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

prophecy piece. Taking her with them would likely endanger them as well.

“You can’t leave her!” Bluebell shouted. “She’s important!”

He sighed. “We have to take her. Who knows what Malachi will do with her.”

“We might regret it,” Ella said. “I hate to leave anyone in this cursed place. But she is…different.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it.” Jasper found himself nervous around Mercy. Not because he was frightened of her magic or her creature, but because there was a possessive part of him that echoed Bluebell’s words — she was so shiny.

He gritted his teeth. The day he gave into his Fairy impulses was the day he put himself down. He was a man. Men did not fall prey to pretty objects that sparkled in sunlight.

Mercy was only a few cells away, but it was closer to the door. Jasper would have to be careful. His footsteps were silent as he crept to her door and inserted the key. Shadows curled out of it, fitting perfectly into her lock. Her door swung open.

It was the second time he was close enough to really look at her. She was so tall. Her legs didn’t seem to end. Like her magic, he could tell she was physically stronger than most women. She might even stand close to his own height.

Jasper frowned. He wasn’t certain he liked that.

He stooped down beside her and tried not to let his eyes linger upon the bare skin of her legs. Two hundred years hadn’t left much hair upon her body. In fact, as he lifted her arm, he realized she had no body hair at all.

The little lizard, Ignes, poked its head out of her hair. “It’s the fire,” it lisped. “In case you’re wondering.”

“I wasn’t,” he growled.

“You were.”

Mercy stirred. She rolled towards him in her sleep, and for a moment her face was smoothed with peace. He wished she looked like this more often, it made her more approachable.

“Mercy,” he whispered, “you need to wake up quietly.”

She froze and he knew she was awake, her chest stopped moving in the deep rhythm of sleep. Yet, she kept her eyes closed.

“Quietly,” he repeated. “We’re getting out of here.”

She opened her eyes and stared up at him. “How did you get out of your cell?”

“Talent. Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“I’m teleporting us to where I found you.”

She pushed him away from her, stumbling as she forced herself to her feet. “That seems a little obvious, doesn’t it?”

“That’s the best option we’ve got. I can’t teleport us anywhere else without endangering others.”

For a moment, she looked like she was going to argue. Jasper had no question that she didn’t care if anyone else was harmed in the process of gaining her freedom. In a way, he couldn’t blame her. Being released from one prison only to be thrown into another must have been torture.

Instead of arguing, she nodded in agreement. “All right. Lead the way then, Fairy boy.”

He stepped ahead of her, leading her towards Ella. He paused only when he heard her speak in an impossibly deep voice.

“I haven’t forgotten the Fairy Dust. I will make you pay for that.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “I look forward to it.”

Now all he had to do was teleport. Easy. The women reached for his arms and held tight as he closed his eyes and concentrated. In his mind’s eye he saw the forest. The dappled light filtering through emerald leaves. The scent of earth and the feeling of dirt under his toes.

He tried many times, but they did not move.

Mercy arched a golden brow. “Are you feeling guilty for leaving the others?”

“No,” he told her.

“Ah. Then it must be a little performance anxiety.”

He gritted his teeth and glared. The woman was already getting under his skin. He might come to regret letting her out of her cell.

“If you’re coming with us, you need to keep quiet,” Jasper growled.

“That’s not a talent of mine.”

“Learn.”

Mercy shrugged a shoulder. “Don’t want to. Sorry bud, you let me out, and now you need my help.”

He pushed their hands off of his arms and suppressed a groan. He didn’t want to admit it, but he did need her help. There was something about this building that made it impossible to teleport outside of its walls. Jasper didn’t know what it was, but now he was stuck.

“How are you going to help?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you’re capable of creating a portal and getting us out of here.”

Mercy snorted. “No. I’m not that good. We’re going to do it old school.”

“Old school?”

“Yeah. I happened to be awake when they dragged me back. I remember how to get out of the building. The idiots had me in front of the windows. I’m guessing if we get far enough away from the dungeon, you can teleport us?”

“Absolutely. Malachi must have changed something. I thought could teleport out of here,” Jasper said.

“Then I can get you outside.”

Mercy looked over her shoulder, and a troubled expression crossed her face. Jasper’s stomach lurched. He wanted to help her. That expression shouldn’t ever cross her pretty, heart shaped face. More distressing was the knowledge that he needed to squash that desire.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“We can’t take them all with us.”

“Figured that.”

“They won’t want us to leave without them,” her brows furrowed. “They’re going to put up a fuss.”

“No they won’t.”

Leaving the other prisoners would be difficult. It was the practical choice, taking them would make leaving impossible. Though the other prisoners longed for freedom just as much as Jasper, this was every man for himself. The thought didn’t settle well.

Mercy looked so strange standing before him. She stood in the darkness with nothing on but an oversized man’s shirt, yet she looked calm and confident.

Her ombre eyes pierced his soul as she caught his gaze.

“You’re right. They won’t.”

Her hands began to glow. First it was just sparks at the tips of her fingers and soon flames crawled up her legs. The prisoners who could stand were quickly on their feet