Red Blood (Series of Blood Book 2) by Emma Hamm (best short books to read .TXT) 📕

beautiful. She lifted it as though she could smell it and tried to hide the conflict in her eyes. She should tell him that when he used magic, she also felt the repercussions of it. He didn’t know.

This spell to turn him into the Lich King sounded as though it would be far bigger than anything he had ever tried before. He should know that it would hurt her. What if it killed her?

But with the rose pressed to her lips, she chose not to tell him. He would find out sooner or later because his marks were now permanently on her body. She was a book of Blood Magic as much as he.

His people needed to be saved. Malachi needed to hear the message that they were stronger than he could ever have imagined. And without her, Wolfgang was not strong enough to deliver that message.

“We will get through this together,” she said the words but wasn’t certain she believed them.

“Together.” The rose shrunk in her hand and grew a long tailed chain. She dropped it around her head where it settled against her heart. He threaded his fingers through hers and drew her from the room filled with memories. They walked to the back of Bones’ home and helped him prepare for the moment Wolfgang would become a king.

Chapter 12

“I think that’s everything,” Bones said as he dusted his hands off on his pants.

The floor in front of them had once been clean. Now it was covered with horrible things. Blood of a rabbit, ten lizard tails, three human skulls, and the ashes of a dead man ringed in a circle. These were things Lyra had hoped she would never have to touch in her life.

Yet touch she had. Her own hands were now as chalky white from the ashes as Bones’ and Wolfgang’s. The air was hazy with dust that glittered in the dying light.

She refused to acknowledge that they were all now covered with bits and pieces of what was once a human. She would fall apart faster, and she was already holding onto her sanity by a thin thread. This was good. She kept telling herself that over and over again. This was for good reasons.

Wolfgang stood on the other side of the man sized circle. He appeared rather unaffected by the potential changes in his life. His usual stoney expression remained as still as the ocean after a storm. She would have been impressed if she wasn’t so frightened for him.

“How do we do this?” Lyra asked.

The question hung above them all. It hovered in the air and pressed down upon their shoulders. A shadow that lingered in fear that a mistake would be made.

Wolfgang gestured towards the circle. “I will need to be within the circle. Bones knows the incantation, so he will read the rites. Once that is completed, it is up to us.”

“How?”

“Whatever magic and power I have will be used to transfer my soul into another vessel. A safety container if you will. Once I no longer have a soul, the change will happen naturally,” he hesitated. “That container will be you.”

“Okay.” She swallowed hard. “That sounds easy enough. How am I going to touch you?”

His eyebrows raised. “You’ll hold onto me through the circle.”

“Won’t I also be…affected?”

“No. You are not human or not human enough for the spell to cause you to change as well.”

Her heart was hammering in her chest. She did not know whether she wanted to stop all this nonsense or run from the room. Lyra had never been terrified in her life because she had never been close to losing something she cared about.

It was still starting to realize she did actually care about this man. Perhaps she truly was growing up. She wasn’t certain she liked it.

Bones looked over the two of them carefully before he made a gruff noise. “No time like the present.”

They did not waste time on another goodbye. Lyra knew he didn’t need her blubbering over him. He needed to focus. So she told herself she was satisfied with the pat on the head he gave her as he walked past.

Wolfgang began unbuttoning his shirt and stripped it off of his thin arms. She tried not to focus on the gaunt hip bones and hollow of his stomach. She tried not to count every rib on his body and avoided staring at the sharp edge of his collarbone.

“The magic is killing him already,” Bones murmured from behind her. “Prolonging his death is cruel.”

“He’ll make it through this.”

“He might.” Bones squeezed her shoulder. “But he likely won’t. At least now you have the added comfort that he would have died soon already.”

The scars across Wolfgang’s body stretched his skin. Some scars were bright pink and others were white and aged with time. Black tattoos overlapped the wounded flesh. She had never seen so much of him before.

He was a storybook written upon a man. A story of pain and hardship that had destroyed a life many times over. It killed her to read that tale but only made her opinion of him stronger.

He left the velvet pants on his legs but toed off his shoes. Lyra compared him in her mind to a spider. All thin limbs and dangerous poison.

A shudder shook his body as soon as he stepped inside the circle.

“Wolfgang?” she asked, concerned that something might already be going wrong.

“I’m fine.” He held up a hand. “I had just forgotten what a circle of power felt like.”

Bones snorted. “Not an easy thing to forget.”

“When you live in pain, this is but a fleeting memory.”

He stooped to settle himself on the floor. Only then did he reach out for Lyra’s hand. Delicately, his hand unfurled in a request for her assistance. He did not demand or beg. He simply held his hand there and waited for her to relax.

She could love this man. For the first time in her life, Lyra thought perhaps she