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

lot while you were away.” She cast Jacqueline a long stare. “And a great deal more useful lessons than the drivel they fill your heads with at Bloodline.”

Jacqueline simply rolled her eyes. Max’s top lip curled as she sat back down in her chair. She gave him a serpentine smile, lines cracking around her mouth that said she was probably a lot older than she appeared.

“And you’ve done so well until now, boy king,” Agatha taunted. “I suppose the beast females can stop following you around like bitches in heat now.”

“What the hell did you say?” the Blonde Shifter snapped. She took a single step forward before Dorian caught hold of her. For some reason, instead of directing her antagonism towards Agatha, Blonde Shifter threw me a withering death glare.

“Her gift needs to be cultivated,” Agatha announced, dismissing the shifters completely. “That kind of power against the malachim cannot be wasted.”

“She’s a murderer just like her great-grandfather!” Orin objected. “There’s no telling what she’ll do given the opportunity and resources.”

“We can have her guarded at all times,” Ivan concluded.

“She is standing right here,” I grated, only to be completely ignored.

Orin leaned forward in his chair. His sapphire wings having popped out in agitation. “So she’s to go unpunished for her crimes?”

“For now, captivity will be her punishment,” Angus said. Err, I was pretty sure captivity had been my punishment even before I’d committed any crimes. But it was nice to know they weren’t going to try and have me wiped. Not that they could with Andrei’s compulsion set in my thoughts.

Swiping a clawed hand over his face, Griff shook his head. “It’s too risky. Regardless of what she’s been accused of, she’s still human. We’re supposed to be looking afte–”

“Risky?” Agatha snorted. “What has playing it safe ever gotten you? You’ve played at civilising magic that is born in chaos. Our ranks are filled with sinister magic users who are so brainwashed by human-loving propaganda that they’re frightened of themselves.”

“Do you honestly even hear what you’re saying?” Jacqueline piped up.

“All I hear is the shrill harping of a washed-up crone who no longer serves a purpose,” Agatha needled. “Years of easy living has made you soft. I remember a time when you bathed in the blood of your enemies. Look where your brand of integration has gotten us. One Nephilim bonded to a human who has sold us out to protect only her own kind, and one alpha lion shifter obsessed with another human who by rights should have been boiled alive when she was born. Our society is in tatters. There is no balance left to uphold. Honour is dead and Raphael will follow shortly. It’s time to embrace what we truly are. That’s the only way we’ll survive.”

A tense silence descended on the room. What frightened me was that there wasn’t an immediate flurry of protest. Angus and Ivan’s brows were set in firm contemplation. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t help sneaking a look at Max’s face. His expression had turned to stone at Agatha’s assessment.

Finally, Megan slumped in her seat. “Our resources are stretched to the limit. But we’d be foolish to make desperate choices at a time like this.”

When Dorian spoke in that calm, quiet voice of his, I felt a shiver permeate my entire body. “What choice do we really have? We either beat the Hell dimension at its own game, or we become its slaves.”

I wasn’t aware that I’d sought Andrei out again until he pressed my cheek against his chest. A piece of glass lodged in my throat. Long ago, when I had stood on the portal field at Bloodline for the first time, Dorian had been there to escort me to Jacqueline’s office. I’d thrown an uncharacteristic fit when Mama and Dad had told me I’d be leaving the compound and going to school at the Academy. The stubborn set of my lips had made Dorian grin. That day, he’d crouched down in front of me, his dark skin gleaming in the sun.

“Don’t cry, Sophie,” he’d said. “I know it seems scary now, but this is freedom like you’ve never known before.”

I knew he’d been referring to my family’s captivity in the compound because of what my great-grandfather had done. Jacqueline’s invitation had represented a kind of freedom I had never dreamed of. If I could become something other than being Enock Mwape’s descendant, I was free to make my own future in the supernatural world.

Back then he’d seemed so big and strong. A pillar that had always stood against everything that could hurt me. Today, for the first time ever, I heard defeat in his voice. It scared me like nothing else could.

“I’m trying to transmute her blood,” I found myself confessing. Andrei squeezed my shoulder. Whether he was encouraging me or telling me to shut up, I wasn’t sure.

“Beg your pardon?” Megan gasped.

“Lex’s blood. I’m trying to transmute it. To turn it into an energy source.” To use my alchemy to overcome it in the hopes that I would be able to do the same to Lucifer when the time came.

At the end of the line, I’m glad it’ll be you and me. Don’t let them make you forget who you are.

That had been Lex’s message. Who was I? At the end of the day, I was Enock Mwape’s great-granddaughter. The recipient of his dangerous alchemic gift.

“That’s insanity,” Griff said. “Even Alessia wasn’t strong enough to overcome him.”

“I know. But I have to try.”

“Try how?” Megan said, her eyes widening as she answered her own question with a simple leap of logic. “We can’t condone murder for the sake of this endeavour.”

Except the looks of interest on Angus and Ivan’s face, not to mention the one of glee on Agatha’s, said that they very much condoned it.

“Perhaps it doesn’t need to come to that,” Megan said.

Agatha spoke over her. “The Dominion prison is in disarray. There are prisoners in there who would have been incarcerated for an eternity.