Bloodline Secrecy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 2) by Lan Chan (best e ink reader for manga TXT) 📕

a long table with a lone occupant. Isla. The other girl had her head down, her jaw tight. She wasn’t openly defying Brigid but at the same time she was refusing to cower.

“What did I say about not showing your face around me?” Brigid continued.

I felt myself hissing. Sophie’s spine was rigid beside me.

“Doesn’t she ever give it a rest?” I said. “She knows she’s not actually royalty, right?”

“I don’t think she even knows what it’s like to have been royalty,” Sophie said. “The fall of the dimensional barrier happened long before she was even born.”

My legs started moving. Sophie followed me without a word of protest. We’d been on the receiving end of that tongue lashing and it hadn’t been a nice experience. It was impossible for us to watch someone else cop it without doing something.

Brigid had to have some kind of radar that was attuned to me. Her delicate features twisted into a mask of ridicule. It was a shame that she was always spitting bile. She’d be gorgeous otherwise. Not that she needed my advice on the matter. Her table was always teeming with the most popular kids at school.

“Speak of the devil,” Brigid said.

I didn’t speak at all. Sophie and I just slid into seats on Isla’s table and acted like Brigid wasn’t even there. Isla looked like it was the last thing in the world that she wanted to happen. Sometimes, people didn’t know they were in too deep until you pulled them out.

“How’s it going?” I asked Isla.

Her eyes darted from me to Brigid and then back again in an instant. “Okay, I guess.”

I speared some of the spaghetti on my plate and twirled it around my fork. “What’s happening with the reconstruction of the Fae forest?”

Brigid slapped her hands down on the table. Sophie squirmed, but neither Isla nor I jumped. “Are you bitches deaf?” Brigid said. She lanced Isla with her indigo gaze. “I told you to get out of my sight.”

“Then turn around or close your eyes,” I snapped. “Nobody is forcing you to be here.” Taking a leaf out of her book, I raked my eyes up and down her, allowing my top lip to lift in disdain. “In fact, nobody wants you around at all. So get lost.”

This time, I heard Isla inhale softly. Brigid’s whole body shook. She took a step forward, her hands now clenched into fists. “You think you’re such a big shot don’t you –”

I turned away from her. “I heard they’re trying to regrow everything manually without the use of magic,” I said to Isla. I shoved spaghetti into my mouth and chewed. It tasted like sawdust. My hand was shaking but I held it steady.

I was sure Brigid was going to snap. My body was coiled to spring when a voice cut through the tension.

“How did I know I’d find you here, Blue?”

The budding rage in my chest turned into apprehension. Brigid did a one-eighty personality transplant so quickly I was surprised her head wasn’t spinning. A bright smile lit up her face. I felt mine flushing as Kai unpacked his huge frame into the seat in front of me. Isla had to scoot over slightly so he would fit.

“Thanks,” he said to her. I thought she was going to faint.

“I didn’t know you were back, Kai,” Brigid cooed. Luckily, I had finished chewing and swallowing otherwise I would have vomited.

He ignored her, his forearms locked in front of him on the table. I allowed my gaze to sweep over him quickly. He looked normal. And by that I meant mind-bogglingly gorgeous. He had on a deep green Henley sweater that backlit his eyes.

“If I’d wanted you to know I was back,” he said to Brigid, “I would have told you.”

Isla’s head was bent over again, but this time a smile tugged at her lips. I could throw as many jibes as I wanted at Brigid, but they would never pierce her self-righteous armour. Kai’s words destroyed her force field. Her eyes grew watery.

“We have space at our table,” Brigid said. I would give her points for tenacity. Unfortunately for both of us, his attention was no longer focused on her. His green eyes were locked on me. In their reflection, I saw myself pale.

Sophie was stamping my toes raw under the table. Thankfully she wasn’t wearing heels or I would never walk again. My vocal cords refused to comply when I ordered them to say something to cut the tension. He wasn’t speaking either.

Brigid slunk off with a look of death in her eyes. It promised retaliation as soon as she could manage it. Perfect.

I could feel the heat flaring in the tips of my ears. After minutes of just staring, I swallowed and croaked. “Can we help you with something?”

He leaned forward and grinned. I retracted my hands and pinched my thighs under the table to stop myself from passing out. “I need to talk to you. But you need to eat. So I’ll wait until you’re done.”

It was the total arrogance of it that set me off. It always did. “Is that so?” I leaned forward too and picked up my fork again. He caught the move and his smile widened. I felt my left eye twitch. “What if I don’t feel like talking to you?”

His upper lip curled up to show his canines. I had seen the wolves do something similar when they were trying to frighten their prey. “We don’t have to talk.”

The implication of his words was not lost on anyone at the table. I fought a losing battle not to blush harder. Isla was looking at us like a deer in headlights. Both she and Sophie had forgotten to eat.

“We can give you some privacy –” Her sentence broke off at the vehement shaking of my head. Now I really didn’t want to talk to him. Who the hell did he think he was?

“Eat,” he said.

“Give me a command again and I’ll stab you in