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

himself to change this place. The Den of Misery. His club, his shop, his blood poured into a building.

Pitch had become a household name. He was a Death Dealer, an assassin for hire, although he didn’t do most of the dirty work himself now. On top of that, he was now the most profitable Juice dealer in the city, thanks to Wren stepping down from her little post.

And her shop burning down. Pity that.

He was straying down lanes of memory that he longed to avoid. More red smoke filled his lungs and cleared his mind.

“Sorry, Rizzo. I seem to have forgotten what I was saying.” Pitch shook his head. “Oh, right. The lost love. You know I was in love once?”

There was no reply from the other side of the room. He supposed that was to be expected.

“She was the most wondrous creature I had ever seen,” Pitch continued. “Made of starlight. I swore she had no reason to look at me, but she did. I came alive because of her love when I had always been cold before her.”

He swung his legs off the couch and rested his elbows atop his knees. “And I called her many names in that time. First, I called her ‘darling’. Then, I called her ‘mine’.” He thumped his chest hard before his face wiped clean of all expression. “And then… Then, I just called her dead.”

The memories threatened to swallow him whole. Dark memories of screaming, pain, so much blood. He couldn’t control his body’s violent lurch to standing. Pacing was the only thing that could chase those memories away. Movement was good.

His unruly curls cascaded into his face. He shoved them back, swearing he’d get his hair cut. It was always getting in the damned way..

“Losing someone like that tears out your very soul. It rips you to shreds, and there’s no coming back from that. There’s no way you can smile anymore. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel, because the tunnel contains only darkness without her sunshine.” He paused to stare at Rizzo. “Are you listening to me?”

It didn’t matter. The point of therapy was to get everything out. That was better than bottling it up, wasn’t it?

He tugged at his hair. “Then, just when you think that the end is near, you meet someone else. Do you think it’s possible to fall in love like that again? To feel your soul reawaken because there’s another person who might not be able to be the sun but perhaps could be a candle?”

With one brow arched, he paused. A candle was lit on the desk before him. It cheerily flickered in the study, without a care that a very dangerous man stood before it.

Pitch couldn’t stop himself. He reached for the flame and carelessly held his finger over it. He waited until an ache bloomed before he pinched his fingers together. There was no explaining the instant ache in his chest.

Opening his fingers, he watched the rising, silvery smoke. “Rizzo, I don’t think there’s any coming back from the edge for me. I’m damned if I love her. And I’m damned if I don’t.”

The future was a dangerous thing to toy with. Of all people, Pitch knew that. Yet here he was, toying with the very fabric of time.

But Rizzo didn’t know that.

Pitch straightened so quickly his spine cracked. The golden chain he always wore around his neck swung outward as he spun towards the man tied down to a wooden chair.

The sudden burst of energy catapulted Pitch towards Rizzo. He slammed his hands into the back of the chair, tilting it back until it balanced upon two legs.

Rizzo whimpered through the duct tape covering his mouth.

“Thank you for the therapy session. Now, shall we continue with our little business?”

Pitch tore the duct tape from his mouth and reveled in the groaning pain. Red smoke curled out of Pitch’s nose as he stared down at the boy.

“Please, sir,” Rizzo begged. “I didn’t do nothing!”

“Precisely,” Pitch removed one hand from the chair and pet the teen on the head. “Grammatically speaking, that is incorrect. But it is certainly an admission of guilt. Which I accept. I understand you came in here and stole something of mine.”

“No, no I didn’t. That was me friends, but I would never—”

Pitch smashed a finger against Rizzo’s lips. “Silence. Your magical signature is all over everything, so please don’t insult my intelligence. Your friends left you here to die. They knew as well as you what I do to people who steal from me. They aren’t coming back to help you, to them, you’re already dead.”

More whimpering grated upon Pitch’s nerves. He hated it when they cried. If he was too frightened, the boy would piss himself and soil the Persian rug.

He let go of the chair, which thumped down onto all fours hard.

“Rizzo? Do you want to die?”

“No. No, sir, I don’t.” A snot bubble burst from Rizzo’s left nostril.

“Disgusting.” Pitch tsked. “Good. I’m going to tell you a little secret, Rizzo. I don’t want to kill you. This is a very nice room full of expensive things. If I kill you, I’m going to have to clean it. And I don’t like cleaning.”

He took a few steps back. “So, you have two options. The first, and the one we both find agreeable, results in you staying alive. In return, you tell me where your little friends ran off to. The second, and I hope you don’t choose this one, is that I reach into your head until I know the color of your mother’s eyes and the name of your first pet. I will find what I want to learn. And when I’m done, I will turn all your insides into liquid so that when I split open that meat sack you call skin, you will be nothing but goo.”

A dark stain spread from Rizzo’s crotch, trailing down his leg to the rug. Damnit. Pitch turned with a harsh sigh and pinched the