Bloodline Secrecy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 2), Lan Chan [readict TXT] 📗

She’d stormed out of the room once again this morning. Well before I’d even had to get up to go to the Grove.

“She seems pretty angry to me.”

“Trust me.”

Meditation turned out not to be one of those things you could pick up in a single session. I had such a hard time concentrating that I was constantly fidgeting and thinking about other things. Like what if Sophie really was mad and she wouldn’t forgive me by the time the ceremony rolled around.

We were sitting in the conservatory that was attached to the teacher’s lounge. Yet another building I had never had cause to enter. Professor Mortimer had given me a curt nod as I walked in. He was a bit put out at me for not picking Arcane Magic as my showcase talent. Everybody was getting all worked up over nothing.

“Do you have ants in your pants?” Professor Eldridge asked, after I kind of almost fell asleep and toppled to the side.

“I can’t seem to get my mind to go blank without getting drowsy,” I said.

“Kids these days.” She said this to Jacqueline like I wasn’t even there. For two Amazons, they were very good at this Zen thing. I was also trying not to notice that neither of them had an inch of cellulite on them. They were indeed wearing gym clothing of the stretchiest material. Everything was trim and taut, though.

“Concentrate on your breathing,” Jacqueline said. “When you feel like your thoughts are about to stray, bring it back to breathing in and out. I know you have a lot on your mind at the moment but try and push that out of the way.”

After another hour or so, I thought I was getting the hang of it. Or at least I wasn’t falling asleep. I resolved to try and take more time out of my day to practice. That was not something I could do in the middle of classes, though.

We were gearing up for exam preparation. Everybody was all abuzz about the Halloween Showcase. Many of them had signed up to be part of the preparation committee. At lunch, Sophie and I sat at opposite ends of the table.

“This isn’t awkward at all,” Trey said. “What did you do to her?”

I shot him a dirty look and said nothing.

“Listen,” Sasha said. “If I wanted to be ignored and given a verbal bashing just for being alive, I would sit with the Fae.”

“Just eat your lunch,” I said.

Diana was the only one who was acting normally. She spoke to Sophie and me in turn, making easy conversation. We were halfway through the meal when somebody cleared their throat. Sophie all but fainted when Max appeared behind her. Diana pressed her boot down on my foot. She was sitting beside me. I tried to pinch her thigh. Her boots were industrial weight. It was killing me.

“Can I talk to you?” Max asked Sophie.

She glared at me like she wanted to set me on fire. Max didn’t give her a chance to answer. He curled his fingers around her arm and pretty much dragged her out of the dining hall.

“Should we do something about that?” Roland asked. I pressed my lips together. For the first time I felt a little bad. I wondered if Roland was still harbouring a crush on Sophie.

“Don’t you dare,” Diana said.

We waited for her to return. The clocked ticked by. Ten minutes. Twenty. At the half-hour mark, I started getting worried. “I’m going to check on her,” I said.

“Be prepared to have your face ripped off,” Trey said. “And that’s just Sophie. I don’t even know what Max will do.”

“I’m coming with you,” Diana said.

We searched all over the common areas but couldn’t find them. “How much do you want to bet he’s dragged her off to the Shifter Run?” Diana asked.

The Run was a large enclosed area where the shifters on campus could go to have free rein. It was their portion of the grounds. Now that she’d said it, I realised that was probably the perfect place for a lion shifter pumped full of testosterone to take his captive.

His captive.

“Shit,” I said. “What if he’s gone furry?”

Diana and I started running. The gate to the enclosure wasn’t locked during the day but there was a shifter guard at the door. Diana and I were decidedly not shifters.

“What’s your business here?” the heavily muscled Asian man asked.

“We’re looking for a friend,” I said. “She’s about five-seven, dark skin, cheeky smile.”

I could tell by the flare of yellow in his eyes that he’d seen her recently. “You’ve got five minutes.” He stepped aside.

“That was easy,” I said.

“Unlike some of the other races, the shifters like unsuspecting people trespassing on their property,” Diana said. “Their motto is: Prey is prey.”

I grew green. “We’d better hurry.”

We raced around the enclosure which was divided into four quadrants with different terrain conditions in each one. I almost had a heart attack when we found Max and Sophie in the savannah quadrant. He had her backed up against a rocky outcrop. There was literally a lion sitting on the lip of the rock. It was sunning itself. We couldn’t see much of Sophie because Max’s body blocked her from view. As we neared, she made what I thought was a distressed sound. Diana attacked. She wasn’t armed but that had never stopped her before. Before I knew what was happening, she was barrelling into Max’s side. He barely moved but it was enough for me to grab Sophie and yank her away.

“Lex!” Was she breathless from fear or exhilaration? I couldn’t tell. Her clothing was all rumpled. There was a tear in her shirt. A growl filtered through the muggy air of the savannah. The lion on the outcrop yawned. The one on the ground with us grabbed Diana by the waist and lifted her off the floor with one arm. He held her suspended