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

“I’m sinking blood wards into the Reserve,” I squeaked.

Time stood still as brownish-red dots appeared in his eyes. The black of his pupils dilated until there was only a sliver of yellow left to be seen. In my head, I thought I heard the sound of howling, of flesh tearing, and screams blanketing the night.

Inside me, the blood barrier flared. Alchemy raced to reinforce it. I knew from the way Noah’s nose twitched that the scent of death must have been potent. The pressure on my wrist increased.

“Ow!” I said. His head snapped up. When he opened his mouth, his teeth were sharpened at the points.

“Why?”

I was more than a little tired of being questioned about every little thing. But the way his vision became drenched in nightmares made me open my mouth. “I’m worried that the Reserve doesn’t have enough defences,” I said. His hold made me wince.

“Why would we need more defences?”

“Seraphina has everything, and they were still attacked.”

“Seraphina is a bigger target.”

“So?”

“So why would the malachim pick this place? Does it have something to do with that thing inside you that is cloaked in darkness?”

My struggling became frantic. “No.”

“Sophie!”

“No!” I screamed in his face. “I’m getting really sick of being accused of stuff I haven’t done. So either decide that you’re going to trust me or lock me up!”

He grabbed me by the shoulders, his gaze shackling me to the spot. “I’m not going to ask again. What’s that thing inside you that smells like necromantic magic?”

“It’s necromantic magic! Duh!”

He really shook me this time, the tether holding him to a civilised mindset completely gone. Coarse hairs began to grow along the length of his arms, the grey T-shirt stretching to almost bursting as he fought to keep hold of his wolf.

“Why do you have necromantic magic inside you?”

I was shaking. The hairs on the back of my neck were pointed straight up. My gut bottomed out as though I were riding the world’s worst roller coaster. If he lost control now, he’d snap my neck and I’d be dead. And yet, my mouth clamped shut.

“Tell me!” he roared in my face.

Balling my hands so hard my nails pierced my palms, I held firm. It was one thing to tell Andrei about the mating link, but there was no way I would breathe a word about it to Max’s inner circle. They would be obligated to tell him and worse, he would feel the knowledge through his alpha link with them. I would take the secret to my grave if I had to rather than watch Max die.

Noah’s eyes went fully red. I knew I was in trouble. Crying out as he flexed and crushed my shoulder, I grabbed for the blood alchemy and forced it into my palm. Pink light flared as it raced down my wrist to materialise into the dull blood blade. He saw it the moment I made the decision to stab him and suddenly threw me away.

Falling onto my ass, I scrambled to disperse the blade and funnelled the magic into a glowing red protection circle. Unlike my usual circle, this one was bound in blood. Transmutation wasn’t the only thing I could do with blood. And unlike the transformation of an essence, I could use demon blood to reinforce the strength of a circle. Of course, it would do nothing besides keep Noah out.

Right now, he was keeled over, his back arching as he fought the urge to shift. In hindsight, I probably should have just told him what I was doing. Performing blood magic in the presence of somebody whose life had been destroyed by it was a monumental error. I just...for a moment there I thought he would trust me. But I supposed some things would never change.

It was why I opened my mouth and said, “This blade is all the protection I have against the malachim. If I can disperse the magic into blood circles, if the Reserve gets attacked, the circles will create a barrier. They will make the malachim corporeal for long enough that we might stand a chance to either fight back or run.”

For a long moment, I didn’t think he could hear me. He was making a terrible gnashing sound like somebody was actually ripping his claws out. Rather than push him, I sat within the circle, ready to strike if need be.

His smashed the grass with a hairy fist. “Why?”

Speech. Good. Talking was good. Talking meant he was still being rational. “Why what?”

He took a shuddering breath. If I weren’t still poised to run, I would have been impressed with his self-control. Very few shifters could hold on once the urge to shift began. “Why do this?”

“Because I don’t particularly want to die.”

“Liar! Try again.”

“What do you want me to say?”

He lumbered over. His clawed hands carved grooves into the grass. “All of it,” he grunted. “I want to know why.”

By all of it, I suspected he meant the necromantic magic too. He stood on a precipice. Either I jumped or I faced the wolf. There was no alternative. At the very core of everything I did in the Reserve, there was only one answer: “Max.”

He regarded me with insanity in his eyes. But little by little, the crazy receded, until finally, all that was left in front of me was a man with shredded clothing hanging to his muscled form. Even then I didn’t let go of the circle.

“Why don’t you just mate with him?”

For goodness’ sake! They were all one-track minded. “Because I can’t. That’s all I’m telling you, so don’t make that face at me please. I’m exhausted from trying to be non-threatening all the time. At some point, you have to trust me or not.”

He had gone through so much. So, so much that I was asking a lot. The strength in him to claw himself back from the nightmare of his childhood should have been enough. And now here I was, the