Bloodline Diplomacy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 3) - Lan Chan (thriller books to read .txt) 📗

effect on everything associated with food. Sprinkling the salt on the floor, I walked around in a wide circle as I spoke an incantation and drew the sleep circle. I tapped my foot on the point of the star I had imagined and the circle hummed in blue. Satisfied, I brushed salt grains off my pants and crawled into bed. The ritual was soothing. It had always been. But no amount of salt could dampen the fear that suddenly had hold of me. If it was true that my blood somehow belonged to Lucifer, it meant that he had gotten a pretty big chunk of it. Even if he wasn’t able to escape at the moment, there was every possibility that he would in future. And I couldn’t even warn anyone he was coming.

11

I tried to drag in a breath but something crashed against my nose and mouth. Saltwater. Icy cold and stinging in its intensity. It smashed into my body from all directions. Something dragged me into the depth of the water. I cried out, but as soon as my mouth opened, I was assailed by the salt and seaweed stench. My eyes darted around me as I tried to kick at whatever had hold of my ankle. The light in the sky that had been above me faded as the darkened water engulfed me. My chest thumped with the strain of lack of oxygen.

I thrashed and kicked up, but it was no use. My arms were plastered to my side. The only light now came from the twining of purple threads that bound me. I tried to reach for the reserves of power inside me, but the purple leeched it away.

Something touched my cheek. When I turned, ice crystals formed in the water before my eyes. It numbed my skin. I was mesmerised by the solidifying water. It ate up my surroundings until I was no longer able to move.

Something bright dropped down beside me. It was a beacon of light in an otherwise oppressive gloom. The water didn’t so much as part but peel away from his form. It shoved at me instead, increasing the pressure all around. The figure that had dropped into the water spun in slow motion. Even in the midst of drowning, I recoiled from Lucifer’s touch. He was a speck of sunlight in a dark cavern. I knew better than to fall for the sympathetic look on his face. Like I was a wild animal he was trying to rescue. He reached out a hand to me. His perfect mouth formed words that I couldn’t decipher in my current state.

The sympathy turned into rage. Even in his fury, he was no less beautiful or terrifying. His icy blue eyes stared through me like they were peeling my soul open. Once more he tried to latch on to me, but the thing holding my ankle dragged me back. Lucifer’s mouth opened in a silent scream of frustration. My lungs filled with water. The thumping of my pulse in my brain had grown weak. I was drowning.

The gasping breath I took as I bolted awake in my bed had the mattress shuddering. My hand splayed on the wall, trying to find something solid to anchor myself in this reality. The weight on my chest refused to lighten. I dragged in oxygen. In my mind, I could still smell the salt air and the fishy tang of seaweed. Blue light hummed in the circles on the floor. That too reminded me of the bioluminescent lights under the ocean. For the first time ever, I cringed away from it.

“What the hell?” I said to cut the sound of my ragged breathing. The room felt oppressive. I sat there for who knows how long trying to get my heart rate to slow. Normally when I had nightmares they tended to fade as I waited them out.

Jacqueline had told me on my first day at Bloodline Academy that the human mind had a great capacity to filter out or suppress information in order to survive. My brain obviously had a death wish because it wasn’t doing any of those things right now. I could still feel the chill of the icy water kissing my skin. Despite breathing normally again, my breath was shallow. I couldn’t seem to take in enough air.

Worst of all, when I blinked, all I could see were Lucifer’s eyes peering back at me. His face was twisted up in an expression of sheer frustration. I’d witnessed his wrath before. That wasn’t what had my insides in a knot. It was the fact that he appeared to be trying to help me. As I’d sunk deeper, it looked to me like he was trying to pull me out of the water. But that couldn’t be right.

He was the Morning Star. The being who had brought about all of this chaos in the first place. Was this the source of my deathly fear of saltwater? I shook my head. Surely not. I’d been afraid of the ocean all my life. It occurred to me that during our initial trials, the board had decided to use my fear of rodents over my fear of the water in order to test me. Did they know how I would react or did they not detect it?

My mind swirled with unwanted thoughts for too long. It took me a while to calm down enough that the blue lights on the floor faded. It was only then that it clicked that Sophie wasn’t in her bed. Glancing at the light of the moon, I judged it to be around one in the morning. I’d gone to bed at a time for senior citizens. Now I’d never get back to sleep.

Not for lack of trying. After another hour, I gave up and dressed in sweats. Unsure where I wanted to go, I stalked out of the building. As soon as I set foot outside, a figure materialised beside me. Not really.