Fairies notoriously picked female hosts, even the males.

  When it fell, Fairy dust was the worst kind of drug for magical creatures. They were instantly happier, a lot sleepier, and most would do absolutely anything anyone told them to do. Which was likely why it was banned as any sort of useable substance.

  Lyra had only managed to grab some off of him once, and boy had it made them some money. Not to mention the Minotaur they had following them around as a bodyguard for a full three days. She had so enjoyed doing that and begged him for more.

  Obviously, he had never given her any after that experience.

  His eyes narrowed on her. “You know, you never did tell me why it doesn’t affect you.”

  “Oh, that’s because any creature that deals in emotional magic can’t be affected by you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sirens, Mermaids, Incubi, Succubi, probably even Dryads. You know, the ones that could probably do the same thing that you could do.”

  Jasper stared at her. “You couldn’t sing a man to shore if you tried.”

  “Nope, terrible voice. It’s the one thing Bones refused to give back to me.” She shrugged. “Probably a smart choice.”

&nbs
p; “No kidding.”

  The corner of the room shuddered and seemed to warp in on itself. Pitch. Lyra knew it was Pitch even before the shadows started to form. She planted her hands on her hips and directed all of her pent up anger towards him.

  He stepped into the room like he owned the place and completely ignored her. That only served to make her more angry, but she had to admit he knew her. If he had indulged her for even a second, they were likely to have been there all night.

  “Are you two done mooning around? We have a battle to fight,” Pitch growled.

  “We?” Lyra wildly swung her hand around her. “Where did you even come from? Why are you here? You’re fighting now?”

  “Oh, I’m not fighting.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Her face twisted into an unimpressed look.

  “I don’t fight for you. I fight for myself. This battle has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the skeleton you just created. Nice touch by the way. Added a little definition to his eyes.”

  Now she really wanted to punch him. He had no right to talk about Wolfgang like that. He had no right to talk to her at all. But still, she couldn’t help but ask, “Did you see him?”

  “Oh yeah, all strung up for battle too. Old armor, blazing eyes.” Pitch held his hands up and pointed with his fingers from his own eyes. “Real overkill if you ask me.”

  “I’m not sure he controls that,” she muttered.

  “He controls it, sweetie.” Pitch seemed to notice Jasper’s wings at that moment and blinked a few times. “Nice wings.”

  Jasper immediately turned bright red.

  “Thanks, they’re ah…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “They’re pretty shocking.”

  Pitch smiled. He didn’t have a kind smile in him, Lyra thought. This smile was all teeth and daggers. “Yeah, shocking. Want to see mine?”

  Shadows stretched out around him. Feather light, they stretched impossibly far on either side of him until they touched each side of the wall. If she stared hard enough, she could make out the edges of these wings that seemed to alternate between jagged and soft.

  Her jaw dropped open and even Jasper seemed to flinch. The shadow wings drew back towards him and shrunk back into the mass of moving darkness that always seemed to accompany Pitch.