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

He was not an actual Firedrake, but he had always longed to be one.

“You are frightened of him because he makes you uncomfortable,” he said. “That does not make him dangerous to us.”

“I don’t like these feelings. I am off-balance. Nervous. It is strange and not something I enjoy.”

“And is it any wonder? Truly, Mercy, you have been locked away for two hundred years with just me inside your head. Sometimes not even me, when I wander. You haven’t spoken to anyone else in a very long time.”

She clenched her fists. It did not help. She only succeeded in clutching the fires harder, forcing them blue and then white.

The power inside of her wanted to unleash itself. She wanted to burn everything to the ground, starting with the bars that surrounded her physical body.

Her cage would melt so easily. Mercy was nearly drunk with the thought of molten iron dripping onto the ground like so many candles. Then she would be free to burn the rest of this wretched world.

They dared to lock her up, to take her from one prison and slam her into another? Already the magic was building inside her. All she needed to do was give it life. To allow it to drift away from her body and find new power in everything around her. Fire was so easy to feed.

“Mercy.” Ignes stared down at her with disappointment on his draconic face. “You cannot.”

“And why not?” she asked. “Why shouldn’t I punish them for harming us?”

“You have not been harmed overly much.”

“Yet even in the dream I can feel the burn of iron all around us. Why should I not listen to them scream and cry out for help?”

“There are innocents here.”

She scoffed at him. “The Fairy? The Unicorn? They will die eventually, whether it is by my hand or another’s. They should prefer the death I can give them. It would be quick.”

“This is not you,” Ignes told her firmly. “You are not cruel. You are not rash.”

“I am frightened.”

The words cut through her dream form like a sword, spilling lava from the open wounds to drip at her feet.

“Why?” he asked.

“There is much I could be used for. Any person powerful enough to control me could bring about the end of the world.” A brimstone tear trailed down her cheek. “If they wished, they could ask me to wipe this world clean. They could ask you to do the same and we are Pheonix. We cannot say no to an order which is truthful. And if they give us reasons, then they will give us good, solid reasons. We will not stop.”

“Do you think this Fairy will ask us to cleanse the world?”

The question gave her pause. She rolled the question in her mind, smoothing the rough edges into a pearl of truth. Finally, she answered, “No. I do not believe he will ask it of us.”

“Then we shall form an alliance with him.”

“How?”

Ignes drifted around her, the flames fanned ever higher by the beating of his wings. Air was just as sufficient as tinder in this world. “We will bind ourselves to him.”

“I will have no man as a master!”

“You need one right now. You are vulnerable and barely awake. As you said, there is worry that we will be used at a terrible cost. Pride will only further endanger us. Ownership does not have to be a collar.”

She took a deep breath. “It seems as though we may be rushing this plan. I will not accept him as master without knowing him first.”

“Then we should get to know him.”

She sank to the ground. Her elbow settled back on her knee, and her chin on her fist. She had not thought she would prefer the Dream World to the real world. She had wasted so much time wishing for the real world, when she knew first hand how cruel it could be. This Dream World was hers to control.

Though she missed the green, Mercy loved this place of destruction and ruin. She was made of flame now, just as much as Ignes. There were no others like her.

“Ignes?” she asked.

“Yes, my Mercy?”

“Do you miss them?”

“Who?”

“Your family.”

She knew it was a difficult question for him to answer. Ignes had been alone for a very long time before the dimensions collided. He had existed in a far-off place that held no other creatures but himself. Drifting deep within the core of earth, floating through rivers of lava, always searching for another like himself.

“Yes. Every day.” He traveled through the flames, shrinking as he neared.

She felt every scale of his body as he wrapped his wings and tail around her. His form grew smaller and smaller until he was once more a lizard holding tight to her shoulder.

“And then I found you,” he said. “Now I am no longer lonely. Though I think of them every day, their memory does not sputter or cool. It burns bright and strong.”

Mercy smiled. “Then I shall endeavor to remember the same of my bloodthirsty family.”

He lifted his blunt head. “You’re thinking of them?”

“Being awake is different than being asleep. I’m seeing a place that I don’t control, and it reminds me of them, of how we left things.”

“Do you miss them?”

“No. I wish I did, but after one’s family burns them alive, that fades. I have you. Family is not just blood.”

Ignes had said the words many times to her over the years. He whispered it into her ears when they’d first combined. He had shouted it to the wind when they were imprisoned. She would always think of him when she thought of family. Not those who were her blood relatives.

“Yes.” The word was drawn out with a long ‘S’ sound as his forked tongue licked the air. “Family is not just blood. It is flames, fire, and ruin.”

She chuckled. “Maybe not ruin.”

“Certainly, ruin. There are none other than your family who can harm you.”

“Are you certain of that? What if we run into a Hippocampus?”

Ignes dug his