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

smoke trail out his nose. The billows of red looked as though he was bleeding.

She rolled her eyes.

“Pitch, really. Do I have to ask?”

The bright flash of teeth in the darkness proved her right.

“For God’s sake, Pitch. What’s the news?”

“I’ve got a new product coming out soon.”

“Oh really.” She yanked a pillow towards her to get more comfortable and sighed. “Are you going to make me ask this time or were you planning to tell me?”

“We’ve found a way to put the emotions into pills. We’re going to start bottling and selling those.”

Wren wrinkled her nose at him. “The entire point of Juice is that it’s not a pill.”

“But if it’s a pill, we can sell many of them that give the same result without having to have vials for each treatment.”

“Oh they’re treatments now?” Wren shook her head. “Juice is meant to be a recreational activity not something that’s medication. Pitch, you know this. It’s in our contract with M.O.M.”

“The pills won’t last as long, and they’ll be more expensive, but they’re going out on the market, Wren. I didn’t want you to be blindsided.” He blew out another smoke ring, though she imagined this one had edges that were a little spiked.

“You haven’t run this past M.O.M. Have you.” It wasn’t a question. Wren knew that he hadn’t. Pitch always pushed a little too hard at the government, and that was going to get him hanged.

He didn’t say anything in response.

“Pitch, you know how dangerous that is.”

“We’re so far out from them; they’ll have no idea what hit them until everyone wants some.”

“You don’t have enough people working for you to do this, Pitch. Do you even understand the amount of memories that would be required to mass produce something as simple as Happiness? Let alone others!”

“Do I not?” He looked at her again, and she watched as his eyes slowly changed entirely to black. She always thought that his eyes changed differently than others. It was as though someone had dropped ink directly into the center of his pupil and the darkness spread to swallow everything in its path.

“Pitch…” She started to chide him but stopped herself. Wren didn’t have any control over this man, nor did she want to. Pitch was as uncontrollable as a hurricane and just as deadly. Instead, she shrugged.

“Just wanted you to be in on the loop, little bird.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I’ll call you what I want.” He grinned at her as he started to get up.

Wren couldn’t help herself. She leaned out her window and snatched ahold of his wrist. He froze as though she had broken some unspoken rule. In a way, she guessed she had. Wren had never seen anyone touch Pitch.

He stared down at her hand with such intensity that she worried he was going to rip it off of him. But when he reached down to touch her, it was with infinite care as he gently took hold of her wrist and pushed it away from him.

“Just be careful,” she murmured as she pulled her hand back. Her skin felt hot where he had touched her arm. Not the kind of warm tingles when she was attracted to someone but the lingering burn after she had touched a hot pan. She could feel the imprints of his fingers against her skin and refused to look down to see if red marks were welted against her freckled skin.

“I always am,” he said quietly.

Wren always had questions for Pitch. He was a dangerous man with an agenda she didn’t have time to consider. But there was a question that burned in her head as he turned to leave once more.

“Pitch?”

He paused but did not look back at her. His gaze remained trained upon the crumbling sidewalk outside her building.

“Have you ever heard of a Dream Walker named Burke?”

“I heard he paid you a visit.” Wren watched as the muscles of Pitch’s shoulders rolled. “The name used to send shockwaves whenever it was mentioned. People were afraid of him. I can’t say I’ve heard anything recently, though. He left M.O.M., and as far as I know, has been making his rounds. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.” Pitch paused. “But if he stepped in when you needed him to, then he can’t be as bad as the rumors say.”

Wren didn’t watch as he hopped down from her fire escape, but she could hear the solid thump as his boots hit the pavement two stories below.

She wasn’t sure if Pitch taking Burke’s side was a good or bad thing. Most likely, it was both.

“What is it with today?” she muttered as she fell back against her nest of pillows.

“Technically, it’s yesterday and today.”

“With the sass? Really?”

“Can’t help it, love.”

“Yes, you can.” Wren pressed the pillow firmly against her face and let out an angry shout. Whatever drain her life was traveling down had better end in a treasure trove and not a gutter or she would be very angry.

CHAPTER 3

He came back every night. Burke became a dark shadow that never seemed to disappear in the corner of her shop. She opened up, and he was at the door waiting for her. He would buy a different happy emotion every night, and every night, he would give it away to someone else.

But he abided by the rule she had set. A person had to buy something to be in her shop. He even continued to pay her ridiculously high prices that only got higher and higher every night. Wren was trying to scare him away, and yet, he never seemed to step far away from her. She didn’t know if he was watching her because he didn’t trust her or if he was worried someone else would attack her.

No one would. Her customers started trickling slowly back in and apologized for being gone. They all trusted her, even more so now that she had placed labels onto her vials.

Most of them were old