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

for water, but he had been raised among many such creatures. Fairies dearly loved Water Sprites, Nymphs, Mermaids, and the like.

Mercy’s limp form twisted, and he beheld the most bewitching of sights. Red hair floated around her serene face. He had never once seen her so calm. Peace radiated from her as her arms floated at her sides.

He brought them both to the surface and held her head against his shoulder, finding purchase on the well worn rocks below them. The river buffeted them, but he held fast. Jasper was a stone that the river would never move. For her, he would hold the world at bay.

“You should run,” she croaked against his shoulder. Jasper felt her lips move against his damp skin. “I’m not safe to be around.”

“I will help you.”

“You can’t help me. No one can.”

He ran his hand over her head to slick back her wet hair. “That’s not true. You cannot know that for certain.”

“I may not have killed her, but I desecrated her body because I could not help myself. I didn’t know I was that far gone.”

“You have to let me help you,” he told her firmly. “Not too long ago I met with the Trinity, and they warned me about you. That I would be the one to help you.”

“Then they are just as delusional as you are. I am beyond help.”

He pushed her away just enough to stare into her eyes. “No one is beyond help. You foolish woman, look at yourself. You didn’t even think you could survive the water and now you are! Controlling your powers is just another step to learning who you are.”

Something changed in her expression. Her ombre eyes darkened until Jasper was looking at a completely different creature.

“You don’t understand. No one understands.”

She pulled away from him. Mercy slipped on algae once, her entire body dunked underneath the river. He had to fish her back out, but she struggled when he tried to reel her back into his arms.

Jasper finally snapped.

“Then tell me!” he roared. “If you want to hold it over my head that I will never understand you, fine. But you should be able to trust me, of all people!”

“Of all people?” She paused and glared at him coldly. “What do you think you are to me, Jasper?”

“I don’t think either of us have a name for it yet. But I do know that you are a fascinating woman, and I rarely find myself so interested. I had thought perhaps you would want to find out where this could go just as much as I do.”

She breathed in deep and rubbed a hand over her chest. The glow was now gone, and he worried that he had harmed Ignes. In the end, though, it was only Mercy he truly cared about.

“Jasper, I—”

“Before you lie to me again, let me beg you to tell me the truth. Just the truth, Mercy. Nothing else.”

She flinched at his words. Her arms curled around her torso as she turned and walked out of the river. His heart broke a little. She wasn’t going to let him in. And he wasn’t going to let her make that mistake again.

But, strangely enough, she stopped walking once she left the water. Mercy turned, settled herself on the pebble strewn bank, and pulled her knees to her chest.

“Okay.”

He arched a brow. “Okay?”

“I burned off a lot of your hair. I owe you that much.”

Jasper immediately reached up to find half his hair significantly shorter than the rest. “I’d say you did.”

“You already know that I’m not like you.” She gestured at him. “I’m more like Tiny and Priscilla and—” her voice cracked on the name.

“You don’t have to talk about her if you don’t want to.”

Mercy nodded. “Look, I know I’m different. I’m always going to be different. I’m immortal for god’s sake, where did you think this was going? When you’re eighty, I’ll still look exactly the same as I do now. Only I’ll be even less human and more outlandish than you can imagine.”

He shrugged as he made his own way out of the water. “I’m okay with that. We’ll figure it out as we go. Most couples have to do the same.”

“No, Jasper, I’m different. Don’t you see? I will always walk the line between wanting to love you and wanting to watch you burn. It is not a question of whether or not I might hurt you; I will. I will hurt you because I want to. Every time I look at you, I want to.”

He froze. The river lapped at his ankles as though it were trying to sooth the tumultuous thoughts that bashing around his skull. “What?”

“I want to hurt you, Jasper.” At least she didn’t look like she was proud of it. Mercy had receded, curled into a ball with a troubled expression on her face, until she was a shadow of her normal glorious self. “I’m sorry. I know you can’t understand what I mean by that, but you have to know I’m not human. Not anymore.”

“I don’t know how to take that, but we can work through it. If that is what you want, I will… I’ll figure it out.”

“And I will never be fully yours.”

The words hit him like an arrow in the chest. He lost the breath in his lungs. His fingers tingled with cold and nerves.

“Ignes and I,” she paused as though pondering whether or not she should tell him. As Jasper counted his heartbeats, she breathed through her mouth until she began again. “We’re not like you and Bluebell. We’re not like anyone else. He’s not my brother, not my friend, not just the creature that shares my head.”

“Then what is he?”

“Every time he heals my body, every lifetime that passes, he’s changing me. I am becoming less and less human constantly. The reality is that in a few hundred years, I will not have this flesh at all. And after that time…” She moaned. “Jasper, I’m going to