The Blood Alchemist (The Final Formula Series, Book 2) by Becca Andre Read Free Book Online Page A

squeezed her wrist, just above her clasped hands. “Hey, you with me?”
    “I can’t…feel anything.”
    My stomach clenched. “In your hand?” Was it nerve damage or—
    “No. I mean, the air. I can’t feel it.” She opened her eyes and her gaze locked with mine. “It’s like before, when everything was so…hazy.”
    I swallowed.
    “I lost them,” Marlowe called back over the seat. “Where to?”
    I didn’t want to take Era back to the hospital. “The clinic. Would you call the manor? Let them know what’s going on?”
    Marlowe agreed and I turned back to Era.
    “Is that okay with you?”
    “Oh God,” she whispered. “What if it comes back? I lost three months!”
    “You’ve been shot with an alchemically treated quarrel. It’s just Extinguishing Dust. It knocks out your magic, but it’ll wear off in—”
    “Addie, you’ve got to help me.” She caught my hands, her grip so tight it hurt. “You cured me before.” She leaned toward me and the fletched end of the quarrel bumped my shoulder. She gasped.
    “Just stay still,” I said. “We’ll be there in—”
    A buzzing noise drew my attention to the armrest. Era’s phone. Apprehensive, I brought it to my ear. “Hello?”
    “What have you done?” Rowan.
    “I didn’t do anything.” Maybe I did deserve his condemnation, but not for this. “James’s idiot brothers showed up at the hospital. They shot Era.”
    “What the hell was she doing there? With you?”
    “Addie, it’s getting worse.” Era’s voice cut out on a whimper.
    “Can we do this later?” I asked Rowan. “Era’s having a bad reaction to the Extinguishing Dust.”
    “Shit. Where are you?” Rowan demanded.
    I leaned to the side and saw a passing road sign. We were only a few miles from my shop. “Meet me at my place. I have an idea.”
    “Addie.” There was a warning note in his tone.
    “She’s freaking out. She thinks the loss of her magic indicates that she’s…relapsing.” I pulled in a breath. “I can do this, Rowan.”
    A pause. “Fine. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” He hung up without saying goodbye.
    I frowned at the phone. “The man really needs to work on his phone skills.”
    Era didn’t react to the quip. She squeezed her eyes closed and rolled her head from side to side against the seat back. I took her hand and turned to give Marlowe our new destination. I hoped this worked.
    Chapter
4
    I had Marlowe drop me at the front door and directed him to park in the tiny lot behind the shop. That way, he didn’t have to maintain an illusion. A limo wasn’t a common sight in this neighborhood, and at the moment, I preferred to keep a low profile. So far, I’d been failing.
    I told Era to stay in the car. The less she moved, the better. I was just here for a formula. I couldn’t do anything about the quarrel, and I didn’t dare try. Elements might heal a lot faster than the average person, but it wasn’t something I was willing to experiment with. I’d leave that to the medical professionals.
    I found Ian in the lab, sleeves rolled up and intently watching an old-fashioned copper retort. He might be a necromancer, but he had an outstanding work ethic.
    “Ran into a problem,” I said, hurrying to the rack where I kept my finished formulas—the ones I didn’t offer for sale. I gave him a quick recap. He knew about my stint at the gun shop, he just didn’t know that James was a grim.
    I selected a vial of amber liquid and returned to my workbench. It was Emil’s formula, the one he’d been selling to mundane humans, claiming it enabled them to temporarily wield magic. I didn’t know if that was true, but I knew it had a powerful effect on the magical—pun intended. But I’d need to dilute it.
    A knock on the back door startled me. I tucked Emil’s vial in my pocket before going to answer it.
    Marlowe waited on the stoop. The driver’s door and back door stood open on the limo. The rain had slacked off, though a light mist still