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

I turned on my heels. Somebody grabbed me by the bicep. Ashton appeared beside me. His hold wasn’t crushing but it was firm. I wasn’t going anywhere. “Just hear us out,” he said.

“No. I’m not going to stick around while you discuss how to hurt my friends,” I said. When I tried to yank out of his hold, he constricted his fingers. “Get off.”

“Please,” he said. “I get it. Some of them have been nice to you.” He swallowed like the words were dirty. “Some of them might even care about you. But the vast majority of them still see you as prey. Can you really blame us?”

This time, when I tugged, he allowed me free. I rolled my shoulder where he’d had hold of me. My muscle throbbed. I really needed to work on my strength. It didn’t escape my notice that Kai and even Max had often manhandled me when they were being particularly cavemanish. But not once had I come away with a bruise like I was sure I would get soon. The kind of restraint that must have entailed made the annoyance in my chest flare anew. Before I could storm off, Rachel hit me with one of her trademark glares.

“You better believe they’re doing the same thing now that they know we’re still around,” she said. “If they weren’t already doing it.”

“They have every right to,” I snapped. “Giselle was murdering them. She almost murdered me.”

Harper snorted. “Please. Giselle was a pro. If she’d wanted you dead, you’d be a corpse right now.”

Rather than curtail her, Rachel nodded. “We have just as much right to protect ourselves as they do.”

“Fine,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean I have to be a part of it.” I could just imagine the shit I’d get if anyone at Bloodline knew I was involved in these classes. It was that thought that had me relenting. Because at Bloodline we sat through classes where we learned about each other’s weaknesses all the time. We fought with each other, and yes, there were times when we considered how to best restrain a human if need be.

The smirk on Harlow’s face did not make it any easier to comply. I marched over to the bench beneath the arching branches of the paulownia and sat down heavily. Phoenix jumped up beside me. Good. Now there wasn’t room for anyone else.

Taking his cue from my reluctant involvement, Ashton jump-started the class.

“Okay,” he said, “as you can see, today we’re going to discuss how to disarm and dispatch a creature with the ability to fly.”

The Evil Three sat down on the grass and crossed their legs. Rachel remained standing. There were two other girls, already seated on the park bench with its back to the field. One of them was Asian with straight black hair that fell over her shoulders like a liquid ebony waterfall. The other girl was about my height with creamy skin and golden hair. They were the polar opposites but there was something calming about them. I couldn’t remember their names but I’d seen them at the lunch the other day.

“How do we account for the teleportation?” Harlow asked. It was only then that it hit me why we were doing this today. They’d seen Kai teleporting me out of the ocean whirlpool. It was too much of a coincidence. It wasn’t until Phoenix whined that I realised I was gripping his hair. I released my hand and stroked it down his knobbly back.

“You don’t,” he said. “You’ll have to anticipate. But they’re creatures of habit. And they’re arrogant. They’ll use their flight the same way as the vamps use their bite. You just have to wait it out. The membranes on their wings are incredibly sensitive. Even more so than any other skin on their body. They bleed like crazy as well. All we have to do is poke enough holes in them, and supernatural or not, they’ll come crashing down.”

It didn’t surprise me that he avoided my gaze the whole time he spoke. I kept imagining somebody shooting one of those arrows through Kai’s wings. In between gritting my jaw, I wanted to point out that they were underestimating the pain threshold some of these supernaturals could endure. Kai wouldn’t stop if he was injured. In fact, it would just piss him off. Flight was just one of the many abilities in his arsenal.

The whole time Ashton spoke, Rachel was inching forward. She held on to one of her throwing knives. Every once in a while she tossed it into the air and caught it absentmindedly. It almost seemed like a nervous tic. Like she was dying to try the arrow machine and just had to occupy her hands for a little while. She almost jumped out of her skin when Ashton waved for them to come up and have a go.

I opted to remain where I was. Mostly out of protest. Partly because my track record with weapons in general wasn’t anything to jump up about.

Rachel was another story altogether. Ashton had rigged one of those clay disc shooting machines in the field adjacent to where we were. The rest of them took turns shooting. Rachel didn’t miss a single shot. What had my blood boiling was that the arrows weren’t just metal. They had been constructed to come apart when they hit their target. Netting dispersed from an internal casing and enclosed the shattered disc. I would bet the netting was made of material harmful to the supernaturals.

I was gnashing at my teeth when Ashton signalled for everyone to regroup. He waved at someone over in the house. Sean appeared holding a round wooden tray. Sitting atop the tray was a series of glass beakers. Inside the beakers was a sludge that made my insides turn cold.

Sean wore green rubber gloves. He also had an apron