Red Blood (Series of Blood Book 2) by Emma Hamm (rm book recommendations .txt) 📗

“Fine,” she grumbled. “I’m not taking the boots off for this conversation.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a glass orb. There didn’t appear to be anything inside it. But somehow, the glass appeared more fragile in her hand than normal. With a bored expression on her face, she chucked the orb towards the woman behind the counter. It shattered as it touched the attendant’s smooth skin and released a cloud of glitter.

The shopkeeper froze where she stood. Her hand was raised halfway up to her mouth, and her eyes were wide open as she stared at Jasper and Lyra. She did not blink. Her chest did not rise to breathe.

“What did you do to her?” Jasper asked.

“Time’s just stopped in that corner of the store.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not repeating myself. Listen the first time.” She turned back towards the mirror so she could slowly rotate in circles.

“You should listen to your own advice. Also, it sure would be nice if I knew where you got these spells from,” Jasper grumbled. “Would you stop looking at yourself in the mirror for a few moments?”

“No.”

Lyra liked the way she looked. She wasn’t going to be modest or even try to hide the fact that she thought so. Sure, she was tiny. But she had hips for days and boobs that were perky. Not to mention that her butt was almost comically large for her size. She was a looker or at least what men called lookers these days.

Besides, there wasn’t anything wrong with appreciating the female form. It was pretty. She was pretty. And Lyra was lucky enough to own the body that she was staring at in the mirror.

Maybe it was the Siren part of her coming out. But she loved her body. No matter what her shape, size, or look had become, Lyra would have loved every inch of herself. Sirens were always proud of what they had.

“Lyra. Dammit what has gotten into you lately?”

What had gotten into her? She wasn’t any different than she usually was… Well that was a lie. She maybe had fallen off the deep end lately.

But the Black Market wasn’t a safe place for Lyra. It wasn’t a safe place for anyone but particularly not a safe place for her. She had been there before. Many times. And now she had tipped off the person who happened to literally own her soul that she was still around. Lyra had sold it a long time ago to the wrong person for the wrong price.

The weight of the old contract was heavy upon her shoulders. She worried with every breath that this was the last moment of her freedom. Anxiety made her act out. She didn’t like being worried, because life was supposed to be fun.

Her reflection in the mirror warped. It was her but not quite her. The eyes weren’t right in her head. Lyra knew for a fact that her eyes were ocean blue. Those eyes were darker. In fact, they looked like very familiar eyes, which shouldn’t be in her head.

The woman in the mirror smiled at her, but Lyra wasn’t smiling.

She flinched back and spun to look at Jasper. “Right. Sorry.”

“You okay, Fish?”

Jasper was far too protective of her. He looked like a lion and acted like one more times than not. Wearing jeans and a simple, white, button-down shirt made him seem slightly more civilized. But he was still well over six feet tall with wild, dirty blonde hair that created a mane around his chiseled features. Not to mention the full beard that was rarely trimmed.

“Silly.” Lyra stepped off of the pedestal to pat his arm. “I’m always fine. Now that prying ears can’t hear us, what do you want?”

“We need to get going. The Five aren’t going to wait for you to find the right kind of shoes.”

“The shoes are for the mission.”

“No, they aren’t,” he argued.

“Of course they are.”

“Lyra.”

“You just aren’t open minded enough to see that this is for the mission. They’re enchanted.” She raised one leg in the air to brandish her foot at him while balancing on the other. “See?”

“I see shoes that are impractical for running. I see shoes that likely aren’t enchanted at all.”

Lyra pouted. She really would need to get them tested to see if they were actually enchanted. But if they were, and she was right, then she got to rub it in his face. “At least they look good.”

“They make your legs look shorter than they already are.”

Now that was a sore spot. Lyra had a little bit of a Napoleon complex, and Jasper played that to his advantage. Ridiculous man. He thought that by saying those words he could manipulate her.

“They do not make me look short.”

“They absolutely do. They’re nearly up to your thighs and they’re supposed to be knee high boots. You look like you’re part Gnome.”

She grit her teeth. “Take that back.”

“Can’t take back the truth.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Take them off, and let’s go find the distress signal that Gaia found. If it’s not survivors from Malachi’s last attack, then we need to find out who it is. Yeah?”

Lyra was angry. She didn’t know if she was angry that he had insulted her, that he didn’t think she looked attractive, or that she felt as though her world was crashing down around her. The boots she could control. She could spend her money and get whatever she wanted. Jasper wasn’t taking that away from her, but his words turned the pedestal she had built for herself to dust.

But even without that in her life, what was she? The girl who owed more debts than she could count.

Her cheeks must have been tinged red in anger because Jasper flashed a toothy grin. He always had to push. She knew exactly what he was going to say before he even opened his big fat mouth.

“Come on, rich girl. You’ve got a hundred shoes back home.”

The shopkeeper’s world wasn’t