Bloodline Diplomacy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 3), Lan Chan [best way to read an ebook .TXT] 📗

proved difficult with Kai trying to get me to be cautious. I swear I would have slapped him away if it didn’t mean we would be making more of a scene.

“Alessia,” the blonde woman said. She didn’t actually crack a smile, but some of the porcelain hardness in her expression disappeared. I stepped beside Jacqueline. The woman frowned. “We’ll have to break her of that habit.” She made the observation to the guy. Up close, he was probably nearer to my age than Kai’s. His hair was inky dark against his almost-alabaster skin. It was a stunning foil for his violet eyes. He was tall and slim, but there was strength in the cording of his muscles. He reminded me of some kind of dancer. Or a swan. I shook myself of that notion. If he was with the Sisterhood there was no way he could be a shifter.

“I don’t know,” he said. His head cocked to the side, his smile inviting. It was the same smile some of my so-called foster fathers had given me when they realised I wasn’t going to take their shit lying down. I could practically feel Kai bristling. “She doesn’t seem like she’s the type to break for anything.”

Oh there was something I wanted to break alright. “I’m getting back on the bus,” I said. “Screw these assholes.”

The short-haired woman stepped forward. “Wait,” she said.

“Why?”

“You belong with us.”

I snorted. “No thanks.”

The guy’s lips twitched. “You’ll have to excuse us for not wanting to socialise with monsters.”

He turned his gaze towards Basil. “Or abominations.”

Basil choked. I was going to throat punch this guy for sure. “I wouldn’t have had to do any of that if you could keep your assassins leashed.”

The blonde woman tugged absentmindedly at the sleeve of her blouse. “Unlike your friends here, we don’t make a habit of monitoring all of our citizens once they graduate from the Academy. Giselle’s choices were her own. After all, you wouldn’t want us to condemn your entire race because of the actions of a single creature.”

I caught Jacqueline’s eye. “Can we go now? This is pointless.”

The arch of her brow said she agreed with me. Her mouth, however, did not comply. “I understand there are some longstanding disagreements between us,” she said. “But if you want Lex to join you, we’ll have to come to an arrangement.”

There was a moment of poised silence. The blonde woman’s lips pouted. She glanced at her short-haired companion. I could tell she didn’t want to speak to Jacqueline directly. On her part, the headmistress was a picture of stoic calm. I, on the other hand, wanted to jump the fence and slap the blonde woman across the face.

“The arrangement has already been decided,” the blonde woman finally said. Her voice was pained. “Alessia will join us. End of discussion.”

“I don’t think so,” Nora responded.

“You of all people should understand why we don’t want our own mixing with the monsters.” She then eyed the way Sophie was peering out from behind Kai’s shoulder. “But I see it’s too late for your daughter. It’s not too late for Alessia.”

This time, Basil huffed. I could see his gaze slide towards Kai. Clearly he disagreed. He’d been having a rough time keeping Kai out of the mansion over the past few weeks.

“We can’t allow Lex to just abandon her education at Bloodline Academy,” Jacqueline interjected before Basil could say something snarky. “There are things she still needs to learn.”

The blonde woman laughed. It was a light chortle that was quite pleasant. “And you think she’ll have an easier time learning how to be a hedge witch and a soul splitter amongst your kind than her own?” She swept her hand across the wide expanse of sea. I almost shuddered. “This is where she should have been from the start. Just because you scooped her up first doesn’t mean you have any rights to her.”

“If you had known about her, you should have protected her,” Jacqueline said. “And her grandmother.”

The accusation caused a blotch of red to sweep across the blonde woman’s neck. I imagined she didn’t take kindly to knowing that my protection and sleep circles had kept me under their radar for most of my teenage years. “Well, now we do know about her. And she belongs with us.”

“Can you stop saying that?” I asked. “I’m not your property. Let’s get that straight right now.”

The short-haired woman approached the gate. She wrapped her pudgy fingers around the metal bars. “But you are ours, Alessia. Don’t you feel it? You were born to one of us.”

She glanced up at where Jacqueline and Professor Mortimer were flanking me. “I bet they’ve been telling you that hedge magic shouldn’t be very strong, haven’t they? I bet they’ve told you that you should be afraid of the Council that rules over them with such ineptitude. But you don’t have to listen to that anymore. Join us.”

I almost recoiled from the fervour of her speech. There was a note of obsession in it that made my skin crawl. At the same time, my ears pricked up at what she had said.

“What do you mean not all hedge magic is weak?”

The blonde woman smirked. “You’ll learn here at Terran Academy that not all of what you’ve been told by the monsters is true.”

“You’re welcome to your own beliefs,” Professor Mortimer said, “but please don’t misrepresent us. We’ve always had Alessia’s best interests at heart.” In the year that I’d known him, this was about as close to losing his temper as I’d ever seen him. Clearly, this meeting was getting us nowhere.

“Thanks for the offer,” I said. “But I don’t really need yet more schooling taking up my time.”

I was about to turn when the guy ambled up beside his companion. “So I take it you’re not interested in learning where you come from?”

I frowned. My gaze drifted naturally to Kai. His expression was wary. There was something dark-looking behind his forest-green eyes. When I’d first arrived at