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

18

She almost ripped my arm out of its socket when I tried to stop her as she bolted from the room. Ironically, it was Noah who caught her and held her. At least for a second. She pushed at his chest, the unexpected move unbalancing him.

If I did that, he wouldn’t have budged an inch. But Cassie was half Amazon, and he went flying into the wall.

“Get off me!” A glow of buttercup yellow beat off her skin in increasing intensity.

“Cassandra!” Jacqueline screamed. “Get a hold of yourself right now, young lady!”

Cassie’s whole body went rigid. Her back arched and the muscles on her shoulders bunched as she took heaving breaths.

Unsure what was happening but unable to stand seeing her so heartbroken, I stepped towards her. “Don’t, Sophie!” Jacqueline called out.

Pushing the urgency in Jacqueline’s voice aside, I kept walking until I was right next to the teen. I wasn’t stupid, though. The protection circle closed around me just as I raised a hand and held onto Cassie’s wrist.

“Cass,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

She turned her head away, her body wracked with sobs. The last time I’d seen her was during Kai and Chanelle’s bonding ceremony. She’d been a fireball of anger and hurt all night. Kai was unflappable, the Angelical Lex used on him making him a shell that didn’t understand the pain his bonding would cause.

“Cass?”

She shuddered. “Please go away.”

Hell no. I didn’t care about everyone else despising me, but not her. The throb of this new magic inside her grew more insistent. When it brushed up against me, it felt like a thousand little needles jabbing my skin. I yelped, and it made Charles begin to growl. Inside, the mating link quivered as though trying to determine if this thing was a threat of some kind. When it stilled, I pressed forward.

“Sophie,” Charles said, his voice threatening. “You have to come back here.”

“I don’t have to do anything!” I snapped, not sure why I was suddenly annoyed. “Cassie!” I grabbed her arm for real this time and turned her around to face me. “I’m having a really hard time at the moment with all this change. The shifters hate me because of something I had to do to save my best friend. Everyone else is scared of me. And that’s all fine. I get that. But I can’t stand the thought of you not wanting to be around me too.”

In my head, the other words spilled out. I’m sorry. It’s my fault Kai is gone. It’s my fault I’m too chicken to tell anyone because the truth was that I don’t want them to hate me even more. And in the furthest depths of the mating link, I knew there was a part of me that couldn’t fathom the way Max’s opinion of me might change when he found out it was my fault Kai was gone.

Her baby-blue eyes widened. They filled with tears as her face crumpled. “Hate you?” she said with confusion.

Tentatively, she looked down at where I was touching her. I felt a suction sensation and heard the howl of a phantom wind before the light around her died to a muted shade. Cassie’s legs buckled under her. Charles caught her before she hit the floor even though I was a hair away from her and hadn’t even realised what was happening. She buried her head in his shoulder and bawled.

“What’s going on?” I whispered, even though they could all hear me clearly.

Charles just shook his head. “Cass,” he said, his tone gentler than I’d ever heard it.

She shook against him. “I was so awful to her...” she wailed.

It took me a moment before I realised why she was so upset. Kneeing down beside them, I rubbed her lower back.

“She understood,” I said. “Everything that happened before she disappeared, she knew it wasn’t real.” Cassie’s sobbing grew louder. “Deep down she knows you love her.”

Still shaking uncontrollably, she managed to ease away from Charles. Her head bowed. “I told her that I was angry at her. I made her feel bad about it when she was going to die for us. And now she’s–”

Her head dropped into her hands as she choked not so silently on her anguish. For a time, I just sat there petting her shoulder. Charles was like a boulder beside her. The heat at my back was Luther crouching low, unsure how to fix things, even though he somehow thought it was his cross to bear.

Lex would hate this. She’d hate knowing that she was leaving the kids behind broken and hurting. And yet she had done it anyway. For them. For all of us. Just like that, I fisted my hand on her shoulder and tapped it once.

“Okay,” I said. “That’s about enough of that.”

Over her head, Charles grimaced at me. Cassie sniffed grotesquely. Man, she was an ugly crier. For someone so pretty, she made a face like a gargoyle when she was upset.

“Come on,” I said, tugging at her arm. “Get up and splash some water on your face. No more crying and feeling sorry for yourself.”

Now Charles was making cut-it-out gestures at me. Cassie swiped at her face. “I’m not feeling sorry for myself.”

I kept my tone neutral. “Of course you are. You feel terrible because you made a mistake. Believe me, I know all about that. But she’s not dead. And when she comes back, do you want her to feel like her sacrifice has been for nothing? Even if she had died, she would want us to go on. She’d want to know that she gave us a chance and we took it. So, come on.” I held out my hand to her. For a second, bleary eyes passed over the pink of my palm like a scanner and then she reached out and took it.

Standing, she was at least a head taller than me now. So very different to the shy little girl who had once not been able to stand up