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

the nature of the shifters to murder innocent people in their beds. They challenged each other to brutal, often fatal combat, but they did it in plain view.

“We have the body,” Rachel said. “We have eye witnesses.” At this point I failed to mention I was one of them.

“You can have whatever you like,” Orin said. “That doesn’t change anything.”

“Perhaps we should table this for a later when we’ve all had sufficient time to digest the news,” Jacqueline said.

“Perhaps you should keep your opinions to yourself, headmistress,” Scott Goodall said. He was the Nephilim who had taken over the Council role from Artemis. “Too many of these incidences have occurred under your watch. The board and the parents are beginning to think a change in leadership might be in order.”

To her credit, Jacqueline didn’t react. I bristled enough for the both of us. But it was Kai’s voice that sliced through the room. “If the board or the parents have something to say then it’s news to me,” he said. “In the meantime, if you threaten my grandmother again, your line will need another new Councillor.”

Rachel coughed beside me. I leaned under her arm. For a second, she tensed before she allowed me to become a crutch. “I’m going to kill you when this is over,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Doubt I’ll be alive for that,” she shot back.

“Both of you have committed capital crimes,” Megan Clarke said. Unlike the others, she didn’t seem to relish the words.

“I didn’t do anything!” I whined.

“You attacked fellow students on Academy grounds, Alessia.”

I opened my mouth and then shut it again. Technically it was true. But surely they had to give me a pass for this. Rachel began to laugh. It caused my whole body to vibrate.

“So Alessia tries to get in the middle of a fight and you’ll punish her. But my mother was ripped apart by vampires and it was an ‘accident.’” She made air quotes around the word accident.

“That was an actual accident,” Victoria said.

“I don’t care,” Rachel screamed. Frustrated tears leaked out of her eyes. “How many accidents are you going to allow? How many humans have to be woken in the middle of the night to find their loved ones murdered?”

I wrapped my arms around her, but she was too tall for me to provide much comfort. I heard Peter shuffle in his seat but he didn’t approach. Thank goodness. She was in a very precarious emotional state.

“This is ridiculous,” Orin said. “We’re being held to ransom by two low-magic witches. We’re on the brink of a war. They need to be detained.”

“You don’t have jurisdiction to detain me,” Rachel snarled. “I’m not part of your messed-up society.”

“It’s not usually the practice,” Jonah Rhee said. The mage was technically in charge of the Dominion Prison. “We don’t have any contingencies inside the prison for humans.”

“That’s because they never should have been here,” Orin said.

“But we are now,” Nora said. “If what Rachel says is true, we could have an assassin on our hands.”

“We already have assassins in our midst!” Orin shouted. Why was he looking at me? I didn’t even do anything. And there it was again. That laugh that I could live a lifetime without ever hearing again. Lucifer chuckled.

They’re so tiny, aren’t they? he thought to me. Constantly bickering over a little scrap of power. Ask them where they have me contained. Ask them where my artefacts are.

My mouth opened. I bit the inside of my lips. Alessia, ask them.

I made an incoherent whinging sound as though I were a rabbit stuck in a barbed-wire fence. The command was compelling. I would have complied if a spark of orange light didn’t ignite in the wall beside us. A portal opened up in mere seconds. The same amount of time it took for Kai to teleport from his seat in the gallery to right in front of me.

Basil appeared through the portal. “My apologies,” he said. “I have a prior appointment with Alessia.” He shot a beam of pure orange into Kai’s chest that rocked Kai across the room. Grabbing Rachel, I leaped through the portal. The last thing I heard was Durin’s roar as the portal closed behind us.

37

We came through onto a beach that looked dangerously familiar. Dawn was only just edging across the horizon. Soon there would be human bystanders all along the beach. “Ummm…are we still on the Bellarine Peninsula?”

“I’m afraid so,” Basil said.

If I squinted, I could see the highest wing of Terran Academy’s roof. “What gives?”

“I’ll explain in a second.”

To my dismay, he opened up yet another portal and disappeared through it. Rachel tried to make tracks back to Terran. I halted her.

“What the hell happened?” I snapped. “You killed my friend!”

She shoved me off. “I don’t care who they were,” she said. “They murdered Sam and Ben! Slit his throat in the middle of the night like the cowardly scum they are. What did you want us to do?”

“I…” Nope. I still wasn’t going to be able to explain. Instead, I pivoted. “So what now? You’re going to engage in a war you have zero chance of winning? And when you’re all dead, what happens to the rest of humanity then?”

She looked away. Gotcha. I wished Sophie were here to give her delayed gratification speech. But there was no time. Basil’s portal reopened, and I would never in a million years have guessed it would be Isla who came through the other side. Phoenix was hot on her heels. When he saw me, he raced over and licked my hand.

“You’re going to be in such deep shit,” I told Isla.

“I’m already in deep shit,” she said. “My sister was part of a patrol squad around Terran.” The barbed look she shot Rachel said it all.

“Why are you helping me then?”

“Don’t be stupid,” she said. “How dumb would we be to get into a war with the species we’re trying to protect? There are bloody demons colonising parts of