Black Blood (Series of Blood Book 4) by Emma Hamm (scary books to read .TXT) 📕

“I wouldn’t ask you to harm someone,” she muttered. She wasn’t sure that was true. In fact, what she was about to ask him could very well hurt someone for the rest of their lives. Lydia huffed out a breath. “It’s unconventional and I still don’t understand it.”

Pitch hesitated for a moment before he spoke. “I hope I have proved that I do not pry into your visions. I would never request you tell me them regularly as I do not believe I have the capability of reading into their true meanings. But, perhaps, it may be helpful if you tell me what you saw.”

She shook her antlers and ran a hand through her hair. “That’s the frustrating part. I’m honestly not sure. It was foggy, and the person hasn’t even been made yet. I followed her thread of life all the way to the end but everything about it was…. wrong. I don’t know how to fix it other than remake who she is.”

“What?”

“The soul that’s sharing her body is female. The person who she will become is female. But if she remains so, then terrible things will happen.”

She didn’t know how else to say it and hated every word coming out of her mouth. A person was a person in her opinion. They could be born a certain way and choose to be different later on if they so wished. It was not up to Lydia to make these decisions.

Except, in this case, it was. She was the only person capable of making this choice and guiding the future in the safest direction.

“What are you asking me to do, Lydia?” Pitch asked. “You have to be very specific.”

“It’s a girl,” she told him. “The life growing inside the mother is a girl. And it can’t be. The creature that has attached itself to the child is the right one, but the gender is not. The world will end in a way worse than I could imagine. She will enslave everyone, force them to do her bidding, bend a knee to evil.”

“Why?”

“She falls in love. Isn’t that always why people do terrible things?”

She could see the dream vividly before her. A petite Fairy, with bright wings of gossamer, staring up into the eyes of a man with questionable race. Her hand gliding up his arm and his child in her belly. The sway of his braid as she hugged him.

Lydia hadn’t thought Malachi capable of love. She hadn’t thought that he might look at a creature of light and feel so strongly, but he would. And that would be worse for the world.

Entire cities would fall at this Fairy’s feet. Malachi would lay waste to everything he could at her order. And although she would be raised by kind and caring people, although her heart was good, she would let him. Love would blind her to his faults until she eventually succumbed to the same madness that festered inside the Void.

“Lydia?” Pitch’s voice broke through the darkness of the vision.

“It’s a Fairy girl. Her mother’s name is Rosa Fairchild, they live in a small cabin at the edge of an enchanted forest. I can find more if you need it.”

“I don’t.”

“Make sure the child is a boy. That’s all you have to do.”

He hesitated again. “Are you sure of this?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

She hoped that her voice remained strong. He slid out from her back and melted into the shadows of her room. Lydia waited until she was certain he was gone and allowed the floodgates to open.

A scream flew from her lips and echoed in the bedroom. Her arms wrapped around her ribs, but she was still falling apart.

Her choice. Her end. Her decisions.

She cried for the foolish choices she had made and for the anguish she would cause. She cried for the guilt she would carry for the rest of her long life. And she cried for the girl who never existed. The girl who would have been a gentle heart, a kind mother, and a woman who aged with grace. The woman who would have caused the end of the world.

For love.

“Maybe we should give it a little more time,” Louis blurted as he rushed to catch up with her as she wheeled down the hall. “You’ve been asleep for a long time, and maybe it would be better if you let yourself rest!”

“I’ve been resting for years, Louis. I will die from resting so much.”

“Now that’s unlikely. Resting used to be a sign you were well off. Now, you slow down and I’ll get you a cup of tea. That’ll help!”

“Tea doesn’t solve everything, Louis!” Lydia shouted over her shoulder as she shoved the door to Pitch’s office open.

“Now it’s just appalling you would even suggest tea -”

She slammed the door in his face.

“That is quite enough from you,” she grumbled as she locked the door with a satisfying clunk. “I don’t need to be lectured on how to keep myself healthy, you nosy feline.”

She should appreciate him more. All Louis wanted to do was make certain she was happy and healthy. But the reality was that she was neither.

And tea certainly would not fix that.

She blew out a breath, stirring the hair in front of her face. There wasn’t time to brush it away. She had a date with a journal and expected to be immersed in a world that wasn’t this one.

Pitch hadn’t returned home in weeks. She had no idea where he was, but was certain he had forgotten about her. He was always in her room when she had nightmares, and now she was forced to deal with them herself.

Her sleep had turned to burning. The world burning from the red woman. The world disappearing until all that was left was Malachi and his particular flavor of madness. How was a girl supposed to survive that?

All she wanted was one good night of sleep. No dreams. No future. Just herself and peaceful black.

Of course,