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

I could only glower when I thought of Noah clearing off. “That bastard just left me.”

“Aww, c’mon, Sophie. Cut Noah a break. The worst thing that Max would have done to you was...” He trailed off, unable to speak the words. Cassie and Luther threw each other disgusted smirks. “Anyway, Noah gets to spend all day with you. Do you think Max is happy about that?”

“Max isn’t happy about anything these days!”

“You’re not wrong.”

I’d never been less happy to be right about something. “Are we eating out?” Luther wanted to know.

I gave a heavy sigh. “Do you think the villagers are going to come at me with their pitchforks?”

“For what?” Charles asked. “Killing a few rats?”

I knew he was trying to make light of what happened, but he also didn’t answer my question. Any unpopularity directed my way was offset but the number of shifters who had opted to dine communally. Perhaps they missed their freedom more than they disliked what I represented.

Along with dinner, I treated myself to a health elixir. By the time I lay down in bed, snug in one of Max’s new T-shirts, I almost felt like myself again.

I swear I had only just closed my eyes when they were snatched open by the mournful groaning of a pair of black bears.

25

The next thing I knew, somebody was shouting my name. Months of sleeping rough had me startling upright. Fae lights came on in the house followed by the stamping of feet and Charles swearing up a storm.

When my door burst open, it wasn’t Charles who dashed through. I screamed as Noah came to a halt at the base of my bed. His chest was covered in blood. The shocking burst of red was too much to my sleep-addled brain.

“Downstairs,” Noah ordered. “Now! Bring potion!”

Heart in my throat, I snatched a few vials of potion and raced out behind him. My limbs were so heavy with dread that I felt like I could hardly lift my legs. Don’t let it be Max. Don’t let it be Max. Don’t let it be Max.

It wasn’t Max. But it was just as bad.

Jeremiah held Lizzie in his arms. His face was a storm of aggression, the bear so close to the surface that I swear I blinked and his mouth was a snout. The only reason I could tell it was Lizzie was because of the mop of black hair. The rest of her was a mess of blood and limbs sticking out at the wrong angles. Amy was on the couch, her arms drenched to the elbows in blood, her face sheet-white. She stood up when she saw me. Uncertainty blend into the anguish in her eyes.

Noah pushed me in the back. “Help her!”

In my head, somebody was screaming non-stop. The sound was so high-pitched I thought it might burst my eardrums. A part of me thought she might already be dead, but I didn’t dare allow that thought to take hold. I was already moving.

When I got close however, Jeremiah backed up. His arms constricted around Lizzie. I knew he wasn’t thinking clearly anymore, because he was crushing her in the process.

More people stomped into the living room. Ari and Gwen followed by...Max. His eyes flicked to the T-shirt I was wearing and then he was in front of me. When he pulled me into a hug, I didn’t struggle.

“She’s just barely holding on,” he said, his voice urgent in my ear. “Breathe. You can do this.”

Then he turned and issued an order in his implacable alpha voice. “Let go of her, Jeremiah.” The whine came from Amy, but Ari and Gwen were holding her back. Or upright. It was hard to tell. Jeremiah emitted a vicious growl that came from the soul of a father who was paralysed. When Noah and Max moved closer to him, Jeremiah shifted for real, his teeth becoming inch-long spines.

Max’s arm shot out. He snapped a punch that clocked Jeremiah right in the jaw. The bear’s eyes rolled back in his head. Noah raced out and snatched Lizzie from Jeremiah’s grasp while Ari dived to ease his fall.

Noah laid Lizzie down on the soft carpet. I bit my tongue to stop from turning into a sopping mess. The thing that had mauled her wasn’t demonic. There was no necrosis anywhere in her injuries. The wounds were ragged. Though the shifters could be merciless and savage, they weren’t cruel. When they killed, it was quick. This kind of carnage was made by something not used to violence. If I could have guessed, I would think that she was attacked by something with blunter claws than a predatory shifter. I remembered Lizzie telling Edward about her new dog. Unlike in the Academy, the shifters were allowed to keep pets. The thought made me want to throw up.

I had no actual medical training. I wasn’t any kind of healer. Why they didn’t contact a mage or the Fae was beyond me. This was insulation to the worst degree. Something else occurred to me too. They were all experienced soldiers. It stood to reason that they knew what a fatal injury looked like. This was now about hoping for a miracle.

Thoughts of a sterile environment and transfusions filled my head, but I discarded them as well. They were supernatural. Their healing came from sources outside of human medicine. Their bodies were made of a kind of magic we couldn’t fathom. I just wished I was made of the same.

Blood. There was so much of it. So much that I couldn’t fathom how the poor baby was still breathing. She needed blood. I knew that much. But the way her body had been mauled, she had no strength and no capacity to drink the elixir.

“Knife!” I screamed. One was placed in front of me.

The cut was too deep. So close to the artery on my wrist that I