Bloodline Alchemy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 6) - Lan Chan (libby ebook reader txt) 📗

pack link and the eagerness of the shifters in the room to do just that. They would never forget the attacks on the Reserve, and they were sick of being backed into a corner.

“You’re out of your mind,” Orin said.

Angus seemed to think otherwise. Or maybe he was just sick of listening to Orin whine. I knew I was. “Have you got something in mind?” He was looking at me when he asked it. The voice that answered came from the direction of the door.

“I believe I have exactly what you’re looking for,” Professor McKenna said. My heart fluttered to life as Professor McKenna marched into the room with Jacqueline by her side.

The professor scanned the room until she found me. Her smile made me want to leap up and run towards her. Instead, I squeezed Max’s hand and he leaned over and kissed my temple, feeling my elation through the mating link.

As she drew closer to the middle of the room, I noticed that she wore a vial of red blood around her neck. She’d had something similar on the night of Kai and Chanelle’s bonding ceremony too.

As she reached the centre, Professor McKenna held it up. “Malachi’s blood. Even while he was incapacitated by the Angelical, he had the foresight to give me this.”

She found me again in the crowd and my heart started beating again. Kai’s blood. Professor McKenna nodded at me. For six months I had been trying everything I possibly could to summon Kai. Now that I knew Apollyon had his body, the blood would at least give us a chance of bringing that part of him home.

All of a sudden, it had made absolute sense why the malachim had attacked Professor McKenna and why Haniel had possessed her. Another malachim might have killed her and then we wouldn’t have this key to bringing him back.

An ominous feeling slid over me. Like the first gut instinct of a prey animal that something was wrong, even though its senses weren’t picking up danger. When I glanced up, Giselle had me deadlocked in her eyes.

So, you brought us back to catch a Nephilim monster, she said in my head.

I winced. I didn’t know why but her speaking directly in my mind made me feel exposed. In the mating link, Max’s lion snarled.

I gritted my teeth and thought back, I brought you back to do your duty.

And what duty is that?

To save the monsters from themselves.

It did not bode well that she smiled at me with all her teeth showing.

48

Despite Giselle’s disdain of all things supernatural, there was something to be said about their efficiency. Once the meeting was disbanded, all the factions got to work right away making preparations. Max hung back at the door. He grabbed me around the nape of my neck in a hold that was infuriatingly possessive.

“Stick to Giselle like glue,” he ordered me. “Don’t you dare run off and do something stupid.”

I slapped at his hand. “I’ll be inside Seraphina until you see me again! What do you imagine happening?”

When he kissed me, all of the things he imagined came floating up between us. Nightmarish scenarios in which I would be snatched away from him. It was a wonder he even had the presence of mind to leave with Durin to make preparations for the safety of the Reserve. Walter had suggested that Max should stay behind to take the briefing with the Nephilim and almost got his face ripped off by Durin, Dorian, and Max.

“I’ll be careful,” I said when he pulled away.

He didn’t say a word, because we both knew if he thought on it too hard, he’d never leave. When I turned around, the Evil Three and Basil were giving me strange looks. Theirs ranged from disgusted to almost wishful. His was thoroughly unimpressed.

“I spent all my time trying to keep one boy off Lex, and now you turn around and get yourself mated to another,” Basil snarked at me.

I stepped up to join him and he slung an arm around my shoulders. “He’s not so bad,” I said.

Basil made a very undignified sound. “We’ll see.”

We were being rounded up into the team that would perform the summoning spell. All of the high- and low-magic users were in the room, along with some of the elemental Fae. The Evil Three made a beeline for Isla.

“Go,” Basil said. He pushed me at them, both of us suddenly a bit sad that Lex wasn’t here.

Unsurprisingly, Professor Mortimer was in charge. “You all understand the objective, don’t you?”

Eugenia opened her mouth, but Cordelia elbowed her. It gave the professor enough time to move on without Eugenia’s smart comment derailing the conversation. She pouted like a child whose toy had been taken away.

“Professor McKenna will perform the actual summoning spell with Malachi’s blood. The rest of us will produce our own summonings to disperse and distract from the flow of magic. We’ll split into groups. Those of us who are better versed in words of light will be prepared should Apollyon be possessing Kai at the time.

“The Sisterhood will be ready with a soul circle to contain Kai’s physical body as soon as he emerges. Possessed or not, he will be in a murderous rage.”

Giselle clicked her tongue. “And what do we do with Prince Charming after we’ve caught him? We can’t hold the soul gate forever.”

“If we survive this,” Eugenia muttered. It said a lot that nobody actually contradicted her.

“The Council will make a decision about that once we’ve secured him.”

“We’re going to have to assume that Apollyon isn’t going to go easy,” Basil piped up. “He’s a lesser order of angel, but he was still a celestial being once upon a time. What do we do if the combined strength of our words of light won’t remove him?”

Professor Mortimer looked towards me. He swallowed as though finding it difficult to come up with the words. “I can try transmuting Lex’s blood to give us a power boost,” I said. “But