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

“I’m not–”

“Save it. I can’t stand girls like you. Pretending to be all nice and polite, when all you do is destroy everything you touch. If Alessia hadn’t–”

I made it to the door at the sound of gagging. My hand closed over the doorknob, about to tear it open, when I realised the vocal chords making that sound were shifter. The scent of heated blood filled the air, along with the bitter stench of brimstone and...death.

“I don’t care what you say about me,” Sophie said, her voice burning. “But if you ever, ever even think her name again, I’ll show you what can happen when I’m not nice anymore.”

That unbridled anger in her voice made me bristle with unwanted emotions. Jealousy mixed with pride and furious need. She didn’t allow much to push her to reacting, but Lex was an open wound that made her snarl with the best of the shifters.

Knowing that Anastasia wouldn’t back down from a challenge like that, I opened the door to find Sophie with her palm pressed against Anastasia’s chest. She let go as soon as she saw me, the light in her eyes dimming as she looked down at the ground. Not before her gaze swept over me in a hungry caress that made me want to throw out control and just grab her.

“Leave,” I said. There was no mistaking which one of them I meant.

“How can you –” Anastasia started.

I pinned her with a look that said either she disappeared, or I would skin her alive. Holding my gaze for a fraction of a second to satisfy herself that she had bucked at the challenge, Anastasia made herself scarce.

Ignoring the fact that I’d just caught her in a territorial dispute, Sophie walked lightly into the room. While she sat down on an uncomfortable bucket chair, I shrugged my T-shirt back on like it was some kind of armour that would protect me from doing anything stupid.

“She’s not always like that,” I found myself saying as I threw my leg over the bench-press seat.

“I’m sure she isn’t.” The arched tone was the only thing that gave away her feelings. That and the way her skin flushed with the slightest hint of rose. Fae lighting was harsh at the moment. The grid was being sapped by all the energy the Fae were directing to keeping their wards on constantly. This afternoon while we’d been locked down for meetings, it had cast a sickly shade over the faces of the circle members.

It did nothing to hide the glow of blushing pink that always warmed Sophie’s ochre skin. Like she was lit from inside by a fire no evil could touch. Even if the world wanted to convince her that darkness was all she could ever live by.

“I didn’t come here to make things difficult,” she said, giving life to the accusation that I knew she would take to heart. Biting back the urge to inform her she made things difficult just by being her, I nodded.

She scratched her arm absently. There was fatigue in her dark eyes. It made me want to lash out suddenly and roar at her to never push herself past the brink the way Noah had described this afternoon.

“She was crying in the bathroom again,” Noah had said. I wanted to punch him just for being close to her at that fragile moment.

She swallowed the lump in her throat. The lion stood perfectly still, its mating instinct temporarily blunted by an overwhelming protectiveness. She was hiding things. Had been doing so since well before Lex went away. If I startled her now, she would clam up and we’d be at the beginning again.

Gently, I waited, holding the reins on both lion and man. “I had a nightmare last night,” she said. “In it, I saw Kai and Astrid. I saw what happened in Seraphina while it was happening.”

My target shifted. In a tug-of-war between mate and pack, my mate would always win. But we weren’t mated, and what she was saying smacked of ill-doing.

“Tell me everything.”

When she was done, I couldn’t think straight for a second. The words, when they came, were honed in fire. “So, something has been stalking you this whole time and you haven’t said a word about it?”

“The malachim warp minds all the time,” she said. “All I know is that I could be compromised.”

“If you’re compromised then so is the Reserve!”

Her brows pulled together. “I’m not the one in danger,” she said with no certainty whatsoever. “I’m just the one viewing it from the outside.”

“The way Lucifer used to torment Lex in her sleep?”

When she frowned outright, I knew it was only dawning on her for the first time. After a second contemplation, she shook her head. The movement cause her mop of dark hair to pillow about her shoulders. “This isn’t Lucifer. I’m not sure how, but I know it’s not him. I just can’t work out what it is. At least not while my movements are restricted. If I could just do a summoning–”

“Don’t start.”

Her lips flatlined. “Why not?”

“While you were on the run,” I couldn’t even say it without the hint of a growl building in my throat, “did you try summoning?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you learn?”

She scratched at her knee in a distracted way while she tried to come up with a lie that would get her what she wanted. Lex did it without a second thought. She’d once looked me in the eye and lied her tiny ass off. Even though I knew she was lying, I couldn’t for the life of me actually sniff out the lie on her. It had been one of the most messed-up things I had ever experienced in a human. And one thing I hoped would help save her now.

Sophie was a practiced liar. It didn’t come naturally to her. When Lex lied, she meant it. If she got caught,