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

around them for their next getaway spot. He could only accurately teleport to a place he had been or had seen before. “Who?”

“Malachi. Why is he ruining my life?”

There was something in her voice that made Jasper stop surveying the carnage around them to look down at her. “Get your head in the game, Lyra. I need you here and sharp.”

“Oh, I’m sharp. And I’m pissed.”

She growled as she pushed herself up. Forget fighting dirty. Forget being on a team. Forget everything that the Five insisted they fight with.

There was no honor here when the enemy were people who fought with the man who had taken Wolfgang from her. Lyra was going to fight the way Bones had taught her to fight. Dirty.

“Lyra!” Jasper’s shout echoed, but it did not stop her.

A Satyr ran towards her. His eyes were wild with anger and fire. She did not hesitate. Her hands reached for the serrated knives strapped to her thigh, and she twisted into him. His horns would have locked around her throat if his head had still been attached.

Her hair twirled with her as she spun on her heels. A Centaur rushed towards her. The female was strong, but she did not expect the magical orb that shattered against her forehead. Blood blinded her, and acidic magic burned through her skin.

She fell to her knees screaming before she ever reached Lyra.

Yet another rushed towards her, then another and more until Lyra could not count the people she was slowly cutting through. Eventually her anger waned, and she grew bored with the opposition.

Killing had its place.

These people sided with Malachi because they were afraid. They thought he would bring about the rise of their kind or their people. They thought he understood them and wanted them happy.

They would feel her pain. She tilted her head back and screamed long and loud. Water trickled from her ears. Liquid dripped down her fingertips and sizzled as it hit the burning ground.

All around her dropped to their knees. As she slowly closed her mouth, she surveyed the wide circle around her and curled her lip. Weak. His army was weak.

Electricity danced upon her skin, and she slowly turned her blood splattered cheek. She knew who it was long before he walked into her sight. The Lich King.

He stood upon a mound of a fresh grave. His armor was made of moonlight and his crown of the ocean’s deepest abyss. Unnatural eyes stared into hers as he slowly raised his hands.

Malachi thought that numbers would win in a battle. His army existed of fresh meat who had not been trained. They fought with brute strength and fervent adoration of a false god.

Dead men and women crawled from their graves around her. Wolfgang’s army was imbued with his strength, his knowledge, and his anger. Skeletons and rotting corpses shambled towards the front line of Malachi’s men. Lyra was deeply pleased that for once in this Malachi’s existence, he would learn what it meant to fail.

Her eyes found Burke and Wren as they stood back to back in the center of the chaos. Burke’s sword flashed so fast in the light she could barely see it. Wren’s hands were raised and smoke poured from her palms.

She had gotten very good at controlling and creating Juice on a whim. She no longer needed E to create for her. As a combined mind, they were deadly.

Creatures fell at their feet but continued to rush towards them. They were the first fighter’s that the great rush of Malachi’s army met. Some surged past them towards the meager amount of fighter’s Wolfgang had brought up from the depths.

The rest were likely hiding underground. They would wait until silence made their ears bleed. Only then would they attempt to rise from their safe homes and hope that their leader had saved them.

She could see down the long streets that led to the graveyard. They were filled with a mass of bodies. Malachi had more people in his army than she had ever imagined.

They had been so wrong. They thought he would have a difficult time finding people who would wish to kill Red Bloods. When in reality, he apparently had not found it difficult at all.

“Lyra.” The slowly murmured word echoed across the graves. His voice was distorted but imprinted upon her soul.

Wolfgang was calling to her.

He was a snake charmer, and she was the snake. Lyra was helpless to stop herself from walking towards him. The fire parted in front of her at his bidding. Any who tried to engage her in battle were held in place as hands rose from the ground to pull them into the soft earth.

She walked towards him as in a dream. Never in her life had she thought that the man she loved would be a monster. Now she knew what a real monster was.

His skeletal hand rose for her to take. She knew what he wanted. More power. More pain. Always, always more. A tear trickled down her cheek as her hand rose to hold onto the glass like bones.

“Lyra, don’t!” Jasper’s shout paused her hand just above Wolfgang’s. “We can fight them off; we have enough!”

She looked towards him as her eyes sparkled with tears. “I can’t take any more death.”

“Lyra, you don’t know what he’s capable of doing!”

“No, I don’t.” But she could still see people dying. Wolfgang’s ever loyal people, who feared him more than ever, were dying next to the graves of their loved ones. No one should ever have to die in such a way. “But I can stop this now.”

Her hand slapped down onto Wolfgang’s palm. She stared up into eyes that were the same color and felt herself falling off a cliff towards roiling waves.

“Lyra.” Wolfgang’s words were a cool wind against her heated skin. “Give me power.”

His arm wrapped around her waist and bent her backwards. The tie in her hair snapped as she fell limp in his arms. Her hair was a waterfall of darkness