The Blood Reader

The Blood Reader Chapter 4

Fingers snapped in front of my face. Blue fingers at that. I blinked rapidly to focus on where I was.

A hand repeatedly patted my cheek until I couldn't ignore it any longer.

"Wakey, wakey," a stranger said. The high-pitched tone bounced off the walls and inside the confines of my aching head.

"Huh? What?" I flinched, recoiling from the sight of the woman. Every part of her was blue. From the top of her poofy short hair to the tips of her long pointed fingernails. Her skin. Her teeth as she smiled. Even the sleeveless sheath dress she wore had a cobalt tinge.

"Ahh. There she is. Hello, Astra."

The moment I sat upright, she placed a pair of glasses on her face. Tinted dark, they kept me from reading her eyes. Probably for the best—for her.

I bolted from the chair to stand. Three of the four walls of the chilly room were pale pink floor to ceiling glass, all covered with some heavy brown draping on the outside. The floor, individual granite stones joined and pieced together like a puzzle, reverberated the loud tap of the woman's heels every time she stepped.

"Where am I? Why am I here?" More importantly, where were Idal and Killian?

The woman smirked and snapped her fingers again, twice. Two men, easily the size of trees stepped from the shadows and restrained me by the shoulders once I lunged, rather unsteadily toward the open doorway. Identical appearances of bleached skin, white robes, and shaved heads only meant one thing. They were Azeeds, part of the slave army in the Traon realm. That at least answered the where I was, but not the why.

"You're fine, dear. Safe as it is." The blue woman sidestepped and fanned her hand in a backward direction. Doing so allowed for another answer to a different question. "You've just had a rough go of it. Isn't that right, Killian?"

Both Killian and my mother had their arms and legs bound with some rope to a set of wooden chairs beside each other. Killian was at least conscious. He struggled and thrashed against his confines and the cloth shoved in his mouth that kept him from yelling. His angry dark green eyes locked with mine, and I concentrated on reading them to understand what all had happened when the woman blocked my view once again.

Did she know what I was attempting to do?

Before I lost my chance, my gaze cut to my mother. Her long blond hair curtained her head as it hung low to her chest. I was suddenly aware of her body shuddering and the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. She was alive. But not by much.

A wave of anger hit me. My hands fisted as every part of me wanted to fight. To hurt our captors the way they had hurt us. The rage compounded to the point that I swore steam emitted from my ears. Indeed, my reddening face served as a well enough warning and prompted the blue woman to react.

After a quick succession of four snaps, an equal number of Azeeds marched into the room. They split and flanked both Idal and Killian. One of the men holding me dug his nails into my bicep and shoved me back into the chair.

"Ow!" I winced and rubbed the throbbing pain away from my upper arm.

"Rozzo! No!" The woman stormed forward and splayed her open palm on the side of his head. "We do not hurt our guest here."

Apparently, that rule didn't apply to Idal or Killian.

With her constant touch, Rozzo's eyes, already a milky white with no visible iris whatsoever, morphed in colors. From a muted yellow to a blood red, violet to indigo then settling to a pitch black, the man's lifeless form dropped to the ground.