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

She didn’t want to remember her old life so vividly. Being a Phoenix now meant all the things she wanted to do were off limits. She would hurt someone.

Not Tiny. She didn’t think she could hurt Tiny even if she tried. It was easy to let her guard down around him. It was easy to joke, to laugh, to poke fun at.

Her heart ached. This was what she had missed for so many years. She might be a little rusty at being sociable, but it was easier with Tiny. He knew her story. He knew what she had gone through, and didn’t think less of her for it.

She would always respect him for that.

“Are the others waiting for us?” she asked.

“Of course. But we moved since the last time you sent Ignes to us.”

“Really? I liked the last spot. That was quite a pretty little place in the woods. You had even built a cabin for the others!”

“Someone found us,” Tiny said.

He never sounded angry, never grumbled, and hardly ever spoke ill of someone. But Mercy was angry for him. No one had any right to push them out of their homes. He and his band of misfits were closer to her than her own family had been. She hated to hear that they had to move because yet another person could not accept them.

“Mercy,” Tiny said with a laugh, “you’re burning me.”

She snatched her hand away from his ear and beat out the flames on her arms. Only when she had sufficiently cooled down did she reach out to rub the burn mark.

“I’m sorry, Tiny. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“You got angry again?”

“Yes,” she growled.

“I thought you were working on that?”

“I was.”

“Unsuccessfully, I take it?”

She didn’t answer that question. Instead, she stared directly ahead and watched the tops of the trees. Ignes had let her talk through the flames to these people, when he wasn’t too tired. Tiny and Mercy’s last conversation had been about her learning to control her anger at the world. He’d said she needed to be careful about who she directed that anger towards. She’d said she would direct it towards anyone who deserved it.

“Your anger is too strong a force,” he said now, the words mirroring the past. “You cannot point it in any direction and expect someone to survive it. You are not made of feathers, but of lava and pain. If you expect a person to survive your wrath, you must be careful with it.”

“I know, I know.” She kicked her feet. “But I don’t have any reason to hide what I am.”

“We all hide who we are,” Tiny said as he ducked beneath a particularly large tree. “Why do you think we all hide here? We do not want the rest of the world to see us. And we are not the only ones to do so.”

“Why are you still hiding anyways?” Mercy grumbled. “I remember your mother. She was nearly as large as you. It’s a miracle her husband managed to even get her pregnant. After all this time, you should be living in a home that was built for you. You should have children!”

He snorted. “Children?”

Mercy’s face burned beet red. “All right, maybe not a bushel of them, but at least one! Surely there’s another Giantess out there who wants a family too? Settle down. Have a farm. Maybe a couple giant pigs?”

“It is not time.”

“When is it going to be time? It’s never time, and it never will be time unless you make it!”

Tiny shook his head, and she frantically grasped his hair to avoid being unseated. “People are not yet ready. We cannot force them to accept our existence. They still want to believe that the creatures are not changing their world overly much. Let them play in their new power and not realize just how much they are going to have to accept.”

Mercy crossed her arms and hooked her toes into his armpit. “They’re going to have to accept it sometime.”

“You are young and rash. You do not understand how much they will have to accept. We do not need another witch hunt on our shoulders.”

“I’m older than you!”

“You do not act like it,” he told her as he stepped into a clearing.

Very gently, he placed Jasper on the ground. Tiny had a talent for delicacy, despite the size and impossible strength of his hands. Just watching how careful he was with Jasper warmed her heart.

Mercy huffed out a breath, but did not complain when he reached for her. His fingers wrapped around her ribs snugly. Ignes had told her that Tiny had never crushed anyone accidently. Rumor had it that other Giants had experienced difficulty in that regard.

He deposited her onto the ground next to Jasper’s limp form and then held the burning broom before Mercy. Like a mother reaching for her child, she held out her arms. Ignes jumped onto her. His flames tingled as they ran along her body. He always checked to make sure she didn’t need him.

She pet him as she spun on her heel.

“Come on, Tiny,” she said in excitement, “I want to see it for real this time.”

The Giant shook his head and raised his hands. The air in front of her shimmered and parted like a curtain at the opening of a play. And why shouldn’t it? This was the greatest performance the forest could offer.

Brightly colored tents appeared all around them. Small and compact, they housed the strange and wicked creatures that called this place home. For the first time, Mercy was going to meet them face-to-face.

One of the tent flaps lifted, and a Hag emerged. Not a human possessed by a Hag, but a true creature in the form she was meant to hold. Her back was bent nearly in half, showcasing a significant hump, and her skin was mottled gray. In place of her mouth and nose was a beak that clacked as the Hag’s eyes raised to meet hers.

“Mercy?” High pitched and