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

manner. “I’ve noticed that there is always a lot of conjecture where your actions are involved, Malachi. You can’t expect Lex to simply deal with it when you’ve had your whole life to get used to it.”

He turned his back to her. “Mind your own business.”

That comment would have had me bristling but Astrid was unmoved. “Very well,” she said. “Given that it’s my business to protect Lex while she is inside the prison, I might make a note to the headmistress that I no longer believe you can be objective regarding her safety. I’m sure they’ll find somebody suitable to take your place.”

She smiled sweetly at him. Sophie and I may or may not have had a conversation with her about where her loyalties should lie when one of her friends was dating a boy.

For some reason, he reared up around me. “This is your fault,” he growled. I pushed him away.

“You’re just annoyed because she has a point.” I looked at the portal. My grip on the demon blade tightened. “Can we go?”

His nostrils flared but he nodded. If he got wound up any tighter, he was going to explode.

We landed in the same spot as before. If I didn’t know better, I would think they had been in suspended animation while I was gone. Giselle’s hair was braided on one side, the tail hanging loose over her shoulder. She gave off the same appearance of calm.

Kai and Astrid nodded at her. For some reason I thought the two factions would be friendlier towards each other. But though the Dominion was sanctioned to guard the supernatural prisoners, there seemed to be a very thin veneer of trust between the mages and the Nephilim.

“Hi,” I said. Giselle didn’t smile back but she inclined her head in my direction.

“Are you ready?” she said.

I stepped forward onto the mat as she undid the spell that held Skander in stasis. The mage shook himself out of his stupor. His hands were once again locked behind his back.

After a minute or two of adjustment, his eyes focused on me. “Well, little rabbit,” he said. “It looks like you’ve been busy since we last met.” His eyes flicked to Kai. “Sabotaging a Soul Sisterhood assassination isn’t something that has been recorded in our ledgers before. Now I know why you were gifted with the demon blade.”

I screwed up my face. “This wasn’t a gift,” I said. “I took it from my captor.”

He chuckled. It sounded hollow even though the lines around his eyes crinkled. “I wouldn’t expect anything less. Have you been practicing summoning the blade?”

“Yes. But it feels like it only does what I want when I force it.”

His eyes flicked to the Nephilim once more. “It’s a demon blade. Did you expect blind obedience? That’s not what it was made for. The blade will fight you every step of the way until you break its spirit.”

My face must have spasmed because he smirked. “Maybe that’s not what you really want, either. Let’s talk about the possibility of allowing the blade to retain some of its original instructions.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Kai said.

I could feel the contrary statement on my tongue, but I bit it back. He was right, of course. Even if I didn’t like his autocratic tendencies. I couldn’t allow the blade to have free rein when I was in contact with vulnerable people all the time. The last thing I needed was for it to stab one of the kids.

Skander regarded me for a second. “You’re very small,” he said. Did he want a prize or something? It wasn’t exactly a difficult assessment to make. “How are your combat skills?”

“Fine,” I said. I could feel Kai’s eyes on the back of my neck. He needn’t have worried. I wasn’t some kind of moron. There was no way I would ever forget that Skander was a killer. I couldn’t allow him to see any weakness.

“Fine,” Skander mimicked. “Physically, you wouldn’t be able to hold a candle to the supernaturals you train with every day. If you allowed the blade to guide you, it would be possible for you to get the upper hand.”

I couldn’t pretend that didn’t interest me. “Guide me how?”

The spark in Skander’s eyes pretty much gave me the answer. “I’m not letting it to take control of me.”

“Taking control is not exactly the way I would describe it,” he said.

“But it amounts to the same thing, though, doesn’t it?”

“The relationship with a demon blade is one of give and take. You can’t expect it to just happen without yielding something of yourself.” That statement could have summed up other parts of my life as well. I cast my mind back to the rocky cavern beneath the Fae forest where I had stolen the blade from the demon Behemoth. It didn’t seem to have any problems wielding the sword.

When I said so, Skander huffed. “A demon would have an entirely different relationship with the blade than you do. That blade was probably made for it. You don’t trust it. So why would it trust you?”

The statement was still ringing in my head when we arrived back at the portal field. “I have a shift,” Astrid said. She threw Kai a pointed look before unfurling her wings and flying off in the direction of the billabong.

He reached out and tried to rub the frown from my forehead. When it didn’t work, he splayed his palm over the back of my neck. I nudged him off. “I’ve lived with shifters,” I told him archly. “I know what you’re doing.”

“I’m not a shifter.”

“Lucky for you or I would have cut your nuts off by now.”

He chuckled. The tension in the air between us eased a little. Since we were in the field alone, I allowed him to cup my cheeks with both hands and draw me into a kiss.

“I know what you’re doing too,” he said. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and basically forced me to walk back to