by Lan Chan
Bloodline Legacy
Bloodline Academy Book 4
Lan Chan
Copyright © 2020 by Lan Chan
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, (electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
All names, characters, groups and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and all opinions expressed by the characters, whose preferences and attitudes are entirely their own. Any similarities to real persons or groups, living or dead are coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover by Christian Bentulan
Editing by Contagious Edits
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
57. Kai
58. Lex
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
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1
In all the time I’d known her, Astrid had been a paragon of calm determination. That was why my eyes bugged out of my head when she threw a right hook that landed squarely on Chanelle’s chin.
I winced at the sickening crunch of bone. Chanelle’s head whipped back. Her body swayed like one of those weighted-base punching bags. Had she not been a supernatural, her neck would have snapped. Astrid didn’t appear to give two hoots about potentially murdering Chanelle. Naturally, the Nephilim guards took exception. They drew their broadswords. The tips flamed to life. Stepping forward, they shielded Chanelle who was clutching her lip. It was already beginning to swell.
Astrid responded to the Nephilim threat by unsheathing her own blade. Her rapier flashed silver as angelfire danced down its length. The flare saturated her body in a bright light. Her aura simmered with fury. She extended her free hand.
“The necklace,” Astrid said. You know in horror movies when a demon possesses a person and their voice drops a couple of registers? That was exactly how Astrid sounded. I almost took a step back.
“This is none of your business,” the guard on the left said. He tipped his head in my direction. He was so stiff. If he hadn’t spoken, I might have mistaken him for a mannequin. The urge to poke my finger into the pronounced cleft in his chin was almost too much. I clasped my hands behind my back and cocked my head to the side.
“She just stole my necklace,” I said. “How is that not our business?”
“Chanelle is the rightful bondmate for Malachi. It belongs to her.”
“What the hell is he talking about?” I hissed at Astrid. It freaked me out that she wasn’t disputing all this bonding crap. There was a desperate part of me that was steadfastly ignoring the alarm bells blaring in my mind. The logical part of my brain kept trying to shove the obvious answer in my face. The emotional side was running around kicking and screaming.
“Ignore them,” Astrid said. “They’re living in another century.” She tried to block out my field of vision by stepping in front of me. Nuh uh. I skipped to the side in time to watch Chanelle clip the necklace around her elegant neck. Despite her fat lip, she smiled.
She waved her hand and a scroll tied with a red ribbon appeared. It hovered in the air for a moment before settling on her palm. She was a mage-Nephilim hybrid. Sigh.
“Why don’t we fetch Kai and see how ancient this practice is?” Chanelle asked.
“Yes,” I spat. “Why don’t we summon Kai?” If only so I could strangle the living daylights out of him.
“Kai’s in sanctuary with Raphael,” Astrid said. “He’s not to be disturbed.”
My bullshit meter blew its gasket. Kai hadn’t been at the Council meeting, but he was completely healed from his encounter with Gaia. Was she trying to stall for time for Kai’s benefit or mine?
Chanelle was unconcerned. “A Nephilim Council summons takes precedence over sanctuary.” She waved the scroll in front of us and stepped forward.
Astrid made a growling sound befitting a shifter. Her attention flicked to the necklace once more. “I’m not going to ask again.”
Chanelle traced the emerald at her throat with delicate fingers. I fisted my stubby human ones until I felt nails cutting into my palm. “You have no say in any of this,” she announced. “And when Kai and I are bonded, his friendship with you will cease.”
Astrid charged. I latched on to her arm to try and wrench her back. The only thing that saved me from being dragged farther forward was the appearance of five other Nephilim. Three of them were guards. One was a staid old man with salt-and-pepper hair who I didn’t recognise. The other was Astrid’s father.
Walter Bellamy took one look at the scene in front of him and shook his head at her. “Settle down, Astrid.”
“You’ve always taken her side,” Astrid snapped. But she stopped moving all the same. Thank heavens because my arms were about to fall off from restraining her.
“It’s not about picking sides,” Walter continued. “You know this is out of my hands.”
“It is not!” Her voice was almost a scream. “You just don’t want to do anything about it. Not everything is about bloodlines.”
Walter sagged at her words. “How else will we keep Raphael’s line from failing?” His focus landed on me for the briefest second before sliding away. My hackles rose at the dismissal. It compounded with the confusion and embarrassment that was already swirling in my chest. I had not forgotten that he voted against me when I’d first acquired the demon blade. Or that he’d left me to rot in a cell after Giselle had switched our souls. His only saving grace was that he was Astrid’s father.
“Maybe you should have thought of that before your bickering allowed demons to massacre them,” Astrid snarled.
Walter sucked in a breath as though Astrid had struck him. Every Nephilim within earshot tensed. “How dare you?” Chanelle rasped.
“Save it,” Astri
d bit back.
The older Nephilim man approached Chanelle. He reached up and tilted her chin to inspect the damage to her face. “Are you alright, my lady?” he asked. I half expected him to bow and kiss her feet.
“As fun as this is,” I said, “I have an appointment to watch some grass growing. So hand over the necklace pronto.”
When I advanced, I was greeted with five broadswords in my face. After the ordeal I’d been through with Gaia, I was getting a tad sick of supernaturals attempting to intimidate me.
“Oh, you want to play mine’s bigger than yours?” My eyelids fluttered. The circle shimmered into life around me, bathing the bridge in a luminescent blue-and-black glow. Miles away, my demon blade hummed under my bed. I was just about to utter the command to retrieve it when a pulse of green light appeared to my left.
“Blue,” Kai said. His hand closed around my wrist. Heat gathered where my demon blade should have appeared. I glanced down to find the green strands of his angelfire intertwined with my magic, disrupting my command. I yanked out of his hold and stepped closer to Astrid.
“Oh good,” I said. “The idiot cavalry is here.” I tugged Astrid’s sleeve. “Let’s go home.”
“Wait,” Kai said. “Let me explain.”
If I had the demon blade with me, I would have lobbed it at his head. “No need. I think I get the gist of it.”
Of course that made him more insistent. Astrid slapped his hand away when he tried to grab me again. “She said she wants to go home.”
He stopped short and peered at her as though seeing her for the first time. His gaze flicked between us and then narrowed. The green turned from a jewelled lushness into the dark forest shade that was synonymous with his anger. That makes two of us, buddy.
His nostrils flared, but when he spoke, his tone was measured. “I’m not fourteen anymore, Astrid,” he said. “Things are different.” A fraught look passed between them like the opening of an old wound.
“It wouldn’t matter if you were forty.” Her head jerked in Chanelle’s direction. “I hit her. And I’d think nothing of doing it again.”
Astrid’s lips tugged into a menacing grimace. Silver light shimmered around her. She feigned a lunge towards Chanelle. Kai moved instinctively to intercept her. Physically, they barely budged. If I hadn’t been watching them so intently, I would have completely missed their subtle movements. As it was, I catalogued the flare of wariness in Kai’s eyes and the way his muscles contracted, ready to protect Chanelle.
Something sharp clawed at my throat.
“I guess old habits are very hard to break. Even for Malachi Pendragon,” Astrid said. The brightness around her died, taking with it all the warmth in my body.
He seemed to sense my withdrawal. “It’s not what you think, Blue.”
“Shut up.” I turned my back to him.
“It’s exactly what you think,” Chanelle countered.
“Nelle,” Kai said. “Don’t push it.”
“Why not?” Chanelle said. She weaved her way through the wall of Nephilim to stand a few feet in front of him. I didn’t think Kai even noticed how he turned his shoulder so that there would be an obstruction between her and Astrid.
“You made a promise to me long before you even met her,” Chanelle said. She clutched at her elbows in a self-soothing gesture that made acid drip from my corroding heart into my gut.
“I was a grieving child,” Kai said. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“Be that as it may,” Salt-and-Pepper Nephilim said, “a blood vow was made.”
“I don’t care if I made a death pact with a demon.”
Chanelle’s face crumpled. The urge to reach out and slap her was strong. But not as strong as the urge to put my fist in Kai’s face. He braced his palms on Chanelle’s shoulders.
“You know why this would never work,” he told her. “I thought we settled this already.”
She made a weak effort to throw him off. After a moment, she lifted her face to look into his. I almost dry-retched. “You never even gave us a chance. All you cared about was fighting. I only ever saw the worst parts of you. That’s why I had to leave. It wasn’t because I stopped loving you. Why would you choose this devil-born human over –”
“Stop.”
He dropped his arms and turned to me. I stepped away until I collided with Astrid. The look on my face must have said it all because Kai’s expression became stricken. A mere fortnight ago he’d told me he didn’t care that I had Lucifer’s blood running through me. The whole time he knew he was meant to be bonded to Chanelle.
I blinked slowly. In my mind I saw the ghosts of foster families past. Broken people in broken relationships who had taken me on for the government paycheck. Usually there were third parties involved. And now Kai had made me the other woman.
“Blue –”
“My name is Alessia.” Icicles frosted my voice. His eyes widened. “Yes or no, you’re meant to bond with her?” I couldn’t even say her name.
He ran his hand roughly through his hair. “It’s not that simp –”
“Yes or no!”
The world flickered around me. The Ley dimension that had become a second reality shimmered across my vision. A pulse of bone magic rippled across the bridge. The ground shifted under our feet. I curled my hands. My teeth were gritted so hard I would feel the strain for another week. I inhaled agonisingly slowly and dragged the power back. Right on cue, a fleet of guards appeared in a circle around us.
When everything solidified once more, my limbs felt heavy. As did the sound of my voice. “Yes or no.”
He imitated stone. A big Nephilim boulder vibrating with contained aggression. Angelfire snapped around him like live electricity. It pulled at him in all directions, giving life to his conflicted mental state. All of my instincts screamed at me that there was a predator nearby and his focus was on me. But I would not break eye contact even if it killed me.
The strain of not blinking had my cheek twitching. In my periphery, Chanelle inched behind him, taking shelter. So help me, Lucifer, if she so much as opened her mouth, I would give her a black eye.
There they were again. Memories I’d shut away so I could function. I’d run away from them once. I’d chosen a life on the streets to one cowering under the bed waiting for the yelling to stop. My mother was dead. My nanna was in a psychiatric hospital, and my father…I’d hated him with a blinding fury for never being there. Lesson learned: All the people you care about eventually leave.
Screw that.
“Astrid.” She knew exactly what I wanted. She dropped her hand to my hip and the teleport began to dematerialise us.
“No you don’t!” Chanelle protested. “We need to settle this now!” She appeared in front of us in our semi-teleported state. Her arm whipped out and latched on to my wrist.
“Nelle!” Kai snapped.
The two female Nephilim became caught in a tug of war. The world became a mishmash of colour and sound. Every cell in my body sparked as though they were being ripped apart. And then, in the murky aether between dimensions, a shadow coalesced. It formed itself into a humanoid silhouette. While Astrid and Chanelle’s focus was diverted, the thing glided towards me. I tried to duck but the teleport held me frozen. A darkened limb extended to my chest. It took a swipe at me as though trying to remove me from the grip of the Nephilim.
Something inside me cracked. It felt like the slightest tap on a fragile surface. The same way a small fissure in an eggshell causes a cascade. The trapdoor in my mind opened at the same time my mouth did. All I could do was scream.
2
A chill spiralled through me and extended to where the Nephilim had hold of me. Hellfire. Both Nephilim paused their tugging for a moment.
Green light lashed around Chanelle and yanked her from me. The last thing I saw before the world disintegrated was Kai’s hooded expression.
I expected us to materialise in Basil’s mansion. I snapped my mouth shut as we landed in what looke
d like a serial killer’s lair. I’m talking meat hooks and severed limbs floating in jars. It had been noon in Seraphina, but this place was shrouded in darkness. Thin moonlight streamed through the thick iron bars of two huge rectangular windows. On one wall was a portrait of a man in a morbid Goth outfit. The pallid hue of his skin made me think he must be a vampire. That might explain all the jars of red liquid on the shelf of horrors behind us.
I didn’t have sufficient time to digest the wrongness of our surroundings because Astrid dropped to the wooden floor. She gasped for breath and then heaved.
Seconds later, I followed her. One palm splayed on the grey wood. It was damp to the touch and smelled like there were spores growing between the slats. My other hand clutched my chest. I rubbed at the clammy skin over my breastplate where the shadow thing had touched me. The cold and throbbing pain it manifested was beginning to subside.
Beside me, Astrid retched. I swiped at my face to try and clear the fog. Outside, I could hear droplets of rain over a tin roof and the scratching of tree branches against a window. When I no longer felt like my guts were going to drop out if I moved, I pushed myself into a crouching position. Making sure to keep away from the puddle of bile beside Astrid, I placed my hand on her shoulder as she scraped her hair away from the up-chuck.
