Bloodline Legacy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 4)

by Lan Chan

  So I let my friends lead me to the classroom. We were early and managed to get seats next to each other. Actually, I got a seat in the centre with the rest of them fanned out around me. I sat behind Sasha, feeling grateful at the moment for the few friends who cared enough about me to choose a subject they weren’t interested in at all.

  That much became apparent when Trey lay his head on the table and closed his eyes. He didn’t open them when the professor arrived. I had to dig my nails into my palms to stop myself from groaning aloud. She was the wide-faced Nephilim who had been there in the Council chambers with Tiberius. I seriously couldn’t catch a break.

  “Good morning,” she said. “My name is Professor Avery. I’m so glad to see so many new faces interested in this topic.” She glared pointedly at Trey when she said this. He did his best to pretend he didn’t hear.

  “We will be covering a large sweep of artefacts this semester,” the professor continued when she couldn’t get a rise out of Trey. Someone at the front of the class put their hand up.

  “Yes, Melissa?”

  “Professor,” Melissa, a solid-looking girl said, “could we please start with angelic artefacts?” There was a soft murmur of laughter. I didn’t see what was so funny at first. It wasn’t until the professor made us open our textbooks to the chapter on angelic artefacts that I understood why Melissa had wanted to start here. The page I stared at was all about Lucifer’s angel blade. Several of the students snuck glances at me. They were met with the disapproving glares of my friends.

  “Let’s start with the weapon of the devil,” Professor Avery said. “Who can tell me why it is considered an artefact?”

  Half the hands in the class shot up. Professor Avery pointed to a redhead in the front row. “It is so because when the seraphim captured Lucifer, they dismantled his angel blade and hid the pieces in separate places all around the dimension,” the girl said. “In this way it will be impossible for him to find it should he ever escape.”

  The professor nodded. “Very good. The weapon of the Morning Star is perhaps the most dangerous of all the weapons. The Nephilim who hid the pieces then sacrificed their lives. Thus, there are no records of the location of the pieces.”

  Melissa raised her hand again. In my periphery, I saw Sophie roll her eyes. “Professor,” Melissa said without waiting to be called on. “Isn’t it also true that there is a prophecy that says one of his blood will be able to find the weapon?”

  All eyes in the room turned in my direction. My blood, his blood, pounded in my ears. But it wasn’t from embarrassment. I didn’t hear what the professor said next because I was so engrossed in reading ahead. For what it was worth, Melissa was right. There were accounts that said someone of Lucifer’s blood could retrieve the blade. And then I hit on something that I had to read three times before it sank in. I turned the textbook over and looked at the name of the author. Jacob Buchanan. I didn’t know who that was.

  I raised my hand knowing I would get a lot of heat for it. There it was. All eyes on me again. “Yes?” the professor asked. Her tone was frosty. I was used to the cold my now.

  “How reliable is the author of the book?” I asked.

  There was a moment of poised silence. Professor Avery’s lips bowed. “Why would that matter?”

  I glanced down at the information again. It mattered because there was a passage in there that speculated that Lucifer could be killed with his own blade. It didn’t solve the problem of the destruction of the dimension, but it was a start. I began to get terrible idea. What if I could draw a circle strong enough to contain the dissolution of power resulting from Lucifer’s death? The strength he gave me could be his eventual undoing.

  “Of course it matters,” Winnie said when I tripped over my own answer. “How can you reliably teach this stuff if you can’t verify the information? Is it a credible source or not?”

  Professor Avery’s turned her back to us. I thought for a second she might be counting numbers to contain her irritation.

  When she turned around, her expression was severe. “The author is a notable figure in Nephilim society,” she said. “In supernatural society, in fact.” I waited with bated breath. “Jacob Buchanan is one of the most powerful necromancers to walk this dimension. He is immortal and is old enough to remember the fall. His expertise helped to build Seraphina.” She glared at me. “It was he who led the forces of the Hell dimension in the battle that almost destroyed Raphael’s line. Is that enough credibility for you?”

  I sat there stunned. There was a photo of Jacob Buchanan on the inside of the cover. He was ash blond with a trim beard. His forehead was wide above eyes that were slightly too close together. There was nothing remarkable about him. By the same token, there was nothing to denote that he was evil either. The information whirred inside my mind. I latched onto something Professor Avery had said.

  “Wait,” I said, this time without raising my hand. “You said he is a notable figure in Nephilim society.”

  Professor Avery cracked her knuckles. “Yes,” she said. “He remains at large. He continues to lead the forces of Hell while his master is contained.”

  Son of a bitch! It was no wonder Kai couldn’t let go of what happened. The man who had caused it all was still alive. I spent the rest of the class staring at his picture while half the class stared at me. When the bell rang, I filed out behind my friends.

  “Of course she’s interested in Buchanan,” I heard a girl muttering to her elf friend. “She probably wants to know how to join him.”

  I would have called them out on it except they weren’t the only ones doing it.

  Somehow, I made it through the rest of the day. I was so distracted Diana almost impaled me during Weaponry and Combat. She had to drop her broadsword mid-swing. “Watch what you’re doing!” she screamed at me.

  I ducked my head and literally curled into a ball while she glowered. It was the same during my training with Giselle. There was a second when she came at me that I was thinking of something else. I accidentally let go of the iron grip I had on my magic. Blue light flared in my mind as the Ley dimension encroached over this one. The brightness of my light was almost blinding. My vision turned into a speckle of stars when Giselle kicked me in the gut so hard I toppled over. I sat there clutching at my ribs, gasping for breath.

  Fresh out of ideas about how to train me, Giselle stood stock still on the mat. I thought she might have finally lost her mind. Something sharp knocked on the side of my head. It became a persistent pressure. My vision wavered. A phantom from my childhood blurred on the mat. The image had my heart kicking in my chest. I gasped.

  The circle snapped shut around me. It cleared my foggy thoughts and ejected Giselle from my mind. “Stay the hell out of my head!” I snarled at Giselle. I kept forgetting she was a mind witch.

  “You best learn how to cheat,” she said. “At this rate, you’ll die in five seconds.”

  I felt like I was already dying. By now all of my friends were annoyed at me for my lack of ability and enthusiasm. Call me crazy but I wasn’t taking to being tortured by a member of the Sisterhood. Not a single one of them stuck around to keep me company while I recovered enough to go back to the dorms.

  Sophie had a shift in the dining hall till later that night. Before entering the room, I disabled the circle I’d put up for protection. It had become a force of habit these days. I threw my bag and training gear on the bed and stomped my frustration. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been trying. Every spare minute of my time was spent watching previous Unity Games trials to prepare myself. Sasha and I worked on compulsion resistance between classes. I’d been waking up even earlier to run laps around the Academy with Trey. What more could I do?

  My friends thought it was because I wasn’t taking the games seriously. They never considered the human factor. Sasha kept reminding me of what I’d done in the trial with the manticore. They forgot that I’d effectively lost control in that trial. I was a different witch now. If I let myself off t
he leash, who knew what might happen? It was frustrating as hell.

  I rifled around in the closet for a clean pair of pyjamas. A cold breeze whispered through the open door. I shivered and lifted my head to glance out at the empty hallway. Shaking myself, I drew another circle and left for the bathroom. Standing under the hot spray of water, I massaged my non-existent muscles.

  My eyes were drooping by the time I got back to the room. The circle was still intact which meant Sophie hadn’t yet returned. I stepped into the room and flung myself onto the bed. The sharp corner of a book stabbed me in the thigh. I wriggled to the side and pushed it away. My fingers touched on a hardback cover. I froze.

  All of my textbooks were soft covers. I had a problem with hardcovers in general. I preferred to read in bed and my hands were too small to keep hardbacks in place. This one wasn’t all that thick, but it was bound in faded crimson leather. There were scorch marks on the spine as though it had been used for practical experiments. The title caught my eye straight away: An Alternative Magical History by Jacob Buchanan. There was a brand on the base of the spine that read: Nightblood Academy Library.

  I could only think of one Nightblood student who would leave me a present like this. And I was sick of him.

  22

  Sophie returned just as I was changing back into my jeans and sweater. “Where are you going?” she asked.

  I pointed to the offending book. “Andrei left that for me.”

  She marched over and picked up the book. The hiss was exactly as I expected. The look of fear in her eyes was not. “How did he get in here?”

  I’d had the same thought. He couldn’t teleport or use magic. Bloodline had countermeasures in place to ensure no portals could be opened inside bedrooms unless the person had permission. It left one very not okay explanation.

  “I think he crept in here while I was inside,” I said. Sophie gripped my arm. “He must have compelled me not to see him.”

  Her mouth opened and closed. Her palms turned clammy. My rage turned stratospheric in the face of her fear. “Lex,” she said. “We have to tell Jacqueline. He could have done anything to you!”

  She started to turn me around like she was inspecting me for injuries. I allowed her to do it for her own comfort. When she lifted my shirt, I squealed. “Okay, you can stop molesting me now.”

  It was a poor choice of words. Her nose scrunched. “I’m going to murder him,” she said. Fireballs of luminous pink light surrounded her fists. I grabbed hold of her before she could march over to Nightblood.

  “Hold on,” I said. “This is exactly what he wants.”

  “So what? He doesn’t get to do whatever he wants and get away with it!”

  I sat down heavily on the bed. “I know.”

  She frowned at me. “What’s going on with you?” she said. She sat beside me, her face a mask of confusion. “Why are you taking this so well?”

  I wasn’t. Before she’d arrived home, I’d come up with a dozen creative ways to liberate Andrei’s head from his shoulder. Unfortunately, none of those came with a free pass from the Nephilim Council.

  “I’m not going to let him push me into doing something reckless,” I told her.

  She threw her arms up in the air. “Forget reckless! He violated our room! We bloody sleep in here. I don’t want to close my eyes knowing he might be trying to get you in the middle of the night.”

  She shot up to her feet. “Well if you’re not going to do something about it, I’m going to tell Kai!”

  I only just managed to body block her before she raced out the door. “Stop!” I said. She grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me.

  “Snap out of it!” she said. “What’s going on with you? The Lex I know would never allow these supernaturals to bully her!”

  “I’m not allowing them to bully me.”

  She snorted. “Are you kidding me?” she said. “How many times has Chanelle tried to trip you up now? I’m nice but even that is beyond anything I can take. She deserves a smack and you know it.”

  I pressed my palm to the door, holding it shut so she couldn’t do anything rash. Sophie kicked it and paced the room. I leaned my back against the door and slid until I sat in front of it. “I can’t, Soph,” I said. “I can’t let them see they’re getting to me.”

  She made a sound like she was being strangled. “In the human world, if this happened to you, what would you have done?”

  I looked at her as a wave of nausea ripped through me. “I would have run,” I said. “I would have been out of here so fast you wouldn’t even remember who I am.”

  She stopped pacing and stared at me. Her eyes became filmy. “Lex,” she said. She lowered herself to the ground in front of me. I had to turn my head away to stop the tears from coming.

  There was a reason why I had no flight response. I never allowed myself to get invested enough to actually care. The other side of me, the fighter, would take no prisoners. If I let myself get to that point, I would take out half the school with that power that overwhelmed me. There was no going back from that.

  “I’m never going to be able to do this, am I?” I asked her. “Even if I do win the games, the Nephilim will never accept me.” This whole time I’d been thinking if I could control my powers, I wouldn’t seem like such a threat. But I would be damned if I sat around while some vampire bastard threatened me and my friends.

  “Soph,” I asked. “Are you scared?”

  She let out a loaded laugh. “Of course I am! He’s a bloody insane vampire! Do you not remember the story Rachel told you about her family?”

  We went to bed, but I still couldn’t get my eyes to close. After Sophie’s breath finally evened out, I got back up.

  I collided with a broad chest when I stepped out into the hallway. Why was I surprised? In the darkness, Max’s luminous golden eyes narrowed at me.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he said, his voice a husky rasp. The vibrations of his shifter dominance washed over me, making me want to lower my eyes. I bit the inside of my cheek. The shot of pain with a lick of blood cleared my head. I turned my shoulder to try and edge past him. He moved instinctively to block my path, but his focus shifted to Sophie.

  “I have something to take care of,” I said. “Keep her safe for me.”

  He caught my wrist when I tried to get past. “Max,” I said, my teeth gritted. “I already have one Neanderthal in my life. I’m not looking to make it a collection.”

  I pried his fingers off one by one. He was still standing there caught between his overwhelming need to protect Sophie and his instinct to go after me. I knew which would win out eventually. I just needed to get far enough away that he could no longer sense my turbulent emotions.

  The Nightbloods were understandably surprised to see a frail human step over the barrier between Academies. I knew exactly where he would be. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I stepped through the doors of the Nightblood library. Maybe cobwebs in every corner and spiders the size of dogs. There would be ominous organ music playing in the background and lightning streaking through the sky. What I got was a library with a clear glass ceiling that opened up to a moonlit night filled with stars.

  This library was twice the size of the one at Bloodline. There were floor-to-ceiling rows of books with rolling ladders to reach them. Andrei was lounging on a couch beside the arched window that overlooked the front of the Academy. He had his legs up on the coffee table and his arms behind his head. He was the only one in sight. No surprises there. It wasn’t like he was a hoot to be around.

  I threw the book at him. It struck him in the chest. He didn’t flinch. “That was quick,” he said, his voice amiable.

  I sat down on the armchair opposite him. “Aside from the obvious,” I said. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Why not?”

  He removed his legs from the coffee table and leaned forward. His head turned to the side as though he found me curious. I had a pretty good sense of self-preservation. At t
he moment, I didn’t feel the same way I did when there was real danger present. It only hit me while I lay there trying to sleep that I wasn’t afraid. I hadn’t been the entire time even though Andrei clearly wasn’t right in the head.

  “Why not then? Same question applies.”

  “You know why, squirt. You’re such an easy target. A little human with those big innocent blue eyes. Completely unaware of how much danger she’s in.” He allowed himself to smile. It was wide but it didn’t come close to reaching his eyes. They remained flat and lifeless. He placed both palms on the wooden coffee table and leaned on them. His frame was big but there wasn’t much bulk in it. What would happen if he drank blood?

  “I’m surprised Captain Nephilim let you out of his sight.” He chuckled. The sound was haunting. I wanted to wrap my arms around myself. I only managed not to do so by sitting on my hands.

  “Did he tell you I slept with Chanelle a few years back? She was going through a rebellious stage in a misguided attempt to get his attention. He didn’t even blink an eye when I told him. Not a single hair out of place. Everyone think he’s so perfect. It’s all that bullshit about duty and honour. But I know what it takes to make somebody so cold. He didn’t give two shits about her or anything else. Until now.”

  He let his eyes turn and his fangs elongate. The already-gaunt planes of his face became darkened by shadow. There it was. The first thrill of apprehension. I suppressed it as best I could and pounced onto the coffee table. Andrei froze. His lips pulled back to display two-inch-long teeth. I squatted down on my knees and leaned into him. With a scrape of my hand, I drew my hair aside and bared my neck.

  “Go on then,” I said. “If you’re such a scary badass, why don’t you drink from me? You keep trying to scare me. Here’s your chance.”

  I thrust my neck out, knowing that I was playing chicken with an unhinged vampire. But I was betting on something I’d heard in his voice while he told his story. He definitely despised Kai for what had happened. He called him Captain Nephilim like Kai was a paragon of virtue. Quite the opposite. Kai was arrogant, moody, and often autocratic. He was one of the deadliest killers the supernatural world had ever produced. It was that killing instinct that Andrei had counted on. Andrei had a death wish. Only he couldn’t bring himself to do it. So he goaded Kai in the hopes Kai would finish the job.