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

attack and not be able to communicate it. But as I glanced at the faces around me, I knew this was possibly the best option for us. Giselle was being held in Seraphina, but whatever I’d done to her meant she hadn’t regained consciousness. I had no real idea how I’d bound Basil besides pure luck. And in the back of my mind, those crystal blue eyes in Lucifer’s inhumanly beautiful face haunted me. One day, he would come for me. I had no doubt about that. If he could find his way out of the abyss, he would try and get me.

“Urgh,” I groaned. “Fine. But I don’t like it.”

Jacqueline looked up at the others. “I don’t want Lex to go alone.”

“The invitation specifies she has to,” Marshall said.

Jacqueline swept the piece of paper into her hands. “I don’t really care. We will consider their proposal, but Bloodline Academy will not bow down to threats.”

Somehow, I had a feeling this meeting wasn’t exactly going to go swimmingly.

4

I stomped my feet on the short steps leading into the Bloodline Academy school bus. After the last disastrous run-in with demons, a new bus had been purchased. It was kitted out with all manner of fail-safes to stop a demon attack.

“It doesn’t look all that different,” Basil observed. As if he would know! I sat down heavily beside Sophie. She was slumped by the window seat smack bang in the middle of the bus. She was trying to be as unobtrusive as possible so as not to draw attention from her parents. They were dead set against her coming. They were also dead set against me going. But they were new members of the Council and were still trying to determine when to throw their weight around.

“We’ve tried to reinforce the warding around the engine,” Professor Mortimer said. He stood at the front of the bus and readjusted his glasses. “The difficult thing is that no matter how cautious we are, the technology still has a way of reacting poorly to the presence of magic.”

With that cheerful pronouncement, he settled into the driver’s seat. I didn’t even know he could drive. The Sisterhood claimed an extensive part of the coast where their school was situated was warded against teleportation. Otherwise we would have just gone through a portal.

Since coming to the Academy, I had developed a healthy aversion to vehicular travel. It was a time-saving thing. Why drive when you could teleport?

“Just what we want to hear as we’re about to take a road trip,” I muttered. Sophie nudged me with her elbow. She pressed her lips together firmly. I think she was hoping to shut me up with peer pressure. Not a chance.

I would have made a further remark but a burst of emerald light outside the window caught my attention. Kai teleported right beside where Professor Magnus was manning the situation around the portal. Several of the mages from the Dominion had been hired out to maintain the structural integrity of the portal. After everything that had happened last year, they had better be giving us a steep discount.

I let my gaze rest on Thalia’s slim figure as she spoke to Professor Magnus. Though she was an earth elemental, Thalia’s secondary skillset was supposedly anchoring portals. For some reason, Peter had tagged along with her. He sat by the side of the garage weeding the brick pathway. I wanted more than anything to be out there with him.

Kai entered my field of vision. He turned and lifted his head to catch my eye. If the determined set of his shoulders wasn’t warning enough, the frown he levelled at me certainly was. I wanted to roll my eyes at him but thought better of it. Ever since the letter arrived, he’d been hovering around me like he thought the Sisterhood might actually steal me away. If I had to guess, I would say he spent all that time in Seraphina brooding outside Giselle’s cell. His preoccupation with the Sisterhood was edging well into obsession.

They all forgot that in the scheme of things, I was better equipped to deal with the Sisterhood. It was part of the reason why I didn’t like this mass entourage plan. The instructions had been pretty clear. I was to meet the Sisterhood at their soul gate alone. According to them, the past seventeen years of my life were meaningless.

Kai tapped the side of the bus. Professor Mortimer started the engine. Jacqueline ambled down the aisle towards us.

“Are you ready, ladies?” she asked.

I nodded. Ready or not, Sisterhood, here we came.

Sophie took my hand. Hers were rattling. They were cold to the touch. Her raggedly bitten thumb pressed against my palm. It gave legitimacy to all of the fear that had settled in my chest. Kai leaped into the air. His wings unfurled momentarily and then he was gone again. We’d know if the coast wasn’t clear on the other side of the portal if he came straight back.

Professor Mortimer stuck his arm out the window and waved. Clearly he didn’t understand the road rules very well. The bus rumbled as the professor made a quarter turn to the right. He lined the bus up with the expanding portal. His foot must have come down too hard on the gas because the bus lurched. Its tires squealed as it laboured to move forward. Some of the enhancements he’d mentioned must have been metal fortification, because the thing groaned.

Sensing that we were losing our window of obscurity, Basil stood up from where he was seated in the back and waved his hands. Orange light shimmered from his palms. The bus shot forward and through the portal. There was a moment of pitch darkness interspersed with starlight. The tendrils of the Ley lines feathered out around us. My chest deflated. A second later, my heart almost exploded out of my chest as the bus landed poorly against the bitumen.

Tires screeched. The professor hauled the steering wheel to the