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

Juice. She had made them a long time ago but remembered what they were. Wren had only been a little worried that she was labeling them wrong.

“Stop questioning yourself.”

The grumpy voice in her head was even more gruff than usual.

“I’m not going to stop questioning myself,” she replied. “I messed up. I never mess up.”

“We messed up, first of all. And second of all, we won’t mess up again.”

“It’s only human to mess up, E. But we’re going to prevent it from happening next time.”

E grumbled a little bit while muttering, “You might be human. But I’m not.”

She was standing behind the counter after the last customer of the night had come in. Soon she would kick Burke out of the shop and lock the door firmly behind him.

The last order was an easier one. Depression. It was a dark and dreary thing. Dark grey pooled at the bottom of a bottle that was difficult to move. Depression was less of a liquid and more of a sludge. She still worried every time she handed someone a vial that she was giving them the wrong thing.

She wasn’t sure why the Pixie had wanted Depression. They were usually bright and happy creatures. Wren could count on one hand the amount of times she’d sold a negative emotion to one of their kind. Nevertheless, it wasn’t her business their plans for her product. She simply sold them the Juice and let it go.

The Pixie would remain in the back room for the rest of the night and would let herself out in the morning. That was the deal with emotions like this. Wren didn’t need anyone going home and taking something that dangerous. She already had a bad enough reputation with her recent Juice mix up.

She always added a touch of exhaustion with her Depression that kicked in twenty minutes into the experience. The pixie would be fast asleep for a few hours while the strongest part of Depression rode through her body. Changing the emotions was the best she could do to soften the blow for such an awful Juice. At least it would only be the pixie’s dreams that were sad.

A tsking sound echoed loudly in her head.

“You forget that we’re professionals, Wren.”

“Maybe, but even professionals make mistakes.”

“Stop worrying.”

The words were firm as though E was pressing down against her shoulders. Wren knew that it was right.

That didn’t make it any easier to agree with the statement.

A movement from the shadows had her attention snapping towards the man in the back. Burke stood slowly, stretched his arms above his head, and reached his fingers towards her ceiling.

The man really was beautiful. She caught herself on a happy little sigh and immediately turned back around. There was no place for romance in her life, especially with a man who was that dangerous. He never stopped watching her, but it wasn’t with a heated look. He focused on her as though she was a project or a puzzle he needed to figure out.

Wren hadn’t even figured herself out. She’d lay eggs if he managed to do it before her.

Burke sauntered towards her and placed a few coins on the counter. “I’m heading out for the night. You interested in that job yet?”

“Are you going to keep asking every night until I give in?” She wanted to snatch the coins but left them where they were. “You already paid me tonight.”

“I know.”

“Then you don’t owe me anything.” Only then did she push the coins back towards him. Her fingers curled at her sides.

“Call it a down payment.”

“Burke, you already paid for whatever you bought tonight; I’m not taking your money. I’m not a charity.”

He arched an eyebrow at her. “Never said you were. But there’s a hole in your ceiling, and I’m pretty sure I heard rats. Take the money and fix what you can. You’ll be making more when you take the job I’m offering you.”

“I’m not taking that job.”

“So you say.”

He turned on his heel and left the shop.

The man was completely insufferable. She placed a bottle down onto the counter so hard that the glass split in half with a harsh crack. He watched her all day, offered her a job, then left.

“Who would employ him?” she asked with a frustrated sound.

“Not me.”

“Yes, I know, Donatello, but really. Who in their right mind would employ a man like that? He’s not doing his job right if his job was to hire me. He’s not going to wear me down. He’s just being annoyingly persistent.”

She picked up the pieces of the bottle and tossed them into the trash. E was suspiciously silent after her words. It had recently decided it quite liked being male, and the husky voices in her head were starting to become annoying. Today it was a painter by the name of Donatello, though E had never touched a brush in its life.

That was the second fact she knew about the entity that inhabited her head.

“The question is why he’s so persistent.”

“I don’t want to know.”

At least, that was what she told herself. She didn’t want to know why he was hanging like a dark shadow over her. Except that she did. She wanted to know why with every fiber of her being, and that was driving her insane. Wren continued to tell herself that she didn’t care, but she couldn’t stop watching him out of the corner of her eye. She found herself thinking about his shadowed form just before she fell into the dreaming world.

She couldn’t keep it up much longer.

She made her way up the stairs to her apartment and made her way towards the farthest corner. The studio apartment had no walls, so her bathroom was simply in a corner of the room. She had hung curtains all around the clawfoot tub that had seen better days.

Plastic lined the bottom of it, because the porcelain had long ago chipped away. The feet were brass and covered in rust, but it was sturdy, and that