Bloodline Alchemy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 6), Lan Chan [free ebook reader for android TXT] 📗

palms. “I’m going to check on the damage to my place. You’ll be safe here for now, cupcake.” He threw a perilous glower towards the room at large. “I’ll be back.”

I snatched his sleeve. “Bring me her blood.”

He nodded. With that, he used Gabriel’s Key to disappear, and I was left at the mercy of the shifters.

The Blonde Shifter refused to acknowledge my existence. “I’ll get Laila to make room in the human quarters,” she said to Max.

“Why?” His voice was wary.

“She needs somewhere to stay.”

“She has a place to stay.”

Blue eyes widened in disbelief. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

They shared a taut non-verbal conversation that was all flashing canines and a sweep of shifter dominance.

Despite what he was saying, a heavy stone sat in my gut. Now that my mind wasn’t preoccupied with survival, I realised she was familiar. I’d met her years ago at Charles’s birthday party. Dredging up a name was beyond me right now. But she’d had the same sultry, forthright air back then. For her to question him openly meant that one, she held a high-ranking position, and two, he held her in high regard. The pure longing in her gaze when she looked at him made me green in the gills. Don’t be that girl, Sophie, I told myself. You can’t push him away and then get upset when others want him.

Logic was a bullshit concept.

“Ask Gwen to send the guards in here. And summon the pack circle,” Max ordered, dismissing her without bothering to answer her questioning pout.

The door shut loudly behind her. Thankfully, I was saved from Max’s unwavering attention by a warm hand on my shoulder. Jacqueline’s expression made me want to burst into tears. Behind her spine of steel, there was a brush of deep sorrow that made her smile fall short of her eyes.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” she said. I pinched myself hard in the thigh to stop from blurting out that it was my all fault. Kai was lost because of me. Raphael had fallen because of me. And I had failed to bring them back.

“I’m so sorry about Bloodline,” I said, trying to find a safe topic.

She nodded. “The Academy is resilient. As it teaches us to be.” There was a knock on the door behind Max. “Come and see me later this afternoon. We’ll settle your timetable.”

She made to leave just as the door opened. I caught sight of a sardonic smile on a face that was so striking it made my breath hitch.

“Mr. Thompson,” Jacqueline said. “We’ve missed you at the Academy.”

Charles gave her a polite nod, but his attention had locked on me. I stared back at him, unsure how to react. There was every chance he hated me. Or at the very least was angry at me. But as I looked into his sweet little face that had lost all hint of baby fat, I couldn’t help the way my eyes began to mist.

“Hi,” I croaked. For a second Charles didn’t move. He just watched me like I was an apparition. And then all of a sudden, he leaped over the table and I found myself enveloped in his arms. I gave an undignified squeal as he crushed me to him, squeezing the daylights out of me. Somehow it still wasn’t enough.

“Thank goodness,” Charles breathed, his arms constricting. Wrapping my arms around his waist, the only part I could now reach, I held him in return.

“I’m so sorry,” I found myself saying again, knowing how badly it was probably hurting him that Lex had disappeared. As dull as my senses were, I felt the rage beating off him in choking waves. His hands felt calloused against my back. When I pulled away to inspect them, they were covered in ugly, pink welts. The explanation for why was strapped to his back.

“She would hate this,” I said with certainty.

“There are a lot of things she would have hated,” he said. I brushed my thumb over his right cheek where there was a hint of a bruise. Closer inspection showed me remnants of other scars as well.

“What happened?” I asked.

Max cleared his throat. “Yes, Chuck. Would you like to tell her what happened?”

“Piss off,” Charles snarled.

“Hey!” I tugged at his arm. It wasn’t so much what he’d said as the pure vehemence in his voice. He’d always been wilful. It was expected from a dominant shifter. But the thing he was projecting towards Max wasn’t playful disobedience. It was hateful. “That’s your brother you’re talking to.”

Charles’s eyes narrowed at me. “I heard you threw a blood blade at his head.”

“And I would do it again. But different circumstances.”

“Well, you wouldn’t know what the circumstances around here have been like.”

It was meant to make me back off. Instead, it made me see red. Maybe I hadn’t been around, but what I did know was that if Max were any other shifter, Charles would be dead meat. Max adored both his siblings with a fierce affection that I’d envied like crazy as an only child. He didn’t deserve to have it thrown back in his face.

“Well, then if you’re going to keep being an ungrateful furball, kindly do it away from me.”

He blinked at me incredulously. I turned away from him, meaning every word I said. I glanced up in time to catch Gwen trying to hide a grin. “Hey,” she said.

“Hi.” I smiled back. “You cut your hair.”

She touched the reddish-brown bob self-consciously. While we were at Bloodline, Gwen had kept her hair in a long plait that went all the way down her back. During Lex’s first-semester trials, Gwen had pinned it into a coiled bun. We called her the Cat Burglar. She got around in skin-tight Spandex and could often be seen scaling the walls of the Academy with no harness whatsoever.

“Kinda had to,” she said. “Malachim are grabby.” That confirmed my assumptions about Max’s haircut. “You let yours grow out.”

I nodded. The glamour on my appearance had dissipated almost as soon as the malachim