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

in here and take over. It might only be temporary, but the takeover would destroy the shifters’ confidence in themselves.

I opened my mouth but there were no words of comfort. I found myself inspecting the line of sculpted muscle where the sleeve of his T-shirt met his bicep. Thanks to Shayla, the Thompson boys weren’t as affected by the draining of the malachim. Both of them were still the picture of health. It also meant that the burden of protecting the Reserve would fall on them if they ever came to strife.

Max wasn’t a sit-back-and-wait kind of man. Like Charles, he never seemed to stop moving, the energy that made him who he was a constant motivator. But for the sake of the pack, he’d tied himself to a desk, to a position that he didn’t want.

After his ascension, Max had made plans to roam. To see the world that was supposed to open up for him once he graduated. Eventually, he would have taken his place amongst the elite guard. Dorian had already lined up a position for him with the Sentinels.

Now he was the unwilling pack alpha, the one forced to ask others to toe the line, even when he himself wanted to do the exact opposite.

“I’m sorry,” I found myself saying.

“Why are you apologising?” he swallowed. “This isn’t your fault.”

Did it matter? Fault wasn’t what made my heart break for him. “Max. I–”

He reached past me and slid his fingers around the nape of my neck. The movement was slow, deliberate, possessive. If I wanted to, I could have stopped it. What I wanted became a jumble as the pads of his fingers grazed the sensitive skin on my neck. My insides liquefied. That insidious voice in my mind screamed at me, only to be smothered by the mating link. Remembering to breathe became difficult as Max reached out to unwrap the sheets. The T-shirt I still wore was bunched up around my hips.

Heat trickled into my gut as his whole body seemed to tighten when his eyes lowered. Taking great care not to jostle me too much, Max curled his other arm around my waist, lifting me into his lap.

The awareness of him everywhere was stark. His scent wrapped around me, headier than the feel of his sturdy arm around my back. Though I could feel the pulse of his need against my hip, it was the look in his eyes that stripped me bare. That look that was so full of certainty and adoration that it was addicting. The look that told me without words or encouragement from the mating link that he loved me.

It was a splash of molten heat in my memory. One of him barricading me on all sides in the Run just before Lex and Diana had barged in on us.

“Do you understand what it means to be with an alpha?” he’d said against the pulse of my neck. “It means absolute and utter submission. Everywhere.” He’d planted the softest kiss on my skin to disarm any challenge I would have made. It gave life to the notion that he was very capable of winning submission with more than just violence. And if I gave in, it would be with sensual gratitude as I surrendered. At the time, I didn’t know which was more dangerous. Now, I had no more illusions.

“I could kill you for putting yourself in danger again,” he rasped in my ear.

“I seem to remember you being right there when it happened.”

He bit the soft lobe of my ear.

My back arched into him. “Max!”

The curve of his lip brushed my cheekbone when he smiled. A shiver ran down the length of my body when his hot breath bathed my skin. My hips moved involuntarily. Max groaned, his eyes turning gold in a single blink. The instant his lips pressed against mine, every inch of caution disintegrated. My mouth opened as I wrapped my arms around his neck, deepening the kiss with a hot sweep of my tongue.

The growl began in his chest. It vibrated against me and poured into my mouth as his lips became more insistent. His palm gripped my hip hard enough to draw a gasp. The pressure eased, and I rocked on his lap answering his unspoken question — pleasure or pain?

Trailing a calloused finger along the hem of my panties, he hooked the edge of the material and—Cold. Biting cold that stole the warmth from Max’s body. His expressive eyes blank and unseeing. The brutal transition shocked me back from the brink.

“Sophie?”

A silvery, needle-thin spine shoved straight through his heart, ending his life.

If you accept the mating link, he will die.

“Sophie!”

Taking in a shuddering breath, I peeled open my eyes and leaned into the only lie I knew that would blunt the possessiveness in him. Placing my hand over his, I pried his fingers off me, allowing my teeth to grind just the slightest bit like part of me was still raw.

Just like that his focus shifted into protectiveness. “Where does it hurt?”

If only he knew.

Allowing my forehead to rest against his cheek, I said, “Forgot I was human for a second.”

Some inconsiderate person banged on the door. When the knob twisted without a response from either of us, I knew who it would be before Anastasia poked her head in. Max winched his arms around me, stopping me from sliding off him.

“Yolanda is up.” Huh. So she could tell what was important and what wasn’t.

That sentiment was exactly what shone in her eyes as she tossed me a haughty look over her shoulder as they left the room together. For a moment, I had forgotten what was important.

Biting the inside of my cheek, I lay back and forced myself to pull the Ley sight around me. Trepidation sank claws into me when I spotted the polluted thread of my soul tether. What the hell kind of nightmare was this?

I’d lived with Lex for too long not to understand what the soul tether was