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

until I became an explosive. This deep and between dimensions, I sensed no other sea creatures. The magic was free to wreak as much destruction as it wanted. I poured all of my frustration, all of my anguish at the loss of my hedge magic, all of my fear at what was to come, into the fire that propelled the circles. They spun and spun until they were cutting into anything that moved around me.

I felt it the second the circles struck Gaia. She recoiled and tried to absorb the energy, but these circles weren’t made of power that originated from her. I threw out my hand and recalled the ones that were hurtling in her direction. The rest acted like a circular saw spinning in perpetual motion. They grazed a tentacle on the kraken and kept going. A thousand arcane circles chopped the sea demon into sushi. It groaned as it died. I closed my eyes against the pity. Especially when I had felt its killing rage when my magic brushed up against it. The only reason it was sparing me was because its master wanted me alive. Were it not for Lucifer, I would be squid food.

My chest heaved when it was over. The pressure of the water made my breath shallow. Even though I had air, the cold coming from the portal to the hell dimension and the depth of the water made me feel like I was drowning anyway. Gaia floated aimlessly for a moment. I feared she might be seriously injured when her arm snatched at my leg.

She hauled me in front of her. A thread of blue magic locked around the amulet at my throat. She crushed the amulet with a flick of her other hand. The bubble of air burst. Water rushed in at me. The pressure was so immense I thought my brain was going to explode. I closed my eyes and forced myself to calm down. One beat. Two beats. Now!

I phased through her hold once more. Green light appeared in the water. Kai grabbed me at the same time Gaia tried to. He got there first. We teleported out of the watery dimension.

She was mere seconds behind. Both of us landed on the foreshore at the same time. She shrank back into the size of a human female. I was soaked through and gasping for breath but she didn’t have a hair out of place. Kai shoved me behind him. He drew his angel blade and advanced. Gaia grinned. The only way I could describe the look in her eyes was: insane.

The Terrans left on the beach raced to her. They fanned out around her in a semi-circle, their poison guns raised. Rachel was not among them. Behind us, I could hear the flap of Nephilim and Fae wings. The choreographed growl of dozens of shifters made me shudder. Light of every colour from the mages lit up the darkened skies.

“You dare to defy me, boy?” Gaia said. She began to grow once more. A diamond-headed spear appeared in her grip.

Kai’s wings unfurled from his back. Spotless white wings shielded by green light. They lifted him up into the air so that he remained in eye contact with her. Gaia’s mouth twisted. “You’re one of Raphael’s,” she said.

“The last one,” Kai said. I was surprised he bothered to speak to her. He was usually so focused on his target that speech was no longer a consideration.

She turned her head to the side. “Yet you would throw your life away for this wretch?” Okay, now I was pissed. It was the vindicated smile on Jessica’s face that really irked me. I took a leaf out of the demon’s books. Their blades could harm her. She was still bleeding metaphysical blood from the many cuts they had made.

I closed my eyes and drew the Ley dimension around me. Morning Star! I called. The demon blade that I’d left behind in my room at Bloodline responded without hesitation. It hurtled through the dimensions and appeared in my grip.

“If you’ve got a problem with me,” I said, “Let’s get this over with.”

“Blue,” Kai growled.

“No,” I said. “If she wants me dead, she can come and get me.”

“Wishful thinking,” she said. She waved a hand, and everyone, including Kai, was a hundred metres away. I saw him scream but couldn’t hear the sound of it. He flew forward only to be rebuffed with a charge of electricity the way Professor Mortimer had been when he attempted to touch the soul gate. My immediate reaction was to run to him. But Gaia stepped in the way.

“He’s not dead,” she said. “Do you know why you need to be?”

“Because you’re a lunatic?”

She moved towards me. The demon blade was weightless in my hands. But I could train for a thousand lifetimes and I still wouldn’t be able to beat her. There was a reason why these deities weren’t supposed to do battle. The ground beneath us rocked as Gaia stepped to me. Each time her feet touched the ground a fissure opened up in the earth. They didn’t stop cracking when they hit the perimeter of where the spectators stood. On and on they went. The earth shook before her wrath.

As she closed the distance, I forced my heart to slow and pretended that I was inside the Grove with the nymphs. When she brought her spear down on me, I took a breath and phased through it. She struck again without slowing. I evaded once more. This was an inevitable game of cat and mouse. Soon I would slow down and she’d get in a hit. I was sure she was toying with me anyway.

For all of her supposed higher existence, she was so twisted by hatred and anger that she was enjoying my discomfort. I was cold and wet. I still had water in my lungs, and I was pretty sure my ribs were cracked where she’d tried to squeeze my guts out of me.