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

hold. “It better be, because I’m not your lackey. We have one of theirs locked up. You might have noticed they’re slightly possessive about their people.”

He took a menacing step towards me. His eyes deepened into a shade of green that was almost edging into black. “So are we.” The hairs on my neck stood up. Something had snatched my breath away.

Sophie tugged at my sleeve. It forced me to turn my gaze away from Kai. The tense air shattered and I could breathe again. The wicked glint in Sophie’s eyes told me there would be a long and drawn-out discussion about this later. Right now, she offered up a compromise.

“Even if we ask them to go to Seraphina, it might be a tactical disadvantage for them. After all, it’s a city full of Nephilim. Wouldn’t a neutral place be better?”

Nora contemplated this for a moment. “You might be right. The problem is, there is no such place.”

“Isn’t that what you’re there for?” I suggested. “For better or worse, you’re probably going to end up being the liaison between the Council and the Sisterhood.”

“Yay.” It was a dry lament that reminded me so much of Sophie that I had to smile. It made Nora cup my face in her hands. “Everything is going to be okay.”

I tried to hold on to my smile, but after a second it faded. What the hell was okay anymore these days?

Everyone dispersed. Sophie and I were about to head back to the dorms when Jacqueline and Professor Mortimer side-armed me. “We’re going to try and re-arrange your timetable so that it’s most efficient,” Jacqueline said. “I’m not sure how feasible that will be but we’ll try our best. In the meantime, you’re still here.”

I nodded at her. Yes, I was still here for now. But I couldn’t help wondering how long that would be the case if my mission had become finding Gaia. What if that meant I had to go on a hunt? As soon as we got back into our room, I flung myself onto the bed and screamed into my pillow. First term hadn’t even started and now everything was uncertain again.

9

As the Fae lights dimmed for the evening, I lay in bed trying to force my eyes closed. The latest Arcane Magic textbook lay butterflied on my chest. This year we were learning how to integrate our circles with other spells for defensiveness. We were going to try magic circles and potions first. Sadly, thanks to her win in the Showcase last year, Sophie had been bumped up to the third-year Potions class. So it meant I wouldn’t be seeing much of her. With the addition of my days at Terran Academy, plus alternating weekends, it was starting to look as though time was going to be a bit of an issue for me.

As I lay there in the darkness, my thoughts drifted back to Nanna. Reaching out, I took the picture frame of her and my mum off my nightstand. It was too dark to make out the real lines of their faces, but I had memorised their smiles and every other tiny detail about them. My brain still wouldn’t compute that she wasn’t my real grandmother. Why would she take me in and how did it come to pass? It didn’t escape my notice that if Nanna wasn’t my real grandmother then the other woman in the picture might not actually be my mum. I was probably not a real Hastings.

What the hell am I? I spoke those words to the seraph that had gone mysteriously quiet. Azrael didn’t respond. If I didn’t think it would wake Sophie, I might have kicked the wall. Needless to say, sleep eluded me. I tossed and turned all night. Annoyance crept through me. It had been a while since I’d slept so poorly. Despite all of the things that had happened since joining Bloodline, this was the safest I’d felt in a long time. Now all of that was shattered.

I was surly as hell in the morning. When I arrived at the Grove to do my morning chores, the nymphs took one look at my expression, sneered, and made themselves scarce. They had gotten used to me dragging my demon blade around, but it didn’t mean they had to like it. Neither Kai nor I had seen fit to tell them that the Sisterhood had gotten in contact with me. I sure as hell didn’t want to be alone when they found out I would be attending Terran Academy half the time.

I was so zoned out that I didn’t hear the first warning bell. By the time I returned to the dorm to grab my backpack, I was already running late. Story of my life. The Academy sped by me on either side as I sprinted across the lawns, past the kitchen garden, and over the bridge that separated the two campuses. I reached the hill where the junior campus first came into view. The sun was already scorching at this time of day. I was so busy rubbing at the heated burn behind my neck that I wasn’t watching where I was going. My knee hit the barrier first. The rest of my body slammed into the invisible wall through sheer inertia. I landed on my left hip, the pain jarring up to my rib cage.

“What the hell?” I screamed to nobody in particular.

I twisted around thinking someone must be playing a joke on me. There was nothing in the vicinity besides magically manicured landscape. Ignoring the dull pain in my side, I pushed myself up and forward. My nose hit a flat surface. It felt like a sheet of plastic. The material was pliable but there was not much give.

“Curtis?” I called out. “Bran?”

I was going to be so late. This was my last semester in the junior campus classes. I’d managed to catch up enough that I wasn’t even going to be in the under-twelves class anymore.