Silver Blood (Series of Blood Book 1), Emma Hamm [free novels txt] 📗

through a doorway. Kicking in the door had seemed the only option.

Wide eyes stared back at him. Most of them were refugees they had saved from the recent attack.

He swore and started to lose his grip on Burke’s left leg.

“Sorry. Sorry,” he muttered as he made his way through the crowd of people who were waiting for medical attention.

He winced when a man yelped after he stepped on his hand. “Sorry, mate.”

“Would you stop apologizing?” He heard the loud shout long before he saw the mop of dark hair that spun around to glare at him.

“Lyra,” he growled.

This time it was her eyes that widened as she saw Burke in his arms. “Right. No jokes. Bring him in, Jasper.”

The Red Bloods were likely more of a priority. Burke was in one of his death sleeps, the kind that he went into when he was Dream Walking. But Jasper had never seen him fall into the sleep that quickly.

“What happened to him?” Lyra asked as they brushed past the Red Bloods.

“Wren’s gone. He tried to follow her.”

“Idiot,” Lyra muttered. “Who nabbed her?”

“No idea. She stepped on a portal.”

“Both idiots!” She tossed her hands in the air and opened a door. There wasn’t a patient in this room yet, and Burke would have to take up some of the space. She hated to lose any rooms for the Red Bloods that needed medical care, though.

Somehow, this felt more important.

“Lay him down here,” she muttered. “I’ll go get Gaia.”

“Shouldn’t we just wait for him to wake up?” Jasper asked, but his gut reaction was to bring him here. Jasper knew as well as Lyra that something was wrong.

“She’ll want to know the whole story,” Lyra muttered as she disappeared.

There were so few Red Bloods that had survived this attack. His heart bled for the shell-shocked people whose blank expressions would forever be seared into his mind. They hadn’t done anything wrong other than exist.

This was the first attack among many. Those who worked for the Five were well aware of that. Malachi had something up his sleeve and now Jasper understood what it was.

The attack hadn’t been anything other than a cover up. He hadn’t cared if people died, he probably didn’t even know what his people were going to do. They just needed to cause some kind of commotion to keep the Five’s attention away from their real intent.

Wren.

That poor girl, he thought. His face twisted slightly as he looked down at Burke’s still body. They had only just gotten her to agree to help them, and now she was gone. He couldn’t imagine the fear she must have felt as she disappeared in a puff of smoke.

He should go back to the house. He should find something that would give them some kind of clue to where she was. At the very least, he might be able to salvage something that might be dear to her.

The door opened and Gaia’s heels struck the floor in hard clicks. She pressed one hand against Burke’s forehead and closed her eyes for a few moments.

“What happened?”

“Wren’s gone,” Jasper said quietly.

“So Lyra said. Now clarify.”

Jasper quickly explained the situation to Gaia, watching as her eyes narrowed the longer the story progressed. By the end, a full blown frown made her expression fearsome.

“You moved him after he went into the dreaming world?”

Jasper nodded.

Gaia sighed and rubbed her forehead. “This day just continues to get worse.”

“I couldn’t leave him there,” Jasper replied.

“No I suppose you couldn’t.” She stroked her hand across Burke’s forehead. “The problem is that he won’t be able to find his way back to his body now.”

“What?”

“A Dream Walker relies on a marker of sorts. There is no sense of distance where he is. He’s essentially traveling hundreds of miles in the blink of an eye. Without knowing where he started, Burke could be lost to us.”

A small noise made both of them look to the doorway. Lyra clapped a hand over her mouth and blushed bright red as they all turned to stare at her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make noise. That just sounds awful.”

“It would be a horrible way to die,” Gaia replied. “It will take him a much longer time to pass away. His body is conditioned to survive months without its soul.”

Jasper cleared his throat. “He’s trying to find Wren. Without him, we’ll never know where they took her.”

Gaia sighed and looked towards the ceiling. They could both see the gears in her head turning. The conclusion she reached moments later was obviously one she did not like.

“Long before the worlds merged, we swore never to involve ourselves in your lives. Anything that may affect the future must be done by one of you.” She looked severely at both Jasper and Lyra. “What I do today, neither of you will ever speak of.”

At both of their nods, she turned back towards Burke. Gaia framed Burke’s face with her hands, and a soft glowing light could be seen between her fingers. She muttered words under her breath as her eyes shifted underneath her lids.

She was looking for him. Both Jasper and Lyra felt the hairs on their arms raise as they always did when Gaia used her powers. As far as they knew, the Five had no limitations on the magical powers they could use. Gaia was proving that as she dived into the brain of a Dream Walker and followed in his footsteps.

They could hear nothing but the soft murmuring for a while until, suddenly, Gaia stopped. She was silent and still for heartbeats before Burke’s body jerked as though in pain. His legs thrashed against the table until Jasper lept forward to hold him down.

Lyra squeezed his shoulders as they both pinned him to the table. Burke moved as though someone was attempting to kill him, but Gaia did not move at all. Her hands were like claws against his skull as she held him down.

“What is she doing?” Jasper grunted.

“Apparently dragging him home,” Lyra replied and let