Bloodline Diplomacy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 3) by Lan Chan (best short novels .txt) 📕

“Shut up!” I screamed at them. The blast of death magic had been entirely unintentional. I think. It whipped through the atmosphere and extinguished the light around Scott’s blade. They all froze, their attention turning to me. “I am so sick of hearing you justify yourselves. You’re all as bad as each other. At this point, I hope the apocalypse comes quickly so I don’t have to listen to you anymore.”

I marched up to where Matilda was bristling at Orin. With Samantha’s death, she had become grand mistress by default. “Let’s end this, shall we?”

She smirked at me. “And how are we going to do that? There’s no way we’re giving in to these monsters!”

Orin snarled, his glamour shimmering to reveal pointed teeth. He was going to get punched if he didn’t back up. I looked from one side to the other. The smell of smoke and salt filled my nostrils. If they did this the human way, it would take months for Terran to be rebuilt. In the meantime, they didn’t trust each other at all. Who knew when the next attack would come? And through it all, I would be stuck in the middle. As if I didn’t have all kinds of other problems.

It was with that thought sapping my energy that I turned to Matilda. “Terran is gone,” I told her. “It’s never going to be the same again. You know that.”

“We can start over.”

“Or you can join us.”

Both sides protested. Orin and Scott tried to jostle me out of the way and got smacked in the faces by a death circle for their troubles.

“She has a point,” Nora said. “Without the soul gate there isn’t any need to remain here. At least not in the immediate future.”

“And spend all out time watching our backs?” Matilda snapped.

Nora smiled at her. “How about you spend that time watching our backs?” Mani slung his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “We are a tiny faction. We need all the help we can get.”

That was our drill and it usually worked. I was the bulldozer and the Mwansas were the architects. Matilda just stood there blinking for the longest time. Finally, she sighed. “We want our own space,” she said.

Nora cracked a grin at me. Rachel wasn’t as impressed. She stood to the side, her face in its perpetual scowl. I stepped up to her.

“I’m not moving in there,” she said.

“It’s a free country. You’re more than qualified to do something else. But there are humans within the supernatural community who will feel the backlash of what happened here.” I clutched her forearm. “And I know one human in particular who misses his daughter.”

She turned her head away but not before I saw her eyes turn glassy. “I don’t know if I can forgive them,” she said.

“Nobody is saying you have to. But you’re not the only one who needs to forgive.” I thought of Desi and swallowed. “Months ago, you dropped that package off to me and you killed another vampire.”

She turned back to me, her eyes wide. It had taken me some time to figure out which one of them had been the messenger. When she’d told me she used to live in Rivia, I knew it was Rachel. The patrols that night reported one of theirs had gone missing. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together. Her mouth flattened. She was stubborn. And proud. It would take more than a simple request to get her over the line. So I did what she’d done to me.

“Rachel,” I told her. “We need you. By legacy, you’re a part of supernatural society. Your enrolment at Terran ends today. You belong to Bloodline Academy now.”

She burst into tears. My shoulder slumped as I hugged her. I wasn’t sure how, but we would get through this. Even if I had to kick everybody’s ass to get there.

41

Once again I was in an infirmary. Except this time, it wasn’t for me. Both Academies were trying to tend to their wounded. It would take time to finalise the details of the transition, but that was their problem.

It had been a week since the battle. I sat in the armchair of a private hospital room in Seraphina reading one of Basil’s Western romances. Okay, it wasn’t my first one. If I was honest, I kind of had a slight addiction now. I was getting towards the all is lost moment when my own Prince Charming flicked the cover and the book flew out of my hands. It bounced on the floor and closed.

“Hey!” I jumped off the chair to get it. “Now I’ve lost my page!”

“You’re supposed to be hanging on to my every breath,” Kai said. “Not reading some book with a ridiculous cover.”

“It’s the only thing that’s gotten me through,” I said. I placed the back of my hand on my forehead and pretended to swoon. He yanked me up and onto the bed. His complexion was still peaky but his lids were at half-mast. He glanced at my mouth. His finger traced the outline of the necklace at my throat. My stomach dipped. The swoon was suddenly very real.

He tipped my chin up and smiled at me. His lips brushed mine gently. I pressed my palm to his chest and eased him off after a while. “You’re supposed to be resting,” I said.

“I’m supposed to be a lot of things.” He leaned in again.

“Kai!”

He shackled the hand I used to try and push him away. His eyes searched mine. Darkness bled into his when I glanced away. “Alessia,” he said. The solemness of it made me turn back. “I don’t care whose blood you’ve got.”

My body wanted to curl up. He hugged me to his chest. Despite Azrael’s assurances, I couldn’t help the frequent fear that stole my breath at any time of day. I had Lucifer’s blood. The consequences of that remained to be seen. Most of the supernaturals were already suspicious of me. If it weren’t