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

what he was thinking. I’d used alchemy to protect Max. The same alchemic gift that my great-grandfather had used to murder his pack. Increasing my stride, I hightailed it out of there as quickly as I could.

10

After stumbling around in the bush for a while, I gave up and used a basic tracking spell that Professor Mortimer had taught us in first year. It was the same spell that fuelled the magical directions at Bloodline. When I returned to the edge of the clearing where the human population lived, Charles was waiting for me.

“Do I want to know how you knew I would be here?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I think you already know.”

“So this is how it’s going to be from now on?” He fell into step beside me even though neither of us really set a direction.

“Seems like it. He makes all kind of stupid decisions in the name of the greater good now.” The bite in it was chilling. I paused. Reaching out a hand, I stopped him too.

“What’s going on, Chuck?”

He pretended to be interested in the bear cubs wrestling with each other outside one of the houses. It wasn’t long before the front door opened and two women grabbed them, one each, and bundled them back inside. I bit my bottom lip. There were very few people outside their homes. The ones who were walked in pairs. Shifters were quiet and hardly speaking to each other or the people they passed. When Basil lived here, there was so much general noise that I found it impossible to study.

Forgetting my earlier line of thought, I frowned. “Why is it so quiet?”

This was met with yet another round of brooding from my new bodyguard. “Chuck?”

He grumbled. “We’ve been attacked in our own homes twice now.”

That was all that needed to be said. I spoke anyway. “But neither of those times could be avoided. They were demon attacks!”

“Do you think that matters?”

I supposed not. In their dimension, they would have fought an unending war with the vampires and mages. Their enemies would have been flesh. Now they fought a foe that could disappear, and they possessed no magic to protect themselves. As a dominant shifter, there was nothing more painful than being unable to protect those you loved.

Trying to look on the bright side, I reminded him of his heritage. “I hear that Shayla’s blood makes you able to fight the malachim.”

Somehow that seemed to make things worse. “Good for me, I guess,” he said with complete and utter apathy.

“A lot of the shifters here would give anything to be able to do that right now.”

He laughed without mirth. “They don’t know what they want. We’ve never had an enemy like this. One that can take down our strongest without even lifting a finger–”

I squeezed his arm to refocus his thoughts. “All magic comes at a price. Even for the demons.” That price was servitude to the most twisted being in the dimensions. A price that I personally wasn’t willing to pay.

Really, Sophie? a raspy voice in my head said. Not even if it will bring them back?

The voice was ancient and foreboding. It had started soon after the malachim first attacked. Basil had tried to exorcise me on the off chance I was possessed, but he’d found nothing. He said it might be a result of the blood barrier. I was picking up necromantic energy. Brilliant.

Amber flashed in Charles’s eyes, drawing me from my own uneasy thoughts. His muscles went rigid under my palm. “I know,” he said. “But we seems to be paying a higher price.”

Searching his face gave me nothing. But as we continued walking, I saw how he clenched and unclenched his fists in agitation. Every once in a while, he would sneak a glance at me before turning away. Almost as though he was battling with himself over something.

“I need to see Jacqueline. Can you take me to Bloodline?”

He nodded, his thoughts a million miles away. It was disconcerting. Charles had always been a ball of energy before. This sombre side of him was wrong on a level I couldn’t even describe.

We veered away from the accommodation sector, past the dwellings of the solitary animals, and hit the perimeter of the Cabin.

“Don’t even think about it,” Charles said as I craned my neck past the wall of pines that stood sentry surrounding the home of the alpha couple.

I blew out a breath. “Do they really think I’m going to do something that stupid?”

“They’re not thinking. We’re backed into a corner. Everyone is on eggshells until Durin either pulls through or goes under. You being here is volatile enough. Nobody is allowed inside except the alphas.”

I scrubbed my hand over my face. “Which is why I shouldn’t be here at all!”

He flashed his canines. “Agreed.”

It hurt more than I cared to admit. Somehow, I managed to keep walking as though he hadn’t just sucker punched me emotionally. After a second, he reached up and tugged at my hair. “He was unbearable, you know. After you disappeared, he was worse than I’ve ever been. Two weeks into it, I finally cracked it and asked him why he didn’t just go after you. The whole pack had the same thought. You know what he said?”

I shook my head, breath barely a stutter.

“‘She needs to not be here right now.’” He gave a small smile. “That’s not how we do things. The rule is, you ask someone to mate with you and they leave, you go and bring them back.”

My mouth was too dry. I swallowed twice before I could make my voice work. “What if they don’t want to be brought back? What you’re talking about is called stalking.”

“What do you think we are?”

The reality of it was stark. They were pushy and possessive beyond measure. But I also knew there were checks in place. The pack would never allow one of their own to take someone unwillingly. If Max had hauled me back, and