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

was mostly sentimental. I sprinkled salt and closed the protection circle, wondering where Lex could be and hoping like hell she was okay.

Maybe it was a coincidence, but I didn’t dream that night. Instead, in the early hours before dawn, I was awoken by a chorus of howls that cut through my room and dragged me back to the warm air and wood smoke of the Zambian compound. Here, like it had been there, howls in the night signalled that something was very wrong.

16

I ran into Charles in the hallway. He threw his arm out when I tried to get past and just stood there, his eyes golden bright, nose twitching and his focus a million miles away. “Demon attack,” he said distantly. “Southwest sector. They’re on it.”

I needed more details. Like whether his brother was there. “They who? What’s happening?”

He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm. It was only then I noticed he only wore boxers. Definitely on some kind of supernatural steroids. The comical thing was that he had the demon blade slung over his left shoulder. “Vincent’s squad. They’ll be fine. No malachim.”

“How often does this happen?” I rubbed my own arms wondering if I was actually cold or if the presence of demons was making me think I was cold.

“More than it should. At least every couple of weeks now. Every time a malachim emerges, it tears open the barrier and lets other demons pass.”

With that ominous portent, he returned to his room. Sleeping was no longer possible. At around witching hour, I gave up entirely and got dressed. Dragging a throw blanket from the couch, I set myself up on the front porch with a Fae lantern and an alchemy textbook that Basil had found for me.

It was basic. Alchemy in the normal sense wasn’t a field that had been studied much. There were many mages who were interested in transmutation but not many who could do what I did. So I had to make do with their limited instructions and use trial and error with my own learning. It was the reason why I had made so many mistakes over the years. And why there had been so many explosions.

The book said that alchemy was the practice of transmuting one substance into another. For a long time, humans had considered it possible to transmute lead into gold. They’d given up and turned to modern science eventually. Transmuting stuff into precious metals was a cinch. Blood alchemy was something else altogether. It was the practice of transforming the life essence into a form of power.

Closing my eyes, I recalled Basil’s lessons. “Blood is associated with violence, with pain, and with passion,” he’d said, his face grim. “It is also the ultimate connection to family and to life. Something that contains that much power is naturally powerful in magic as well.”

On its own, blood wasn’t evil. But the very nature of blood alchemy landed it firmly in the realm of sinister magic.

I must have dozed off while reading because the sound of boots crunching up the driveway had me startling. The night was too dark. The Fae lantern had doused. There were no streetlights even if the supernaturals had managed to rig human appliances for their own convenience.

The circle was complete before I spotted golden night-glow eyes watching me. Max strode forward, his pace easy enough that it made me think he realised I’d been startled awake, and he didn’t want me to run.

He stopped at the foot of the small steps leading to the porch. Adjusting slowly to the darkness, I found myself asking, “Are you okay?”

He crouched down in front of me, so big and gorgeous and – controlled. The leash he had thrown over the lion stalking behind his human face was unbreakable. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

I found myself pausing, using all of my experience with shifters to parse whether there was anything in it that should ring alarm bells. The coast seemed clear.

“Charles told me about the raid. Are they okay?”

A nod. “A few bruises but nothing they can’t walk off. Why are you asleep out here? Worried?”

It was a statement with no slight attached. Not a comment on my weakness but a simple appraisal of the situation. An acceptance that this was just me.

The mating link twinged. Just as he locked away the lion, I held the link in check with blood. Wanting him was a cosmic punishment I was willing to accept. Losing him completely was unfathomable.

“A little.” Bundling the throw around my shoulders, I allowed myself to speak the words without holding anything back. Maybe the darkness made things easier. Perhaps it created a bubble in which all of the tension brimming between us could be calm. “I thought you might be out there.”

“I was.”

“Oh.”

“It’ll take more than a few demons to bring me down.” He ran a hand through his short hair. The movement was mundane, but I was utterly transfixed. “About earlier. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.”

“I understand.”

A quiet, ruthless chuckle. “Yes, you do.” Something red and hot beat back the gold in his eyes for a second before they dimmed altogether. “Walk with me.”

This was too dangerous a game. Though every alpha instinct in him seemed to be on lockdown, I wasn’t fooled into thinking he was safe. Or I was.

But the apology, the painstaking attempt to be non-threatening, it cost him. Hating that I was the one doing this to him, I looked out into the now-still night with the stars watching peacefully from the heavens, and couldn’t bring myself to refuse. “Am I allowed to step out of the perimeter of the house then?”

“Just this once.”

“Ha. Ha.”

Lips curving, he held out his hand. I shouldn’t take it. The rough pads of his fingers closed gently over mine as he helped me to my feet. It was the barest touch before he let go and moved aside, but it branded me to my very core.

He led me from