Red Blood (Series of Blood Book 2) by Emma Hamm (best short books to read .TXT) 📕

liked and never will be. I’m not doing you a favor, Lyra. I don’t give people favors. I’m offering you a job. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

At least he never tried to guilt her into staying. Somehow, Hermon always made her feel like she was the employee he wanted. He didn’t fire her. Never even threatened to fire her because he didn’t need to. The girls had all seen what happened to the others whose customers lost interest in them.

The less money the girls made, the less money Hermon made. He didn’t mind any particular girl dipping in popularity because there were plenty of girls he kept under his roof. But none of them were going to support the others. If one of them didn’t make enough money, the others were more likely to snatch up their clients than be a friend.

It was a cutthroat way to live, but it beat making potions. They were all too vain for their own good. Jobs that required hard labor meant that they were going to sweat, and no pretty girl looked good sweating.

Lyra sighed and stood up.

“Fine. Sneep it is. Again. But I don’t want to see him anymore after this! It’s not worth the money; give him to someone else.”

“You’ll regret that,” Hermon corrected her as he slid his glasses back up both his noses and flipped a page of the newspaper over.

“I doubt it,” she mumbled as she walked towards her room to get ready.

Lyra had never considered that this might be how she spent the rest of her life. She didn’t think of the future much really. There were days when she wondered what client she was going to get in a week, but that was the extent of her consideration.

She had a small room she shared with a roommate, who was rarely there, and a few things that she called her own. She hadn’t looked back after she snuck out of her parent’s house to live here. The Black Market had called to her soul. This was a place she could truly call home.

There were far worse things than a tiny, little Siren here. She could walk through the streets without rich people thumbing their noses at the ridiculous child that shouldn’t have been born into their ranks. In fact, most people wanted her around them.

Sure it wasn’t good attention. The men most likely wanted to bed her; the women probably wanted to kill her. But that was still better for Lyra than the other option.

All she had to do was make certain that her clients were happy with her. They were predictable. Most men had never had a woman in their life as pretty as her. They never would.

She spent hours before she went out with them preening. A orchid scented bath would be drawn, and Lyra always made certain to rub the petals into her skin so that the scent would linger throughout the night. She smelled forbidden and exotic compared to the other girls who used rose and lavender soap.

Then she would brush her hair until it shone like oil spilled upon the ground. Makeup would be applied to her face with a hand that should have held an artist’s brush. Hermon supplied all of them with clothing that was finer than she had owned when she was just a child.

Sneep preferred her in blue. Lyra held a light colored dress that was made out of silk up in the air. It would do for tonight. The fabric would cling to her body and show all the lovely curves that she shouldn’t have yet.

There were certainly perks to being a Siren.

“Lyra!” The shouts were coming from downstairs. “You’re going to be late!”

So maybe she had somehow managed to spend a little bit more time than necessary in the bath. Sighing, she rushed through her makeup and ran through the streets to where she was supposed to meet Mr. Sneep.

Hermon didn’t allow anyone into Red Velvet that was picking up a girl. He didn’t run a brothel, and he didn’t want men sniffing around his girls. That was what he always told them. Lyra had a feeling he simply didn’t want to deal with customers. Hermon hated people in general.

Smoothing a hand over her head, she rounded the corner to calmly stride towards her customer of the night. She was going to have to focus so that she didn’t vomit all over the man.

Sneep was abnormally tall, likely because he was an Ent. His arms stretched nearly to his knees, and his fingers were each longer than her hands. The prominent line of his nose was far too pointy, and his eyebrows wisped up from the corner of his brows and nearly reached his shaggy gray hair.

He wasn’t a good looking man. He had never been a good looking man in his life. But good looking men didn’t have to buy women to pay attention to them for the night.

She sighed when she saw the smile on his face. She should have considered it kind that he always smiled whenever he saw her. But that slow slide of lip against teeth always made her shiver. He wasn’t a good man. Never mind the looks, he simply wasn’t good.

“You look beautiful,” he murmured as his eyes lingered far too long on her hips.

“I know.” She smiled at him and held out her hand. Lyra was going to really have to turn on her acting skills tonight. She simply didn’t have the patience for Sneep anymore.

His hand grasped hers as he held onto her tightly. Lyra grit her teeth as she reminded herself that this was the last night. She would pass him off to another woman. At this point, it wasn’t a matter of money. It was a matter of keeping her sanity.

True to form, Sneep took her to an opera. The man liked to think he was high class and that he had a lot of money. Obviously he didn’t know she had lived this life for