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

touched each other. Not for personal gratification, only to make themselves feel better.

Had she ever touched another person simply because she wanted to? With no end goal in mind, just a desire to feel skin against skin? Mercy wasn’t certain she had. Now she wondered just how much she had been missing.

She took another step away from them, hoping to give them the space they needed. Certainly this was Lyra. This was the woman who haunted Jasper’s dreams. He had a right to see her.

But Mercy’s body was rapidly failing. While the others rushed towards Jasper, she was falling. Her ankles couldn’t support her weight. She tried to adjust her balance, but then her knees buckled.

She watched as though time had slowed. A large blonde man and a woman with purple hair were already at Jasper’s side. A tall, thin man with tattoos wrapped around his throat hesitated but his back was turned to her. Three strangely beautiful people walked towards Jasper with no regard to Mercy standing a few paces away from him.

Hitting the floor would hurt, but it might be better to be asleep. At least she wouldn’t be aware of how utterly alone she was in a room full of people.

Strong arms cushioned her fall. Her butt still struck the floor, but she barely felt it as muscled arms bunched beneath her back. Her head lolled onto a shoulder that smelled strongly of ashes.

“My child.” The voice rippled through her body. Mercy shuddered in the man’s arms and opened her eyes. She recoiled at the sight of his hauntingly familiar face

The man’s features were sharp and angular. Gray hair highlighted his temples, but he remained youthful in appearance. His jaw was square and his nose aquiline. His gaze flashed yellow, then orange, then burned red.

Mercy had never been so frightened in her life.

He reached up to brush his fingers reverently through the long strands of her red hair. “My child,” he repeated. “How is it that you live?”

“I am not your child,” she croaked through lips that were turning blue.

“But you are, Phoenix. I created you.”

In that moment, she knew with all her soul who he was. Nurin. The manifestation of Fire, and indeed, the father of all Phoenix kind.

She shivered.

“Oh.” His gaze seared through her soul. “Oh, who did this to you? Who harmed you, little one?”

His hands were running over her now, stroking her body as though she were little more than a lost dog or a toy he could do with as he pleased. In a way, she was. Mercy had no idea what he was capable of. No one truly knew what the Lord of War and God of Fire could do.

Finally, his palm stopped over her heart. His eyes flashed red once more.

“An Ember? In a human?”

“My Phoenix is very intelligent.”

“Intelligent indeed,” he repeated. “But a dim Ember, and water logged. This would have killed you. But I will make it better.”

Heat poured into her. Comforting and soft, it was as though she had been wrapped in a woolen blanket and given hot chocolate. And it grew, until it was too much. She was burning. She hadn’t burned in such a long time.

She sucked in quick, shallow gasps as her body arched in his arms. All the while, his palm pressed firmly against her sternum, and his ever-changing eyes stared deeply into hers.

Strange. She hadn’t thought this was how she would die.

In a burst of heat and power, flames exploded over her arms and legs. They crawled along her body as though they had missed her. A thump in her chest made her ache even more. Ignes wanted to be let out. But she couldn’t move, couldn’t think, let alone tear open her chest to release him from his cage.

Mercy grunted when she felt Ignes roll inside her. It was like having an alien in her boy; this was a creature moving against her ribcage. Her eyes widened, and her head tilted back.

Ignes crawled out of her chest cavity, wiggled his way through her throat, and scorched her tongue as he pulled himself into the world. Immense pain made her body shake and dance on the edge of shock. Her mind wanted to splinter, but Ignes was healing it already. There was nothing she could do. Mercy was forced to remain sane, while begging for the release of darkness.

Laughter poured out of Nurin, and his arms tightened around her. His hand lingered where it should not have as the power he had given her slowly subsided.

Obviously, Ignes was not pleased that there was another touching her. He was already allowing Jasper to touch her. That was more than he had ever permitted before. She knew before he even landed on the floor that he was about to make a scene.

The Phoenix grew, larger and larger, flames billowing from him until he had reached his full height. Nurin dropped her, the pain dull compared to the trauma she had just experienced, and she rolled her head to the side. Her arm flopped onto the floor with a hand outstretched towards her Phoenix. Ignes would be able to protect her. He always had.

Though it hurt her eyes to look at him, she saw the barest hint of a man in Ignes’s flames. He was there. The creature who had been her lifelong companion, who would eventually be her mate.

She still didn’t feel anything for him. There was no stirring inside her that suggested she may be interested. Ignes had always said that would be the first sign of her fully being turned into a Phoenix.

For that, she was pleased. Mercy wanted to remain human for just a little bit longer. The pain Nurin had caused was just a hint of what a real Phoenix’s power tasted like, and she wasn’t ready yet.

The others were standing far in a corner now. The tall, thin man had his hands spread before him, projecting shimmering blue runes. Didn’t he know magic wouldn’t work on a Phoenix? Shields