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

as he had thought. He did not want to consider that Bluebell had attached herself to yet another stranger. Jasper rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. He had made a fool of himself. Again.

“I apologize,” he told Ella. “This place is getting to me.”

“It gets to all of us. I don’t blame you for your anger.”

“I appreciate it nonetheless. You have been a solid rock for me to hold onto.”

When he looked towards her, there was a blinding smile upon her face.

“I am glad I was able to do at least that,” she said. “If I am lost to this world, I can go happily knowing I made yours a better place. Even for a few moments.”

The doors to their prison banged open. Jasper and Ella surged to their feet simultaneously. They stood as close to the iron bars as they could.

“Mercy...” His heart kicked back into overdrive as he watched her.

A pig-like guard dragged her down the hall, holding a fistful of her shirt in his meaty hand. He didn’t even have the kindness to hook his hands underneath her arms and hold her upright.

She hung limp in his grasp, scraping against the floor. Red rashes bloomed and blue blood streaked down the backs of her legs before his eyes. The neck of her shirt caught underneath her, and her face began to turn red.

“You’re choking her!” Jasper shouted.

The guard did not acknowledge Jasper. He lifted Mercy like a ragdoll, her limbs dangling limp and unresponsive. A wicked grin spread across his face as he threw her back into her cell. She bounced off the iron bars and hit the floor with a sickening crunch.

Jasper slammed his palms against his own bars. The guard didn’t even flinch as he turned on his heel and left. The only sound remaining in their prison was Ella’s shuddering breaths.

“Is she alive?” Ella asked. “I can’t tell.”

“I don’t know.” Jasper crouched, leaned as close to the bars as he dared, and called her name. “Mercy?”

She did not stir. He stared at her chest, hoping to see movement.

“Did he kill her?” Ella asked. “He’s never brought a body back here. She can’t be dead.”

Jasper ran a hand across his mouth. “Maybe he’s trying to send us a message.”

“It is a cruel message.”

“He is a cruel man.”

Light caught his eye. Jasper locked his gaze upon Mercy’s body and watched as the small fire lizard crawled out of Mercy’s shirt. It crawled over her hip and up onto the valley of her waist.

It looked at him. The little lizard stared straight into his soul with surprising intelligence. Things created by magic always seemed empty, their gaze void of thoughts or emotion. Yet, this lizard stared as though it recognized him. The thought was entirely overwhelming and utterly strange.

The lizard made a clicking sound and looked away. Its tongue tasted the air, red embers spurted from its mouth. A tiny spark lit upon her shirt and it took hold.

Jasper moaned as the flames grew upon her body. He had seen her create fire, but it had been controlled. Even an Elemental could be overwhelmed by its own power. Their human bodies were fragile.

“No,” he breathed, as though it were a command. The fire did not listen.

If anything, the fire intensified. It spread across her body and devoured everything in its reach. He was watching her burn. Jasper did not know if she was alive or if this was her funeral, but it was horrific all the same.

Bluebell began to moan in his mind. Incoherent sounds of distress fractured his concentration and his thoughts dissolved into panic.

Jasper furrowed his brow as the lizard stepped off her body and walked towards him. Mercy’s body began to crackle. Odd that her magic was still working. Even odder than something born of magic making eye contact with him.

It miraculously stepped between the iron bars and began to grow.

Within three steps it was larger than a dog. Six steps and it was no longer a lizard but a column of flames. Jasper slowly rose from his crouch as the flames took the shape of a man.

It stopped in front of his cell. Heat blasted his face and sweat slicked his brow. Jasper’s stomach clenched in fear, but he forced himself to stay still.

A crackling voice erupted from within the figure, his face featureless billows of fire. “Fae. Listen to my words and heed them.”

Jasper had never been so afraid. Even Bluebell cowered in his mind, her whimpering making his knees quake. But he would not back down. Not now.

“I’m listening.” His throat ached. Sparks showered from the figure, stinging Jasper’s lungs.

“The woman in that cell is important to me. Swear you will protect her.”

An oath was a powerful thing. For Fae, oaths were unbreakable. To swear his protection to this creature would be the same as binding himself to her for the rest of her life. He only had one such tie, and that was with Lyra. His family.

The words tumbled from his lips before he could catch them. “I swear it.”

Sparks rained off the fiery man like fireworks into the night. “Good. I will hold you to your words, mortal.”

The weight of Jasper’s oath settled upon his shoulders. The figure billowed left as a wind brushed past it. He turned and walked back to Mercy’s cage.

The flames slid between the iron bars as though they held no effect to the creature. It knelt beside Mercy, gently touched her jaw, and dissolved into a rain of sparks around her. The flames devouring her body grew all the more bright.

How was Jasper to protect her when she was already dead?

Her back suddenly arched, and her mouth gaped open as though she were struggling for breath. Jasper’s fists clenched, in hopes she would live or in fear, he did not know. It seemed like a thousand years before she coughed. Flames sprang from her mouth in a spray of light, and she drew in a panicked breath.

Jasper pressed himself close to the