Blue Blood (Series of Blood Book 3) by Emma Hamm (books to read this summer .txt) 📕

of the half hidden truths and secrets. Puzzles had never been his strength, and he held no interest in this chess game Malachi played. He suddenly understood very clearly how much of a pawn he truly was.

Footsteps crunched through the forest. Jasper looked to his left to see the Dragon returning  with a bright red welt across his cheek.

Eyes glowing with anger, the Dragon nodded, but said nothing. The Wisp barely acknowledged he had returned. Instead, she turned into a ghostly version of herself, glowing with an internal light as she drifted away through the trees.

Jasper assumed that no other information was going to be shared. Not now that the Dragon had shown back up. Still, he had more questions.

“What happened to your Hellhound buddy?” he asked as they leapt over a fallen tree.

“Doesn’t matter,” the Dragon responded with a jerk of his shoulder as he avoided a low hanging branch.

“Four person team down to three, sounds like it might matter.”

“Keep your mouth shut, Fairy.”

The response was not ideal. Jasper had hoped that this mission might be a little bit easier with a Hellhound on their side. They weren’t the kindest of creatures, but they did have a nasty bite.

He had known this wouldn’t be easy. Collecting anything so hidden was bound to result in some kind of battle. Now it had just gotten significantly more difficult.

The Wisp shouted ahead. The two men slowed to a halt as they listened for her voice once more. Jasper couldn’t remember when she had disappeared from his sight. Although, he mused, perhaps that would have been difficult anyway. Her ghostly glowing outline could be impossible to see in the forest.

“Here!” she called.

Jasper met the Dragon’s gaze and exchanged a nod. They carefully made their way towards her. There was something off about the way her voice sounded. Jasper didn’t want to stumble into a trap or find themselves face to face with a mimicking creature.

He brushed aside a giant frond and gaped at the sight it revealed. The Wisp stood at the base of what he could only describe as a trove of treasure. Long tendrils of necklaces speckled with gemstones snaked through the mounds of gold and gold coins spilled out onto the forest floor like confetti.

“What?” Jasper whispered as he stepped forward. “What is this?”

“A distraction,” the Wisp replied angrily. “Another test.”

“We’re being tested? I thought this was a prison, not a schoolyard.”

She did not reply. Instead, her eyes locked on the Dragon. Jasper’s brows furrowed as he too turned to look at the creature standing unsteadily next to him.

The Dragon stepped forward once, twice, then fell to his knees before the mountains of gold. He dug his hands into the coins and let them flow from his fingers like water, shaking before the mountains of wealth.

There was no end to the gold. Jasper moved to find an end to hoard, but all he could see was endless sparkle and riches. Even the bases of the trees were dripping with molten metal as though the sap was dripping gold.

Prison indeed. He’d never seen a prison like this before.

“We need to go around this,” he said.

“We can’t,” the Wisp hoarsely responded. “I tried. Every time I walk away from this place, I end up right where I am standing.”

“So we have to go through.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” She nodded towards the Dragon. “This is…his weakness.”

“We’re being toyed with.”

“In a sense.” The Wisp wrung her hands. “The forest knows what will stop us. It does not want us to get to its heart.”

“The Hellhound?” he asked.

“Hellhounds are not naturally made creatures. They are particularly susceptible to earthen powers and sleeping potions. They like to dream more than they like to be alive.”

“Must be why they’re so angry all the time.”

She scoffed. “Possibly.”

He glanced at her, and rubbed his hand over his overgrown beard. “And your weakness?”

She swallowed audibly and  watched the Dragon scoop handfuls of gold over his body. He was lost to them.

Despite being unsettled, Jasper was curious. As all good Fairies would be. Two strange happenings in a row were too many.

“Bluebell?” he asked.

“Yes?” She stirred in the back of his mind.

“What are we going to be up against next? Any ideas?”

“Wisps are sheltered creatures. They are dangerous only when they are able to glow.”

It wasn’t particularly clear information, but it was something to work with. He let out a slow breath. “Let’s go then.”

“I suppose we must.” The Wisp sighed, gesturing for him to move forward.

“I’m going first? I thought you were the brave one,” he joked.

Humor was the only way he was going to calm the butterflies in his stomach caused by fear and apprehension. He wanted a cool head now. It was difficult for him to admit that he had any weaknesses to begin with.

The gold clinked merrily underneath his feet as he crossed the plethora of wealth. There were stunning works of art everywhere he looked. An amulet glowing with bright pink light, a crown crafted for a forest king with tangled vines curving around the edges, endless gemstones and coins rolling as though a monster hid beneath their feet.

“Don’t touch anything,” the Wisp warned.

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Really? Fairies are just as susceptible to riches as the rest of us.”

“I’m already wealthy in my life.” And he meant it. Jasper had no great desire for gold or gems. He only had need of those he loved in his life to be in his arms once more.

The sooner this was over, the happier he would be.

As they made their way through the maze of gold, Jasper heard the Dragon’s overjoyed shouts. Jasper could not make out what the other man was saying. To him, it was all meaningless gibberish.

“Perhaps it’s better that way,” Bluebell said. “That way, we don’t know how happy he is and what we passed up.”

He agreed with her. The forest offered a kind of happiness, but it was empty and without substance. The Hellhound would forever sleep in a