Silver Blood (Series of Blood Book 1) by Emma Hamm (bill gates book recommendations .TXT) 📕

ever do something without the other. The body was theirs to share and not for either of them alone.

She handed the bottle to the man. His fingers slid along hers as he took it, and Wren distinctly felt the roughness of calluses that decorated his palm. She recognized the placement of them. This was a man used to fighting and one who could handle a weapon.

“That’ll be eight coins.”

The price was outrageous. Calm was one of the easiest emotions to make, and it was the cheapest one she had. It shouldn’t be sold for any more than two coins at the very highest.

He reached into his pocket without question and counted out eight sparkling coins for her.

She swallowed hard and took the money but couldn’t stop the wrinkling of her nose as she held them. Her storm grey eyes looked up to meet his gaze. “Have we met before?”

“In a manner of speaking.” The whiskey voice nearly made her shiver. She hated that.

“I don’t remember meeting you.”

“I don’t suppose you would.” He turned away from her then and wandered to one of the ripped booths.

Wren forced herself to get back to cleaning and preparing for the other customers. They would walk in at strange times and request their usuals. There were even a few surprises when some people came in for her line of odd emotions.

But her eyes kept straying towards the dark man in the corner with his dirty blonde hair and black clothing. He watched her the entire night. She could feel his eyes on her as though he was stroking her spine and shoulders.

He never once opened the bottle of Calm.

She realized in a fit of anger that he had cheated her. She had said he couldn’t stay unless he bought one of her emotions, and he did exactly that. But he wasn’t here for the Juice, instead he was here for her.

The question was why? She hadn’t done anything wrong. M.O.M. wouldn’t be sending one of her agents to investigate her, because Wren had always been the kind of person who walked the line they required. Certainly, she had a few Juices that weren’t meant to be sold, but they were in the back storage, and she hadn’t peddled any out tonight.

So the question remained. Why was this man sitting in her shop and watching her?

“Wren?”

Fingers snapped in front of her face, and she realized she had been staring into space.

She cleared her throat. “Rupert. You’re back again.”

Rupert looked as though he was going to spit fire at her. His brows were furrowed, and his already thin lips were pressed firmly together so that there was no color left in them. She glanced at his horns as he tilted his head down.

Right, this wasn’t good.

“What did you bloody well give me?” he asked.

Her brows furrowed, and she stepped back a little further from the angry Satyr. “What do you mean?”

“Euphoria? You didn’t give me Euphoria, Wren.”

“I most certainly did!” She knew every Juice that she made. It wasn’t easy to remember all of them, but she had always had a knack for it. Never once had she given someone a Juice that wasn’t exactly what she said.

That’s why she didn’t have to worry about labeling them.

He plunked the bottle down in front of her and let out a very goat like grumble. Wren stared at the white mist that was halfway gone and realized two things at the exact same moment.

First, the mist inside of that bottle was not, in fact, Euphoria. White mist could be many things. Euphoria had a distinct sparkles inside of it that looked as though some child had gone mad dumping loads of glitter into her smoke. There was another emotion that was very close to the same thing, but the sparkles were actually chunks of reflective material inside of it.

This mist did not have glitter, but reflective notes. That meant this mist wasn’t actually Euphoria at all. It was Disdain. And given the fact that Rupert was likely trying to use this mist to win a lady, Disdain was the last emotion he would have been looking for.

Second, she realized that this situation was about to escalate far beyond her own control. Rupert was a Satyr and a Demon, which meant he had very little control when he got angry.

She swallowed hard and looked at the ridges of his horns. Those were going to hurt very much when he hit her with them. It was highly unlikely that anyone was going to step in to help her. Given the situation, she deserved a little bit of a roughing up if she had made the mistake and sold the wrong emotion to the wrong person.

She was going to be in even bigger trouble if anyone let that slip out to the agents of M.O.M.

Her eyes darted around the store as though searching for an escape, but she found none. Rupert was standing next to the only exit from her current place behind the counter.

“Rupert, listen.”

“I’m not listening anymore, Wren. You gave me the wrong thing. Do you know what that cost me?”

She leaned back further and tried to make a joke. “A good lay in the hay?”

“The only lay in the hay!” he shouted at her. “That was the woman of my dreams, and I was going to win her over. And you? You gave me the wrong Juice!”

Everyone in the shop went silent as they stared at the pair who were quite clearly making a scene. This was part of the problem with being a Juice producer. Everyone got a little bit angry over the same old things.

Of course, this time it really was Wren’s fault.

She cleared her throat. “I’ll make it up to you, Rupert. You can have your pick of Juice-”

“I don’t want my pick of your Juice!” He interrupted her and leaned over the counter. His meaty hand nearly grabbed onto her skirt. “I want to make you regret your mistake.”

“I’m sure you will, Rupert. I’ll start