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

made Wren think that the person she currently was drowning should not be drowned. Instantly, she released the person and sunk deeper into the water. One arm curled around her chest, but the other she left free. Just in case she needed to hit them again.

Burke’s hands closed on the rim of the tub and pulled the rest of his body slowly out of the water. His elbows jutted out and the leather jacket he wore squeaked as he moved. His hair dripped fat drops of water onto her forehead as he glared down at her. Blood dripped from his nose and swirled into the bathtub with her.

“Oh,” she said quietly.

“Oh,” he repeated.

He loomed over her. She followed the strong lines of his hands clenched on the porcelain lip of her bathtub, up the bunching of leather at the strong muscles of his arms and shoulders, and into the vivid green and brown gaze of his eyes.

“I’m sorry?” The words slipped out of her lips before she caught them. Instantly, she shook her head. “Wait a minute, no I’m not!”

Water sloshed onto the floor as she shot back up. He reared back and barely avoided her forehead cracking against his again.

“What are you doing here?” she yelled at him, her hands flying to cover her body. “How did you get in here?”

Burke leaned down to grab her towel off the floor. He pressed it against his nose and Wren nearly whimpered when she saw the white fabric tainted blue with his blood. She had liked that towel quite a bit.

He snatched the vial of Comfort off of the stool and sat his weight down in its place. The stool groaned slightly, and the legs quivered. Wren was surprised. That particular piece of furniture was an antique, and she had expected it to buckle instantly. Burke was no small man.

“I’m here because you’re taking this and then trying to drown yourself!” He waved the glass vial at her.

“What?” She nearly shouted back at him. “Excuse me, I’m not trying to drown myself. I’m taking a bath!”

“After taking Depression?”

She sank deeper into the tub and massaged the headache that was blossoming at her temples. “God save me from stupid men that think they know everything. That’s not Depression.”

He swirled the vial in his hand and stared down at the remaining gray liquid. One of his brows raised in disbelief. “It’s the same thing you gave to that Pixie. So unless you’re in the habit of making mistakes now…”

Wren pressed her chest against the inner edge of the tub and her hands clenched hard at the edge as she glared at him. “I do not make mistakes like that lightly, you ridiculous man. That is Comfort, not Depression. It’s lighter gray, it floats rather than sticks to the edges of the bottle, and it doesn’t make me sad!”

She finished her rant with a shout as her fingers curled into claws. She would have liked nothing more than to wrap her hands around his neck and choke him. The man was insufferable and in her apartment without her consent.

Along that line of thought…

“You still haven’t answered how you got into my apartment,” Wren growled at him.

Burke shrugged. “Through the window.”

“Through my window. Why are you even attempting to get into my apartment through my window?”

“I saw the man there a few nights ago and figured you didn’t lock it for him.”

“That’s not an answer at all.”

“Of course it is.”

“That man was welcome at my window.” And that statement was a lie. Pitch wasn’t anymore welcome at her home than Burke, but she didn’t need to fill in the mystery man on that aspect. “You are breaking and entering.”

“I’m keeping you safe.”

“Are you watching me?” She couldn’t help but ask. His behavior hadn’t changed in the days that he had been lingering nearby. Wren had assumed that he had been solely in her store. Now, she thought it was highly likely that he was watching her all the time. How else would he have known she had taken Juice?

“Yes.”

At least he didn’t lie about it. She sunk deeper into the tub and curled her legs under her. Somehow, the position felt a little bit safer than before.

“Why?”

“Because, I’m supposed to,” he responded.

“Your thinly veiled lies are ridiculous. Who do you work for, Burke, and why the hell are you in my life?”

He took the towel away from his nose then. Wren almost felt bad about the broken angle of his nose before she remembered that he deserved it. No man had any right to sneak up on a woman in her bath, even if he did think he was going to save her life.

“Do you want to have this conversation in the tub?”

“I’m not getting out of it until you leave, that’s for sure.” He’d already gotten more than his fair share of her nudity. Wren flicked a strand of wet hair off of her shoulder and waited for him to continue.

Burke placed the towel onto his lap with a sigh. “I work for the Five.”

He paused and looked at her as though the words should mean something. Try as she might, Wren could not pull anything out of the recesses of her mind that explained what that meant. She had heard of M.O.M, she’d heard of Pitch’s followers, but she hadn’t heard of anything call the Five.

“Is that a shop?”

“No.”

“A club?”

“No.”

“A street address?”

“Wren, shut up. You really don’t know who the Five are?”

She rolled her eyes, shrugged her bony shoulders, and held her hands up in the air. She didn’t know who the Five were, nor did she really care who they were. Wren liked that her life was simple and as far away from politics as possible.

“They’re the most important magical creatures to ever exist. They were dormant for all these years until they recently took on hosts. The Five has come together to form a prophecy. There is an ancient evil that has arisen. His name was Malachi DuBreve, though no one