Bloodline Fallacy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 5)

by Lan Chan

  Fight or flight.

  I was done running.

  When Raphael returned us to sanctuary, I rounded on him. “This free will thing,” I said. “You can’t deny it, can you?”

  “No, it’s our highest mandate.”

  I nodded. “I want you, all of you, to stay out of my head. No seal, no mind reading, no interference.”

  “Alessia…”

  There was a tentative knock on the door. I blew out a breath. At least I knew it wasn’t Kai. There was nothing tentative about him where I was concerned. After a weighted pause, Raphael’s head bowed. He flicked his wrist and the door opened. Jacqueline poked her head in. “The Council are asking for her.”

  With a disturbed nod, Raphael teleported away. If Jacqueline was worried about my docility as we made our way to the Council chamber, she didn’t mention it. At the moment, I was experiencing everything through a haze of disbelief. I had always known that being Lucifer’s scion had meant a death sentence. It just never occurred to me that it would be at the hands of the power he had given me. But it made perfect sense. Why would Lucifer give anything away for free? How else would he ensure compliance amongst his followers? It certainly wasn’t a generous health plan.

  The dour expressions on the faces of everybody in the conference room didn’t blunt my apathy. They weren’t the ones on a timeline. Long after I was gone, they would still be in their current predicament.

  “The Reserve?” I asked a tight-faced Durin sitting between Griff and Dorian in the seats closest to the door. It had been almost two weeks since Kai had brought me to sanctuary. For the first few days, the shifters who remained conscious during the fight had also been here. At least that was what Raphael had told me. I didn’t come into contact with them on account of being unconscious.

  “We’re putting it back together,” Durin said. “Such as it is.”

  I sat down in the spare seat next to Jacqueline, doing my best to avoid Kai’s intent inspection in the seat right opposite me and Declan’s fervent stare from my right.

  “Alessia.” Angus said. At this point, I was sure he didn’t know what to do with me. “We’ve asked you here because we cannot come to a consensus.”

  Declan rolled his eyes. “That’s a bloody understatement.” I see he had given up all pretences of civility. Ignoring his outburst, Angus continued.

  “In light of what happened in the Reserve, the Human League wants an immediate bulletin to go out to the human population. They wish for the humans to be prepared for demon reprisal.”

  “What else is new?” I found myself saying. The words were there, but it was absence of the snark behind it that worried me.

  The vein in Declan’s brow threatened to burst. “How can you be so calm about it? You all saw what happened. He took control of humans as easily as driving. They have to be told.”

  I leaned forward in my seat, tired of the conversation already. “How does knowing they’re going to die make things better?” I asked. The same question shot around in my head. I was sure Jacob knew the reaction he would get out of me.

  “They can prepare!” Declan said.

  “For what? How do you prepare to have your soul ripped from you?”

  “We can implement educational programs. Teach people to ward their homes. Children can grow up knowing about the monsters so they can fight them.”

  “Which monsters are you referring to?”

  The way his eyes flicked around the room said he included the supernaturals in his sweeping generalisation. “If you were an unsuspecting human, wouldn’t you want to know the dangers that are out there?”

  “You mean the way Emily knew and processed it so well?” Ivan observed. Unlike Declan, his speech wasn’t laced with turbulent emotion. It made the question come out more callous that I suspected he’d meant.

  “Emily is different,” Declan said. “She –”

  “How is she coping since she left?” I asked.

  His mouth twitched. “She’s still getting used to life back at home.”

  “So she’s miserable. Think for a second. If you could go back and unlearn everything you have about this world, would you do it?”

  “No.”

  I stared at him, at his flickering white aura that became laced with dark lines when he lied. “Try again.”

  Instead of offering the truth, he tried to pin me with guilt. “You of all people should know what it feels like to be helpless in the face of all this. Nothing you’ve had done to you has been by choice.”

  “Careful,” Kai rumbled. It was a single word so laced with vehemence that it sucked the wind out of Declan’s sails. Everyone probably thought Kai was taking exception to Declan’s assertion that the supernaturals had foisted this life on me. But I knew it was Declan’s assessment that I was helpless that rubbed Kai up the wrong way.

  Swallowing hard, Declan cleared his throat. “So you don’t agree that we should tell the humans?”

  “What do you want me to say?” I asked. “This gentle rollout you’re intending will take decades. It’ll chew up resources we don’t have and it will more than likely end in bloodshed.”

  “What do you suggest instead? Clearly your Council don’t have the means or the inclination to stop the Hell dimension from doing whatever it feels like. How can we protect the humans?”

  I was too tired to take his shit on top of everything else. “I don’t have the answers you want. You asked me if I thought the humans should be told. I gave you my answer. What more do you want from me? As far as I can tell, demons have been encroaching on the earth for as long as the supernaturals have been here. How is this any different to what’s always been going on?”

  His eyes glowed bright with emotion. “You’re what’s different,” he snapped. A crack emitted from where Kai’s arms were crossed in front of him as he leaned on the glass table. Declan’s face turned green, but he pushed forward. I had to admire him for that. “Lucifer has never been so close to breaking free before.”

  There was no defence to that statement. So I didn’t bother denying it. “And?”

  A tendril of red burst in his left eye. “What do you mean, and? Isn’t that enough?”

  I glanced around the table and took in the faces of the people who had come to be the makers and breakers of my world. Though what Declan said was annoyingly aggressive, it was the absolute truth. Before I stumbled into their world, everything had been chugging along swimmingly. Sure, there were demons, but for the most part, they had been contained by the supernaturals. I was the catalyst that had set all of this apocalyptic mess in motion.

  Are you? Azrael’s voice resonated in my head. Clearly he hadn’t gotten the memo about staying away. This isn’t your mistake, Alessia. Your life is not a mistake. This mess is ours.

  But you can’t fix it, was my despondent reply. You knew it when you made the bargain with Hilary. My life is a…sacrifice.

  So much silence. In the very depths of my soul, I knew he couldn’t reply for fear of influencing my free will. That was okay.

  Please stay out of my mind. Just like that, I knew he was gone. Regret swiped a finger down my spine. I bit my tongue, knowing I would never get a chance to say goodbye.

  The same sense of grief wrapped around me as I swept my eyes over the room. Kai and Raphael had not breathed a word about how sick I truly was. Kai because he was still in furious denial. Raphael because he was eternally hopeful. Neither of those things changed the prognosis.

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” I told the room at large. “The seraphim have offered to seal me up again. When I go through with it, I’ll just be another human. Are we done?”

  The Council had nothing left for me, but Kai found me not two minutes later in the healing garden where Nanna had spent so much of her time while she was in Seraphina. His expression was tight, his muscles coiled like he was expecting an attack.

  “Blue –” he started.

  “Please remove the bond.”

  He stood ther
e over me, his shoulder strategically blocking out the buildings and any onlookers. Kai bared the edge of his teeth and leaned to me. His voice was alarmingly quiet. “No.”

  In the reflection of his green eyes, my defeated smile was amplified. “Then we have nothing left to discuss.”

  “The hell we don’t!”

  “How long did you think you were going to keep doing that? When everybody else is dead?”

  “We can figure out a way to fix you.”

  I shook my head at him. His fingertips grazed my arm but couldn’t hold on because I was already teleporting. When I touched down inside the bedroom, Sophie was nowhere to be seen. That suited me perfectly.

  I placed a mirror call through to Eugenia. “Tell your contact I agree to their terms,” I told her. “Blood for potion.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  There was no more time for hesitation. No more time for love. No more time.

  42

  On my birthday of all days, I stood just outside the elevator lobby of a New York penthouse and knocked on the ornate mahogany doors. It would have been easy enough just to teleport in, but I had no clue what Andrei was doing and no desire to walk in on something gross.

  I had chosen three in the afternoon for my drop-in thinking it would give him plenty of time to pull himself together. Colour me shocked when the door opened and he was both awake and fully dressed in slacks and a white shirt. Having been knocked unconscious at the start of the invasion of the Reserve, Andrei had managed to come away pretty unscathed.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I had asked myself the same question repeatedly since Eugenia had come back to me a week after my initial request. We had exchanged vials in Ravenhall an hour ago. The reluctant press of her lip was not at all reassuring.

  “Make sure you have somebody with you when you take this,” she’d warned. “Spells of this nature are unpredictable.”

  I would have given anything to have Sophie by my side, but she would have a colossal meltdown if she knew what I was doing and I wanted to spare her that guilt. “I need an insurance policy. Can I come in?”

  Expecting reluctance, I was surprised once more when he pushed the door open. “Who are you and what have you done with Andrei?”

  “So you’re just as mouthy even when you’re asking for favours,” he muttered. Unlike the times I’d seen this room through the mirror, it was no longer strewn with takeout containers and dirty laundry. I panned the apartment and gaped.

  “You got rid of the painting.”

  “What are you, my parole officer?”

  I couldn’t help smiling that he even knew that concept. Suddenly, he was standing right in front of me, his expression marred by a frown. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  His head turned to the side. “Right. So of all the people you could choose to be with on your birthday, you’re here with me?”

  “How do you even know what day it is?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  I waved the obvious lie away. It didn’t matter that I turned nineteen today. Nothing much mattered besides breaking the bond. Reaching into the pocket of my jacket, I produced the vial of green potion.

  “What’s that?” Andrei asked before I could offer an explanation. “It looks like radioactive waste!”

  A fitting description. The potion gave off a neon green that was unappetizing just to look at. “It’s an anti-bond potion.”

  His uneven blink made his face quiver. “What the hell are you thinking?” he hissed.

  It was not the reaction I was expecting. Today really was a day of firsts. “I was thinking that out of everybody I know, you’d be the least judgemental.”

  “There’s judgement and then there’s all-out stupidity. Do you have any idea how badly this could backfire?”

  I peered at him, trying to determine where his objection lay. “So you’re worried about the danger of the potion and not about what I’m trying to do?”

  He raked his hand through his hair. “I don’t give a damn if you’re trying to break the bond. If you asked me, Captain Nephilim shouldn’t have foisted it on you in the first place. But answer me this, doesn’t it concern you that you have to resort to powerful black magic in order to remove something you could easily break if you really wanted to?”

  I had promised myself no tears today. But as Andrei glared at me, his blue eyes hauntingly worried, I felt moisture welling. In the week leading up to this point, I had spent every spare moment trying to convince myself that I didn’t want the bond. I sat in the Grove for hours, meditating and repeating that mantra over and over again. And every night, as I lay down to sleep, the bond flared to life, telling me that Kai’s iron grip wouldn’t release me. That I didn’t want him to. That if I spent more than a second in his presence, I would break down and agree to be sealed just so I could live the blissful lie until I died abruptly.

  “Will you help me or not?”

  “Yeah but –”

  “There are no buts anymore.”

  He snatched my arm and shook me. Painfully. “Do you hear what you’re saying?”

  I tried to throw him off but wasn’t strong enough. Story of my life. “I know what I’m doing!”

  “That’s what worries me. What the hell is going on?”

  My mouth clamped shut. I felt the muscles in his arms contract and knew that he was fighting not to compel me to speak. After what happened at the auction, I was banking on guilt. “Dammit, squirt,” he snarled. And then, “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” It was immediate. Did I want it? No. But did it have to be done regardless? Absolutely. Even if I weren’t making plans on the side, if I died and the bond remained in place, it would destroy Kai. No matter what happened, before I could leave, it had to be broken.

  Andrei’s fists curled and he had to force them open. “Let’s get this over with then.”

  Not wanting him to change his mind, I marched over to the plush leather couch and sat down cross-legged. Rather than follow me, Andrei disappeared into an adjacent room and came back with a couple of shot glasses and a bottle of tequila.

  “Should we be mixing the potion with liquor?” I asked.

  “It’s not for you.”

  “I thought supernaturals couldn’t get drunk?”

  He angled the bottle upward so I could see the crystal sitting at the bottom. It glowed a faint amber that made the tequila far richer in colour than it should be. “Enchanted.”

  He poured liquor into two glasses, downed both of them, and then filled them again.

  “Screw it,” he said, pushing one glass over to me. “We’re probably both going to die anyway so we might as well go out swinging.”

  That reminded me! I slipped Gabriel’s Key off my finger and handed it to him. “Don’t be here when Kai comes looking.”

  He recoiled as though I’d slapped him. “Is that what you think of me?”

  I made a face. “I had hoped you’d be rational about it.”

  “The penthouse is warded against teleport.” He gripped his thighs. “I’m not exactly Captain Nephilim’s biggest fan, but this is a real dick move. He’s obsessed with you. This is going to seriously mess him up.”

  I knew that. I also knew that when he found out what I’d done, everyone who had even slightly caught wind of what I was doing would probably die. But on the other hand, everyone would die if I got sicker and Kai continued to use them as my lifeline. At least this way I would have a chance at going out true to myself.

  Sighing, I picked up the shot glass and swallowed the contents. Unlike human tequila, it didn’t burn on the way down. In fact, it tasted a little like ambrosia from Seraphina. My fingertips and nose began to tingle. I slapped the glass back on the table in front of Andrei. “More please.”

  He eyed me for a second before refilling. It barely touched my tongue on the way down. “Another.”

  “Take it easy.”

  By now my who
le body was tingling. I felt like I was floating. “Another.”

  He refilled my glass. This time, instead of taking the shot, I uncorked the potion. Andrei went preternaturally still. His mouth opened a fraction and then pressed shut again. I took a couple of calming breaths that did nothing because I was blissfully, magically drunk and brought the potion to my lips.

  Andrei fisted his hands on his knees. They turned white as I tipped my head back and drank the potion in one gulp. Vile was not a strong enough description for the taste that coated the inside of my mouth. There were things in this world that stank so much it made you dry retch. There were things that tasted so awful you immediately threw up. Then there was this potion that caused me to burst into tears on contact.

  My lips trembled as wetness coated my cheeks. No matter how much I wanted to spit the potion out, it was like it had turned to tar as soon as I swallowed it. Even if I spat, and I sure as heck did, it wouldn’t come back out.

  Andrei appeared beside me. He lifted the tequila to my lips and used it to chase down the potion. It didn’t help. If anything, the potion latched on to the properties of the tequila and inverted it so that I was no longer blissful. Despair gripped me. All of the colour leeched from the penthouse as my vision blurred.

  “Shit!” Andrei snapped. He disappeared in the blink of an eye and came back with a white face towel. A quick dab of my nostrils soaked the towel in blood. I curled into a ball on the couch as my heart constricted. It felt as though somebody had speared knives through my chest and was twisting it around. It was impossible to take in a breath because my airways were closing in. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t see.

  “Lex!” Andrei pleaded. His cooling hand felt like sandpaper on my forehead. Knives stabbed at me from all directions. Something latched on to my heart and yanked. My whole body convulsed. My chest arched forward as though somebody had a string tied around my heart and was trying to pull it out.