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

There was collective silence. Ha! I didn’t think so. Samantha’s lips pulled up at the side. Right now she looked every bit the annoyed shifter. “Why should we give them mercy when they have never given us any? After they used us to help them beat back Lucifer, they attempted to eradicate us. It is only the soul gate and Gaia’s gifts that have allowed us to remain hidden for so long. Will you at least suggest her release?”

“I don’t know what part of no way you don’t understand,” I said. “And Giselle wasn’t the only one. There were two others who helped her. Do you know where they are?”

The smirk she gave me said she did. And that she wasn’t going to tell me any time soon. “Unlike the monsters, we trust our own to their missions. How they choose to conduct themselves is their own business.”

“So you raise assassins and then set them free.”

My words washed over them like acid. “This is part of the reason why you must come here,” Samantha said. “You think like you’re one of them. They are the ones who shouldn’t be here. We’re just doing what we can to fight back.”

“Has a Sister ever murdered a human?” I asked.

“Never.”

It was an absolute. “What if they did?”

“Then we would turn them over to the police.”

Serves me right for pressing the issue. What got me was that they were starting to sound reasonable. This was going to be interesting.

She led us up to the mezzanine level that then split off into two different hallways. “This side of the Academy is where the bedrooms are,” Samantha said. “Our classrooms are on the lower floor and in the surrounding grounds.”

“What kinds of classes do you provide?” Nora asked.

“We have a mix of Earth-magic classes for the students who aren’t Soul-marked. Those who are get trained specifically for those skills.”

That answered the question that had been burning in me since Sean stepped out of the Academy. The Sisterhood had that moniker for a reason. They were an all female group. It meant that there were other low-magic users here. I couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened if I had been picked up by the Sisterhood instead of Kai.

“How many students do you have?” Nora kept pressing. I was glad she was here because all I could think of was that we were walking through the hallway of yet another magical school. One which none of the Council had known about until I had received the letter a few weeks back. If the soul gate was anything to go by, it meant that there was magic here comparable to theirs.

“Thirty or so,” Samantha said. She gestured to what appeared to be a communal kitchen.

“So few,” Mani observed.

Samantha nodded. “It’s true we don’t have numbers on our side. That’s why we have to contend with other means of overcoming the monsters.”

“They’re not all monsters,” I said. Kai aside, I kept wondering what they would think of Doctor Thorne. His appearance would likely give most humans pause. But I would bet my life he didn’t have a destructive bone in his body. This despite the fact that, as a basilisk, he had considerable dominion over the lower-ranked para-humans.

Jessica had moved forward in our procession. I saw her lips tip up. “Just wait until you’ve been here a couple of weeks,” she said. “I can guarantee some of the stories you hear from the real-life experiences of our students will make you think otherwise.”

I slumped against the wall. The thought of coming here and leaving Bloodline had my palms sweating.

Jessica pushed open a door that revealed a communal kitchen. Gleaming silver appliances mixed with black marbled surfaces. There was a skylight above that let in sunlight. The place was empty except for a big-boned woman in a pleated red dress and chequered half-apron. She waved at us but was hampered by the tray of pastries she was balancing.

“That’s Melissa,” Samantha said. “She’s a hearth witch and our head chef. As much as we can, we try to eat together in the dining room.” She pointed to the long table that was located on the other side of the room. It was big enough to hold dozens of people over.

“Anyone for coffee?” Sean asked. Now that there was no longer the perceived threat of supernatural creatures, he had lost some of that slick air that I had mistaken for sleaziness.

“I wouldn’t mind some,” Nora said.

“Me too,” Sophie agreed. I shook my head. How odd for coffee to make an appearance again. Most of the supernaturals had no use for human stimulants. They didn’t bother drinking it. I hadn’t realise how much I had come to take that for granted. Coffee was on the bottom of my list of favourite things. That sentiment was sacrilegious amongst most human social groups. But for me the smell of coffee was synonymous with cold winter nights in which I had to wake up while dew still coated the grass. I had to get out of whatever corner I’d slept in so that the cops didn’t notice me and try to throw me back into the system.

We entered the kitchen, and Samantha waved at us to take a seat. She returned shortly after with a tray laden with coffee essentials. While Nora and Mani poured milk and sugar into their coffees, Samantha turned to me.

“I apologise for the way you found out about Bethany Hastings,” she said. “I had no intention of revealing that to you so publically. I just didn’t know what else to do to get through to you.” I swallowed. She made a motion like she was going to touch my arm but thought better of it. The trap door in my chest thumped. I pushed against it, to keep it closed.

“You’d get a proper education here,” she went on. “Some of our courses like Horticulture