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

Burke turned to stare at her with a shocked expression. There was blood still dripping out of his nose, and it coated his hands in vivid blue. The cut on his forehead had already healed, but that had also managed to douse him in the thick liquid.

So he was a Blue Blood then. Wren could have guessed that from the blue of his eyes, but the blood was another way to be certain of it.

“Excuse me?”

“My door!” She burst out from behind the counter and pulled the door the rest of the way shut. “Now I have to fix it!”

“I just saved your life!”

“Rupert wouldn’t have hurt me that bad. He’s just got a stick up his ass because he lost a potential lay.” She opened the door and shut it again as though to direct his attention to the real problem. “My door, however, is a serious problem.”

“It closes and opens just fine.”

“It doesn’t light up anymore! There’s only an ‘n’ to let people know that I’m open! What am I to do now?”

“You’re really concerned about this? I’m bleeding on your floor and saved you from whatever that thing was!”

She put a hand on her hip and gave him an unimpressed look. “First of all, that’s a Satyr. It’s not that hard to tell. Second of all, you managed to scare all my customers out of the store by causing a brawl. You stepped in when I did not need you to. And now you’ve cost me money!”

He whipped his hand away from his nose to open his arms out at his sides. Blood splattered on her counter from the tips of his fingers. “Are you asking me to apologize for being a gentleman?”

“A gentleman doesn’t break things! Besides, I’m not a fainting maiden who needs someone to help her!” She stepped closer and brandished a finger in his face. “Why are you even here anyways? All you’ve done is cause a mess and stare at me!”

“I haven’t been staring!”

“You most certainly have! All night, in fact.”

He growled at her. Wren knew that she should have been scared of the fearsome man, covered in blood and clearly angry with her. Any sane person would have run at the sight of him. But those green eyes were even brighter when he was angry, and she had always been a sucker for men that argued with her.

She pushed passed him and made certain that her shoulder connected with his. If only she hadn’t been so small, she might have managed to rock him a little when she did so.

“You can leave now.”

“I’m not leaving.”

Wren spun back towards him. “Excuse me? This is my shop. Get out!”

He ran a hand down his face, only managing to slick the blood even more across his stoney features. “Can I have a towel please?”

He barely finished his sentence before a towel was tossed across the room to smack firmly against his face.

“Thank you.”

She tried very hard to ignore him as he attempted to clean himself up. But he removed his jacket while he did so and her eyes lingered a little too long on the biceps that flexed with each move. He was a perfect figure of a man who appeared to be made entirely out of marble.

Wren hated him for it. It wasn’t fair that he was so perfectly formed when she was… well, average. Her hair was somewhere between curly and straight. Freckles were dotted all over her body and her nose was too long. Her lips were too wide, and she was neither tall nor short. The slope of her forehead connected right to the tip of her nose so that her profile was decidedly unimportant. She was by no means ugly. But she wasn’t normally considered beautiful either.

She wasn’t a “classic”. She had always known that. But standing next to him suddenly made her feel inferior, and she hated that.

Therefore, she hated him.

“Look,” she started in on him. “If you’re one of M.O.M’s people, this is not how I usually run my establishment. You’re more than welcome to take a few samples of my Juices, but I made them exactly how they’re supposed to be made.”

Lie.

She continued, “And I don’t label them only because they’re perfectly organized. As you can see, there’s obviously a method to my madness.”

Another lie.

“And another thing, I’m quite certain that you’re required to let me know when you’re going to be coming in for an inspection. So I don’t think anything you’ve seen here tonight could be held against me.”

“Oh for God’s sakes, would you stop blabbering?”

Her mouth hung open as he dropped the towel to glare at her.

“Pardon?”

“You never stop talking, do you?”

She was stunned to silence, though it appeared E was not. All she could hear in her head was ringing laughter.

Burke stepped towards her and dropped the bloody towel on the counter in front of her. “I don’t work for M.O.M anymore, and I’m not here for an inspection.”

“Well then why are you here?” She was pressed against the shelves again, as though that would help her. The anger in his gaze was far more intimidating than Rupert’s had been.

“I’m here to offer you a job.”

“I have a job.”

“A better job.”

“I’m not looking for a job,” she said as she climbed over the opposite edge of the counter to get away from him. She popped her butt onto the counter and swung her legs over so that she wouldn’t flash him any glimpse of her leg. This wasn’t a free show.

If he was going to insist upon spouting random words at her that held no meaning, Wren was simply going to leave. She had work that she could be doing upstairs since it was obvious no one was going to be coming back into her shop. There were a few bolts of fabric that she could sew together to make a patchwork gauzy bit to cover up that hole.

The man would have to leave on