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

There was nothing I could say to that. They spent the next day basically battening down the hatches. What concerned me were the wooden crates they were stacking against the kitchen walls.

“What’s inside those?” I asked Sean.

“Insurance,” he said, before walking away without actually telling me anything. I spent the day in the library trying to brush up on my summoning skills. Phoenix sensed the mood in the place and refused to leave my side. Thankfully, everybody was too preoccupied to notice him underfoot.

Close to the time when I was meant to be dropped off at the fern forest, Samantha and Matilda took me aside. “Are you sure you want to go back?” Samantha asked. Matilda leaned against the hallway banister. She appeared to be lounging but I noticed she now wore a hip holster holding a strange-looking gun.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

She closed her eyes slowly. “There will come a time soon when you’ll have to make a choice. I sincerely hope you choose well.”

Sean and Rachel both wore similar guns to the ones Matilda had on her person. Neither of them said a word as Phoenix and I got out the back seat at that drop-off point. This time, Kai was waiting for me. He noticed the rather chilly send-off.

“That was…civil,” he said.

“Oh don’t start. I’ve had just about enough of everybody trying to get one up on each other. How did you figure out the soul phasing thing anyway?”

Anybody else might have been smug about unravelling this puzzle that had eluded the supernaturals for centuries. Kai simply blinked. “It was only a matter of time,” he said. “Though you did help me a little.”

“I did no such thing.”

“You did more than you’ll ever know.”

I waited for him to elaborate. It wasn’t forthcoming.

“Fine. Keep your stupid secrets.”

He curled his arm around me and teleported. We came through on the other side in my room. Sophie wasn’t around. Disappointment added to my irritation at him being tight-lipped.

“I’m not going to tell them if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He grabbed me when I tried to stalk past. His fingers laced around my arm. “I’m not questioning your loyalty.”

I tried to shake him off but he held firm and drew me into an embrace. Frustration tried to take hold of me, but it melted into the weightless feeling I always got when he was around. “Nobody questions anything, but I bet I’m still locked out of where I want to go.” He tipped my head up when I refused to look at him.

“This isn’t about you.”

I scowled. “They’re trying to help me free Nanna. But we can’t do anything because she’s in Seraphina and I’m not allowed in there. It’s ridiculous. She’s my grandmother. Who the hell are the Council to tell me if I can see her?”

He ran his hand through his hair. The breath he let out felt...inevitable. Like he’d been waiting for us to get into this argument. The thought scraped unpleasantly at me. Whether we liked it or not, a line was being drawn in the sand. Something occurred to me.

“You thought I’d go there and hate it, didn’t you?”

He didn’t bother to deny it. “I thought you’d see that they’re unhinged.”

“They are. But then again, they have every right to be.” I hedged my bets. “Did you know Rachel when she lived in Rivia?”

He shook his head immediately. “I didn’t have much to do with the general population until after my family were murdered.” He cupped my cheek. “They’d say and do anything to get you on their side.”

I snorted. “At least they’re letting me make the decision.”

“There are so few of them. It’s much easier to be magnanimous when they don’t have hundreds of different voices constantly bleating at them.”

His jaw clamped as he spoke those words. I recognised the weariness in it. For a second, the tug of my affection for him suggested that I should drop the subject. But it was also what he said that had me pausing. There were so many supernaturals compared to the Soul Sisterhood. And they had just lost their one advantage. I would be just as insane if I were in their position. I caught myself referring to them as though I wasn’t a part of them. The same way I’d done while I was at Terran. If loyalty was the ultimate question here, where did mine reside?

I brushed my hand over my face. All of a sudden, the last four days caught up to me. My energy levels crashed. I sat down heavily on the bed. “Blue?”

Kai crouched in front of me, his hand intertwined with mine. “How come you never call me by my real name?”

For as long as I lived, I would never get used to the way he became motionless when he was caught by surprise. It didn’t happen often enough. Malachi Pendragon was always prepared. But sometimes, when I was very lucky, I’d say something that caught him off guard.

“Do you want me to drop the nickname?” His voice was a rough caress. His let go of my hand and scraped his palm down my leg until he clutched my calf. There was nowhere for me to go. I sat there dumbstruck like a deer in headlights. His startling green eyes peered at me without blinking.

“The thing is, I don’t know if either of us is prepared for what might happen,” he said. Something inside the core of me tightened. The only time I’d heard him call me by my real name was right before the cavern dropped on him. He leaned forward until our lips were inches apart.

“I don’t know if I’m prepared for it, Alessia.”

I was prepared for the kiss. But not the intensity of blazing green light that radiated off him and enveloped me in tingling heat. It seeped into my skin, heating my blood until I felt like I was way overdressed. Kai dragged me closer, the length of his body pressed against my chest. His arm