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

say because it is important. Listen. Learn. And heal your mind. Two hundred years is a long time to be locked up. I should know.”

“Why are you here?” she asked again.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” His mouth twisted into a wry grin as he faded back into the shadows. “If I get the timing right next time.”

And then he was gone. The shadows returned to their normal intensity, and Mercy was alone again.

Though she was brave, Mercy could not stay in this tent alone. The Dream World was so much safer, controlled by her and Ignes alone. Reality had no control at all. Only darkness. Danger. Fear.

A shiver skittered across her arms, raising gooseflesh in its wake. Fear was not an emotion she felt often, and she wanted to peer into the shadows again. Was he still there? Would she even notice if he was?

Mercy refused to take the chance. Exiting the tent, she stomped towards the bonfire. She did not hesitate to plunge her hands into the embers and drag Ignes out.

She did not register his angry cries. Her heart beat hard, her breaths rushed from her lungs, and her mind raced. Her feet flew as she fled back to her tent. Ignes continued to grumble even as she poured his flames from her palms into a bowl filled with wood chips.

“That’s rude!” he shouted. “I don’t yank you out of your bed!”

“Ignes, enough.”

“You’re always thinking of yourself—”

“Ignes, I said enough!”

Her shout seemed to give him pause. She watched the flames swirl in a mini cyclone before they grew large enough to pour like liquid onto the ground. A tug in her chest suggested he may be using her life force to give himself power. The flames grew into the form of a man before her.

He reached for her. The warmth of his hand would have destroyed anything he touched, anything other than her. Fingers that carried the heat of lava followed the angry lines of worry that marred her beauty. The slightest tingle followed his touch, suggesting he was healing any wrinkles that might have formed.

“You are afraid.” His voice had changed from the hearty crackle of a campfire to the booming grumble of a volcano.

“Someone was here.”

Great bursts of flames erupted from him. “Who?”

“I don’t know. A man made of shadows.”

“From this camp?”

“I don’t think so.”

The fire of his body continued to grow until she worried he would set the tent alight. Mercy had picked up much of her volatility from Ignes; the young Phoenix had little control over his powers, and even less over his emotions. Sometimes she could calm him, but, more often, she was unsuccessful. At least in her dreams.

She stepped forward into the heat and squinted as it blasted into her sensitive eyes. When he was worked up like this, even Mercy felt the pain of his power. He likely wasn’t aware he reached for her and immediately began healing her.

“Ignes, I’m fine. We’re fine.”

“I should have been here.” He squeezed her body. The tingle of healing danced across her skin along with the simultaneous breakdown of her human body. “I should have been with you.”

“You would have banished his darkness and frightened him away. Of that I have no doubt.” She knew how much Ignes needed his pride stroked. More than that, she understood how he felt.

She wanted to burn as well. The heat in her chest became the rumble of a volcano ready to burst. The only way to relieve the pressure was to release it. The tent would burn so prettily. The dyes in the fabric would make her flames different colors. The dry grass outside would feed her children made of death so easily.

The smallest of embers dropped from them. It landed upon the pile of blankets she was supposed to be using as a bed, and the softest curl of smoke grew. Mercy tucked her head against Ignes’s shoulder and watched it grow.

Yellow, weak, and so small, the tiny flame feasted on air and fabric. And within the tiny spark, so small it could have topped a candle, she saw her family running. She heard their screams inside her head. And in that light, she watched the Hag burn.

Gasping, she pushed herself from Ignes’s comforting arms and put the fire out with white-knuckled fists. She hated to kill it. But she could not stare into that image any longer.

“Mercy!” Ignes cried.

The flame was gone. She had crushed it. Tears did not roll down her cheeks, as she was too far gone to let them loose. It had been her child. Every flame was her child.

Mercy forced her hands open and stared down into her palms. The ache in her heart grew too great, too painful. She curled slowly into herself.

“The Shadow Man was right,” she muttered. “We can’t control ourselves.”

Ignes knelt next to her, but his knees pressing into the blankets created more flames. She crawled away from him as ragged breaths sobbed out of her chest. “Stop, stop, stop.”

“Mercy?”

“We cannot. We cannot harm them, Ignes. I will not watch them die.”

“They won’t.” He sounded confused. “We have never harmed anyone.”

“You know as well as I that is a lie. I saw it in the flames.”

She turned to him and shook her head helplessly. She did not know what to do. They were Phoenix. Born of fire and destruction. There was nothing on this earth that could stop them if they lost control.

And she did not know the meaning of control.

He shifted, pulling in the heat of his form until the fire shrank. Mercy could feel the excess power draining into her body. But, instead of making her feel invigorated, it only made her more exhausted.

Ignes continued to make himself smaller and smaller until he returned to his lizard like form. The size of a small dog, he curled himself against her knee and sighed.

“We can only do what we can,” he said.

“I understand that. But we are not in the Dream World any longer, Ignes. What we