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

gave a whole new meaning to the term being stalked. I was so busy concentrating on the hairs rising on my neck that the scream of glee took me by complete surprise. Next thing I knew, a pair of stout arms wrapped around me and I was being tackled.

12

Death by constricting hug was not the way I wanted to go out. But I couldn’t stop myself from hugging Diana back. Not until I felt something in my spine twinge. “Okay,” I squealed. “I think my bones are breaking.”

She eased away reluctantly but hooked my arm with hers. “How?” I asked, even though I didn’t want to question it in case she disappeared.

“It’s a new year,” she said, her eyes crinkling.

“Di. I’ve looked everywhere for you.”

She tugged me out of the way of other students coming through the portal and made us start walking towards the Potions lab. “Well, you weren’t looking hard enough.”

I tried to grind my feet into the grass, but she was too strong.

“Diana!”

She broke into a jubilant laugh. “I missed you so much.”

Despite her evasiveness, I squeezed her back. “Don’t try and change the subject! Where have you been?”

“Does it matter? I’m here now.”

“We’ll get to the now in a moment. Where. Have. You. Been?”

She bit her bottom lip. I pulled away to get a better look at her. Unlike the shifters, she hadn’t allowed anyone to touch her hair. It hung in a thick braid down her back. A thinner braid circled her crown. The light smattering of freckles on her nose was intersected by a new scar that cut in a clean line. So, not the claws of a shifter or a vampire but a knife of some kind. Even though her eyes danced when she looked at me, there was something wary in her posture.

“I’m not moving another step until you tell me where you’ve been.”

“I could say the same to you,” she countered.

Calling her bluff, I recounted the same thing I’d told the Council. Her eyes widened. “Are you daft? There’s no way you’re going to be able to tame her blood.”

I dismissed the doubt even though it was as legitimate as my own. “Stop stalling. Where have you been?”

She bit her lip again. I wouldn’t take my eyes off her. Finally, after the first warning bell had rung, she relented. “We’ve been guarding the Sisterhood.”

“We?”

“The guys and me.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think? They would have been a target once they were wiped and placed back into the human world. Just like your parents.”

“My parents? You know where they are?”

She stilled, her eyes darkening like she was on the verge of saying something but was making a decision.

“Diana!”

She reached out and grabbed my hand. “They’re fine. They’re safe.”

“Where?”

She shook her head. “It’s better that you don’t know.”

I almost spat fire. “Are you kidding? How is it better that I don’t know where my parents are?”

She squeezed my hand. “So they can’t be used against you.”

“What?”

“You’re claiming you can transmute Lex’s power. People are running scared of what’s coming. Do you think some of them won’t think to try and use you?”

I paused, mulling it over. “They’ve always condemned what my great-grandfather did.”

She peered at me as though wondering if I was slow. “Agatha freaking Hathaway is now on the Council. She’s an almost-convicted criminal. The only reason why she hasn’t been caught is because she murdered all the witnesses. And they’re turning to her for advice. That’s how scared people are.”

“The shifters hate me.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “They don’t hate you. They’re half insane from what’s happening to Durin.You’ve been away for six months. Give them some time to remember who you are.” Her hand clenched against mine, proving that her thoughts weren’t as light as her words.

I dug my heels in. “I want to see my parents.”

She shrugged. “I want a lot of things. But it’s not going to happen.”

I flung her hand off. “Di!”

She stepped up to me then, the affection and humour sliding off her to be replaced with something cool. A side of her I’d never seen before. A side that I somehow knew had seen death firsthand. “I know it’s hard,” she said. “But this isn’t about what we want anymore.”

My mouth opened and closed uselessly. “Why are you being like this?”

“Why am I being like what?” She started walking again and I had to trot to keep up with her.

“Like this crazy soldier. If I didn’tknow any better, I’d say it’s almost shift–” I stopped dead so that she had to backtrack. Looking her right in the eye, I asked, “Who gave you orders to protect the Sisterhood?”

Without even blinking, she grinned. “Max.”

Tearing my hair out on the first day of class probably wasn’t a great idea. Noah’s looming presence in my periphery only added salt to the wounds. She went on. “He got to your parents before the Council could. And the Sisterhood. None of them were wiped.”

“I...you disappeared off the face of the Earth.”

Her grin widened. “They’re pretty good at hiding themselves when they need to.”

Something horrifying hit me. “He would have been punished.”

She cocked her head to the side. “He’s a big boy. And before you ask why he did it, spare us both the insanity.”

“He doesn’t have the right to do any of this!”

“Maybe it’s not just about you,” she said, though her salacious smile said otherwise. “Maybe wrong is wrong and some of us aren’t afraid to call it out. The Council has been broken for a long time. And now they’re frightened on top of it. Da says that hotheads making decisions at a time of war will get us all killed.”

“Tell that to Lex!”

For the first time, her composure wavered. It was like watching a ripple feathering across a still lake. “Don’t even go there.”

The second warning bell rang.

I dropped the topic for now as we rushed to join the throng of students who were making their way to the labs. I wasn’t at all surprised that there were