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

least wish to meet her. It has a certain flavor that I have not felt before in any creature since our awakening.”

Burke growled. “What did I just tell you, Aether?”

“Absolutely not.” Aether laughed. “It’s like cracking open a melon and finding grapes inside. Your mind is thrilling, Dream Walker.”

Gaia waved her hand and silence fell once more. “Aether. A taste please.”

Burke watched in fascination as Aether exhaled. She blew white smoke out of her mouth that danced towards Gaia. It hovered in front of the blonde’s face until she inhaled. Burke knew that the white was a memory that had recently been watched from his own mind and transported to another person.

“Ah.” Gaia nodded after a few moments. “That is curious indeed. Perhaps we should meet this creature.”

“She will not come. I have asked. I have told her about you. She is not interested.”

“My question for you, Burke, is why you asked?”

The silence in the room was broken only by the sound of Burke swallowing.

Gaia continued. “This is more important than her life. This is more important than all of our lives. I cannot stress this enough. Whether she wishes to come here or not is irrelevant. It is not her choice. She will come here. And she will help us.”

“You don’t know her, Gaia. She will not help us if it isn’t her decision. The creature inside her will not help you.”

Gaia waved a hand as though she was dismissing his words. Burke didn’t know what the Five thought they were doing, but they were going to mess this up entirely. They had to be careful with Wren. She was headstrong and far too confident for her own good.

Not to mention that E wouldn’t want anything to do with this council. It had already expressed how much it distrusted the Five. They were going to blow this opportunity for the only person that could fill this part of the prophecy.

And there was nothing he could do.

Burke opened his mouth to argue once more but paused when a light tone spoke inside his head.

“Don’t talk, Burke. Just listen. You must put your trust in us at some point.”

He glanced over to Aether, who was picking at the skin around her fingernails. Her rapt attention was unusual. Her gaze always cut into him even when the others weren’t looking. He wondered if she thought she was being sneaky.

“I’m always sneaky. Look, Burke. She’ll come in, and we’ll talk with her creature. I have a feeling I know who this one is from a very long time ago. I’ll do what I can and so will the others. It wouldn’t be a prophecy if it wasn’t going to come true.”

Burke snorted. Prophecies didn’t come true all the time. People were foolish and made the wrong decisions or a butterfly flapped its wings in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Send Lyra and Jasper to find her. They will return her here without complaint.”

“Please don’t.” It was his last chance, but Burke had to attempt to step in. No matter what the warning had been. “Please, let me try once more before you scare her off.”

Gaia leveled a stern gaze upon him. “Lyra and Jasper are just as capable at their jobs as you are. Perhaps even more so than you, now that you have made your flaws so painfully obvious. You will provide them with all the necessary information to find this Wren.”

His jaw tightened, and his teeth ground together.

“Don’t think to argue with me on this, or I will have Aether pull the information out herself. You will return underground to find the rest of the candidates. At least three of them, Burke. No less than that.”

He bowed and stepped away to leave. It wasn’t the worst sort of punishment that Gaia could have come up with. Though he hated being in that stone room in the bowels of the earth, it was better than what would have happened during his time with M.O.M.

“And Burke?”

Silence was her response as he crushed the doorknob within his hand.

“Do not come back up until you have found them. A few days without food or water should remind you why you work for us.”

There was the punishment he was expecting. He sighed and turned the knob. If he moved out of the room a little too fast, it wasn’t because he was frightened. No, it was because he wanted to turn around and rage at them once more.

Wren wasn’t his. She wasn’t anyone’s, but he couldn’t help feeling responsible for this.

CHAPTER 5

He didn’t come back the next day. Or the next few days after that. Wren lost count of how many times she opened her door and expected him to be there waiting for her.

This was an odd feeling. As a rule, Wren liked to be alone. She spent most of her time avoiding other people actively unless they were going to put coins in her hand. But she had grown used to the surly man who had darkened the doorway of her shop every evening.

She hadn’t thought Burke had been serious. He had disappeared from her life just as he said he would. But no one had come to replace him.

The night following the party at Pitch’s warehouse, her thoughts remained scattered. E had the capability to hide her memories from her. It had never used that power before, and she did not remember what happened in the alleyway. She tried to justify E’s actions by telling herself that the memories were too dark for her to see or that she wouldn’t want to see them.

Eventually, it wore upon her that she didn’t know. Wren disliked that there was a blank space in her mind where a memory should be. She didn’t like that she didn’t know what had happened with her body.

One night later, she had asked E to reveal to her what had happened.

In vivid colors, she saw the face of Malachi once more. She saw the distorted eyes