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

Death.

Max gave a low groan. Beaten-gold eyes filled with fury held me captive. Anastasia finally let go of his arm. She drew her own back, her claws flashing like steak knives. She was going to gut him. The absolute ridiculousness of it struck me even though I knew she meant it. Resentment vibrated from every inch of her body. She wanted him and hated him at the same time. And if she couldn’t have him, then she was going to take her displeasure out on him. I screamed my anguish.

If you accept the mating link, a phantom voice said in my mind, he will die.

I snapped. Reaching into the pool of alchemy, I grabbed every inch of it that I could and directed it towards the droplets of blood covering every one of them. Rage rattled inside my ribcage as I drew a blood circle around the clearing, not sparing Military Woman from my wrath, and set it to explode. The storm of my magic rolled through the circle, transmuting the blood into molten fire. The first scream came from a female voice. She shuffled backwards, slapping at her chest with an open palm. My magic ignited the blood on her skin. One by one, the blood on them turned to burning heat. Flames licked at their chest, their arms, their faces.

Military Woman gave a shout of pain, letting go of me to stamp at her clothing. As soon as I was free, my legs carried me over to him. I may or may not have stepped on Anastasia’s leg on the way there.

“Max!” Kneeling beside him, I kept reaching into my front pocket out of habit. Even though I knew I wasn’t carrying around a health elixir. There was so much blood. Wishing that it wasn’t his, I splayed my hand against his chest and was about to whisper a word of light when his fingers laced around my hand.

Confused, I frowned as he curled his other arm around me, pulling me to his side. “What the—?”

All around us, shifters dropped to a crouch still trying to put out the magical fires. “Let them go, Sophie darling,” Max purred.

“What?” That was the extent of my vocabulary. Gwen drew up beside me. She shook my shoulder and pointed to her throat.

“Hot. Hot. Hot,” she said.

Ignoring her nakedness, I flattened my palm against the ground and released the magic. There was a collective groan of relief. One set of boobs in my face was avoidable. Two dozen unabashed shifters at various eye-levels were impossible to ignore. So I became very interested in the ugly, strappy plants growing out of the dry dirt.

“Is that enough for you?” Max said. It was directed at his pack.

“Enough?” I asked.

Anastasia was panting. “How do we know she wouldn’t have done the same for anybody else? She’s too soft.” She moved in Max’s direction, and I found myself blocking her way.

Harris groaned. His entire right side was one big, raw blister. “It’s good enough for me. You can’t fake that kind of loss of control. Either way, she doesn’t want him to get hurt. We’ve done more with less.” I finally lifted my head and glared at him. “This hurts like a bitch, by the way.” He pointed to the burned spot. It was so red against the rest of his alabaster skin.

“I…what?” I said.

“She still isn’t allowed to use blood magic,” Ari snapped, holding his right shoulder.

“I think she just did,” Jeremiah added.

Gwen shook her head. “That wasn’t blood magic. It was basic alchemy. You’d know that if you bothered to study.”

The bear shifter rolled his eyes. “Here we go. Sorry, miss Ivy League. Not all of us had the advantages of going to an Academy.”

She picked up a rock and threw it at him. It bounced off a section of burned skin and he yelped like a pup.

“What the hell is going on here?” I shouted. Max’s hand clenched on my waist. I pushed away from him. My heart was still beating a mile a minute. Until now I had still been holding on to the words of light just in case they turned again. But when he grinned at me, the mirth shining through despite the various cuts on his face, it dawned on me.

“You think this is funny?” I hissed.

“I think it was necessary.” Truth. There was no laughter in his eyes. I knew about pack circles, but I’d never been a part of one. Shifter law was very intricate. Their primal natures made some things that were unacceptable in human custom almost mundane. I’d said I didn’t want to mate with Max, but when push came to shove, I would kill them to protect him. So yeah, I still didn’t want to be around him, but my feelings about him were open slather to shifters who could scent the slightest change in my moods.

In their minds, it was now just a matter of him winning me over. The reality of it made me push myself to standing.

“Where are you going?” Max asked. Blood dripped from his brow when he tipped his head up to peer at me.

“Away.”

“Why?”

“No reason.”

“You don’t know the way back.”

“I’ll manage.”

“Sophie.”

I turned on my heel and stomped out of there. If I hung around any longer, I was in very real danger of punching him in the face. Something like that right about now would only convince them Max made my blood boil in a way that screamed mate. The foulness of my mood was all over my face as I trudged back the way we’d come. It was only as I was retreating that I saw Noah standing sentry beside Yolanda a little way off. In the excitement, I’d forgotten that they were there.

Her eyes were closed, her head leaning against the grey bark of a gum tree. But it was the metaphorical storm clouds rolling over him that made me pause. I didn’t need shifter senses to know