Black Blood (Series of Blood Book 4) by Emma Hamm (scary books to read .TXT) 📕

to process. Saving the world. Finding threads of time and space. But even more than that, how much his touch comforted her.

“I would like to rest,” she told him.

“Then rest. I will stay with you until the pain passes.”

“I can’t sleep if your hand is on my head.”

“If I remove it, the pain will return.”

That was the better alternative, she realized. She couldn’t think with his hand upon her skin. He was too much. He was the overwhelming night sky, and she lay bare upon the ground.

Lydia licked her lips, but could not stand to watch the way his expression tightened. The pain was better than this. She raised an aching hand to grab his wrist.

She caught herself on a barrier between them. Smooth, warm, and slightly furred, it was startling and alien.

She traced the strange protrusion back to her own head. The small nubs of hard bone, encased in softness, and attached to her skull. They hid in her hairline, just behind his hands.

Gasping, she tried to lurch upwards, but he caught her. Pitch held her hands away from the strange new additions to her body.

“Easy,” he called to her. “Do not be afraid.”

“What are they?”

“You are growing too agitated. You will hurt yourself.”

“Tell me!” she shouted.

Her weakness was overwhelming. She did not need him to press her back toward the pillows. Her body fell limp without his assistance. Now that his hands were not upon her forehead, she felt how shattering the next episode would be.

“They are a gift,” but his voice was shaking.

“A gift?” She spat the words at him. “I’m turning into a monster!”

“They are just horns-”

“Just horns? I don’t see you with horns. I see nothing but shadows in your form, do not tell me horns are nothing! I am human!”

“Not anymore,” his voice shook with what she swore could have been pain. “Not anymore, darling. You are something much more than that.”

She wrested her wrists from his grasp. She dragged her fingers over horns nearly an inch in length. Twin peaks upon her head marked her as one of the hosts. A creature, no longer a mortal.

Lydia thought she had prepared herself to come to terms with a possession. She thought she understood what that meant. Now, she knew she was wrong.

“Get out.”

“I should wait until you are resting-”

“Get out!” Her scream echoed in her skull. “Get out! I don’t want you here! Get out!”

Sobs rattled in raw anger as his darkness fled from the room. They pulled through her body and rocked her soul. She was lost. Not in the night, not in the wilderness, but in the prison of her own body which was no longer hers.

Lydia cried herself to sleep in pain, feeling foreign in her own skin.

Pitch ran fingers through his unruly locks of hair. Every time a surge of magic caused her pain, he could feel the yank of power at his navel.

She had yet to come down.

She needed him. In a way no one had needed him in a very long time. Yet, he could not go to her. She feared him, didn’t trust him, thought he had turned her into a monster.

Why hadn’t he told her she wasn’t a monster?

Instead, he had been too factual. He had expressed no concern in the changing of her body, nor any ability to understand her turmoil. Of course she was uncomfortable. He did not remember ever having been something other than himself but she? She had been human her entire life.

The idea of horns growing upon her head was not welcome. He shook his head and closed the door to his office behind him. She would not like all the changes that were likely coming with it.

Pitch had hoped that she would take after many of the humans which had magical creatures inside of them. They had experienced very little change in their physical forms. But he had always underestimated the strength of Sil’s powers. She had already foreseen what would happen.

Sil would want to replicate herself in this human girl. Pitch snorted as his fingers danced upon the leather bound spines. Lydia would fight tooth and nail against her magic until she either lost or died. If only she would allow him near her again, then he might be able to help.

She did not want his help. Every time he walked toward the door, he could hear swears and pillows thrown with surprising force.

He could have busted through the weak wooden door and forced her to accept his help. But that would only take them steps backward, and Pitch had always moved forward with a single minded determination. Anything else felt wrong.

“And what shall I read tonight?” he murmured as his fingers trailed across his beloved books. “Perhaps XXIV?”

This was one of his favorites. Though a slim edition, the leather well worn by his fingers, it held secrets unimaginably wonderful.

A quiet thump made him still before he heard the unmistakable accompaniment of a feminine cry.

His heart stopped. She could not be hurt. She could not take the last piece of Sil he had.

Physical form gave way to shadows as he dissolved, slid underneath the door, and rushed toward the sound. His shadow pooled in the center of his home, taking form once more. He stood next to the piano and heaved in a breath as he glared up the stairwell to the highest story.

She was holding onto the banister. Her bicep was shaking with the force of keeping her body upright. Pitch could see the way her nightgown moved as her knees trembled.

Her glares might have turned him to ash if she knew her own power, he admired her for that.

She would be fine, he realized. This was not a woman who would crumble under something like magic. It would bend to her will, not the other way around.

“Where. Are. They?” Her growl was impressive for a woman incapable of standing.

“What is it you speak of?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

He lifted a single dark brow. He did know