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

what I was capable of. Now I knew and it made things infinitely worse. The source of that power hadn’t come to my aide either.

Where were you? I accused Azrael. Nothing. I wondered if it was possible to kick a seraphim’s ass. Why was it that in that moment of blinding terror, it had been Lucifer who had come to me? I was tired all the way to my bones. But I was sick of chasing my tail about what I was. If being with the Sisterhood would give me the answers then I had to get back there.

“I’m going back.”

“Lex,” Jacqueline warned.

“I’ll be okay. Besides, I left Phoenix there and I need to get him.”

“Who the hell is Phoenix?” Kai growled.

“The dingo.”

“You named a dog, Phoenix?”

“He’s not a dog!”

“He looks exactly like a dog.”

“You look like a—”

“That’s enough,” Jacqueline said. “We can’t allow you to return knowing full well you will be in danger.”

I gave her a small smile. “I’m in danger wherever I go. At least this way we have a shot at peace.” And if I went back, I had a shot at punching whoever it was that had dragged me out of my bed in the first place.

“Samantha said it was a silly mistake,” Nora said. “Shouldn’t we at least give her the benefit of the doubt the first time?”

“This isn’t the first time they’ve attacked one of ours,” Kai bit out. “How many more times are we going to turn the other cheek?”

It was then I noticed he’d been fairly quiet while Jacqueline had taken the reins on deciding whether or not I should be allowed to go back to Terran. I knew without a doubt that if he had his way, he would lock me up in a tower and throw away the key. Over the Christmas break Cassie had wanted to go to the States with Luther and Charles. She’d gotten the invitation just after the Sisterhood sent for me. He all but dragged her back to the Academy.

“We have to at least try,” Nora said.

I squeaked when his grip turned tight. He relaxed his hold only to fist a bunch of my top in his hands. “I’m going back.”

“If this happens again,” Kai said, “I’ll take their Academy apart brick by brick.”

He didn’t want to leave me, but my body was so sore I couldn’t stay awake. Doctor Thorne shoved him out. He only left when it was pointed out that I refused to rest when he was there.

17

By mid-morning the next day, I was feeling better. A shot of something vile from Peter and I was ready to leave the infirmary. Jacqueline refused to let me go back to Terran right away. So the rest of my week had opened up. I was at a loss as to what to do with myself. It was still too early for lunch. Everybody I knew would be in classes.

I was walking around without realising where I was headed until I hit the walled kitchen garden. It was quiet inside. I pushed aside the gate and went in. Looking around at the neat raised beds, I felt a lump in my throat. I sank down onto the brick and placed my palms against the rich loam. Closing my eyes, I sat there for a beat. In a matter of seconds, pill bugs and ear wigs were scampering over my fingers. Their legs tickled my skin, but I let it be.

Distantly, I heard the sound of a wheelbarrow being pushed. The shuffle told me it was probably Peter. Like her Fae brethren, Thalia barely made a sound when she walked.

I opened my eyes just as he rolled the wheelbarrow up beside me. I was sitting smack bang in the middle of the pathway.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be. It’s nice to have company. Though I do need to get past.”

I stood aside and let him past. He didn’t go very far. I followed him to the tomato bed. Peter wasn’t a proponent of idle hands. If I was going to hang out here, I would have to work. This was the only class in which I didn’t mind getting homework.

Peter snipped off side leaves on the tomato plants so they wouldn’t drain energy from the middle stem. Nanna used to do the same thing so that the plant grew along a single leading branch. It helped to keep the plant tidy, she had said. I blew out a breath. In the span of a week, I had lost both my human role models.

“If you have the time, you’re welcome here whenever you want.”

Something in the way he said it made me think he doubted the amount of time I would have free from now on. To make up for that, I stayed in the kitchen garden for as long as I possibly could. But less than two hours later, I was kicked out because the next class was going to be starting soon.

On a whim, I found myself skirting around the perimeter of the billabong. I made my way through the gate that fenced the area off. Immediately the air grew thick with the scent of still water and wet hide. The bunyip wasn’t the only creature to call the billabong home. The yowies as well as some of the other Australian creatures also lived here. I could swear someone had said something about a rainbow serpent. I was still trying to catch a glimpse of her. As someone who had an aversion to rodents, snakes and predator birds were at the top of my list of animals that I adored.

The last time I had been in the billabong, Brigid was trying to blow me into the water with her wind conjuring. Even then I hadn’t felt the pinpricks of dread that overcame me at the mere thought of saltwater.

In the trials at the end of first semester, I’d crossed a vast river using nothing but a thin rope bridge. And yet, I hadn’t frozen still