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

As it did, the crimson of my magic increased in volume, the colour darkening. Hugh continued to laugh but he didn’t see what I saw. He didn’t feel the way the soul tether in my psyche was fluctuating, as though the Ley dimension itself was trying to cut me off. To remove me like a cancerous cell.

Sobbing, I couldn’t do anything but sit there helplessly as Hugh continued to force me to hold on to that awful blood magic. And then he did worse. While Noah was plastered to the wall and I was incapacitated, Hugh opened up a portal.

“No!” I screamed as loudly as I could in the vain hope that somebody outside would hear. The flare of purple magic around the perimeter of the room dampened the sound. The portal snapped open as the inside brightened to reveal a red sky. Desperate, I tried to access the MirrorNet but I was still well and truly locked out.

Inside me, the blood barrier became a thin sheaf as the mating link railed against it. But instead of trying to get out and stop what Hugh was doing, I felt it attempt to sink claws into the soul tether, as though it was trying to hold me in place.

Darkness flashed across my vision.

Through the portal, I heard the sound of thudding feet. “Stop it, please!”

Hugh didn’t give me a second thought. “You can stop it, Sophie dear,” he said. “Can’t you feel it? All you have to do is make the leap and all that power you’ve been craving could be at your fingertips.”

The truth in his words gathered in a dark pink cloud around my fingers as an abraxas demon stepped through the portal. In true demon style, it went for the first thing it saw: Noah.

The shifter roared, fighting with all of his strength of free himself from Hugh’s binding spell. His muscles roiled beneath his skin, but whatever Hugh was doing was also stopping Noah from shifting. Eyes the colour of buttercups glared out of a face gone wolf, even if he couldn’t shift.

“Hugh!” I screamed, but the mage wasn’t listening. He’d turned his back on me.

“You can stop it,” he said. “Take the demon out before it hurts your friend.”

The demon stomped towards Noah, its fangs so long they dug into its bottom lip. The twisted thing stamped its grotesquely large feet, rocking the room and making me slide into the bodies and blood of the rats.

Noah roared again in rage. Something in my mind shattered. The mating link stretched itself to the limit, straining the blood barrier almost to a breaking point. In my head, I felt the curiosity of a lion. In that moment, I gave up.

The transmuted power that I had been holding in snapped out in a vicious whip. It launched itself through the air and grabbed Hugh in its grasp. He gave a shocked scream before it rammed him headfirst into the wall. The second he lost consciousness, the portal closed.

Noah fell to the floor in a graceful crouch before leaping at the demon. He shifted mid-air, his wolf a dark brown that matched his skin tone perfectly. The demon attempted to swipe out at him, but Noah was a ball of unrepentant anger. He ducked the swipe and went straight for the demon’s throat. Bringing it down to the floor, Noah locked his jaw and twisted his head. The crunch of bones and tendon sliced through the room a second before he sank his claws into the demon’s chest. With a twist, Noah tore the demon’s head right off.

He padded over to me, his eyes half red. I couldn’t speak, my mind too full of horror.

That was when the door burst open. Jacqueline and Doctor Thorne came racing into the room, but I was too numb to react.

“Sophie!” Jacqueline said. She tried to reach for my hand, but I flinched. Not because I didn’t want comfort but because I was afraid there was still residual magic clinging to me. I couldn’t risk hurting her. A pop burst in the air and Marshall appeared.

The sight of him so beautifully golden made me blindingly aware that I was sitting in a pool of rodent blood and guts. I lowered my gaze to the floor.

“Come on,” Jacqueline said. “Infirmary for you.”

When I didn’t move, she became firmer. “Sophie. Get up. Move your arms and legs.”

The bluntness in her tone made me raise my head. I found myself looking into a wolf’s clear yellow eyes. You can do this, they seemed to say. If I can survive the nightmare of my family’s death, you can get up now.

And I did, though every step felt like I was walking through quicksand. One foot in front of the other. That’s what I told myself until we stepped outside and I found myself looking into the stunned faces of at least three dozen Academy students. The horror in their eyes had me wailing inside.

I felt what little ground I had managed to claw back slipping from beneath me. With one experiment, I was back to being Enock Mwape’s great-granddaughter.

There was nothing physically wrong with me of course. Marshall left to deal with the body of the demon and to do whatever he was going to do with Hugh. My hope was that it would involve an angel blade.

“What happened?” Jacqueline asked.

The glass of ambrosia trembled in my hand. I took a big swig of it, knowing that I needed to settle my nerves before going back to the Reserve. When I felt ready, I told her everything.

Noah stood like a tree by the base of the bed. He hadn’t said a word and only left me for the time it took to change his shirt. “Can you please make a call to Andrei?” I asked him. “Tell him I really need to speak to him.”

After he left, Jacqueline informed me she’d contact the Council about removing Agatha and Hugh from the vicinity.”

“Wait!” I said before I could even