Bloodring Read Online Free Page B

year’s remaining rough stock, wouldn’t remember me at all. I had released a rune of forgetting at the conclusion of each deal and come away with fabulous buys. But I’d done it fairly, so no one would have the need to search for a young witchy-woman, accusing me of haggling with unlicensed enchantment.
    While selling and trading for rough stock for the next year, I had found and purchased some exquisite cabochons I could use as is, and three charged stones from the time of the beginning of the neomages. They contained wild magic that tingled against my fingers and were likely dangerous, but I hadn’t been capable of passing them up. The seller hadn’t known what he offered and they came to me for a song.
    I had done so well that I should be having a party, singing and dancing and discharging bursts of rowdy wizardry. But as that would get me tossed out of my home, likely in bite-sized, cube-shaped pieces, I was happy to settle for a moment of quiet revelry, even if I did have to celebrate alone. Humans were such spoil-sports.
    The doorbell rang, a low-pitched chime. A slow, spiraling dread twisted through me. The bell echoed in the hollow of my loft, insistent. Evil happened when callers came after midnight. Life had taught me that early. I jerked when it chimed again and stood, too fast.
    Water surged over the rim of the tub in a tiny tsunami. Almost in slow motion I saw the power-charged water splat on the earth-made tile, swirl, and melt into the salt ring, paralyzing the protection for a moment before it broke the circle and opened a pathway. A hard tremor gripped me as power flowed back into the water around my calves. I slipped, regained my balance, and stepped from the tub to the dark tile. Force rippled up from the baked clay into me, an electric sizzle of might that actually hurt.
    â€œSweet seraph!” I swore softly. The bell rang again as I dried off, chilled and miserable. Leaving the gas logs and candles burning, I belted on a robe and slid my feet into suede slippers. I was halfway out the door when I remembered the omen of the bloodring.
    Surely not . . . Still moving fast, I raced to the back windows and pushed aside the draperies. A bloodring swirled around the full moon. I choked off a second curse. I’d never heard of a bloodring appearing twice in as many days. Only omens and portents of great significance came more than once. I paused, hands on the jambs, hanging half in, half out of the loft as icy air swirled under my robe. Reaching back inside, I grabbed the walking stick and swept the blade from its sheath, gripping the bloodstone hilt in my right hand, the guard curving over my fingers. I slipped it through the robe’s belt, angling the blade down along my robe, hiding it. Into my tight left sleeve I slid a shortsword I kept at the coat rack.
    With a swipe at the amulet set into the doorknob, I damped my neomage attributes so I’d stop glowing and ran down the stairway. It was chilled and damp, the treads creaking under my padding feet. At the foot of the stairs I found the keys to Thorn’s Gems on their ring and tightened the robe’s belt, securing the longsword at my side.
    Slowing to human speed, I ran into the display room, to the shop’s front door, silhouetted by moonlight through the glass. I flipped on a light, unlocked the door, and gripped the hidden hilt of my blade. I threw open the door, the bells overhead ringing jaunty, clashing notes. Icy air blasted in, chilling my bath-wet skin, carrying with it a scent that rocked me back a step. The unexpected smells of caramel and vanilla, a hint of brown sugar, and beneath it all something peppery, like ginger.
    My body clenched in reaction, then went slightly limp, my hold on the sword hilt lax. I looked up. Glacial eyes stared at me, the greenish blue of the ocean in spring. Shaggy red hair fell over his brow. Full lips were stern above an almost square chin, shadowed with a red-gold haze. And