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

by Lan Chan

  For a fraction of a second, I considered turning a blind eye. It would be so easy to claim ignorance later on. But I just couldn’t get out of my own way. I latched on to the mind of a winged monstrosity to my left and threw the flying demon at the incubus.

  “Close the portal!” I screamed at her as I leaped past. She teleported away just before the demon horde crashed over her.

  The portal loomed in front of me. Despite myself, I stopped with one foot over the threshold and scanned the horizon. My heart spasmed at the sight of Kai cutting a path right through the middle of the demon procession to get to me. His eyes were like two nuggets of dark green crystal. Sharp and filled with rage. A few seconds more and he would be on top of me. I gave myself a moment to catalogue everything about him. He’d let himself off the chain and it translated into unparalleled violence. Even with me clamping down on their minds, the demons ran roughshod over each other to get away from his blade.

  His bellow of rage was eaten up by the gnashing of the demons around me. Our eyes locked. I love you. I blew him a final kiss and stepped through the portal.

  The other side was like a mirror opposite of the Academies. The ground turned into a lifeless, hard rubble of earth. The air was choked with the scent of brimstone and burning oil. The moon here was red. Along the horizon sat a gathering of squat buildings. Fire blazed from the centre of it. I focused my gaze on the buildings and ran straight towards them, boosting as much of my power as I possibly could.

  Behind me, the portal groaned. I threw my magic at the undead and the dark mages who fled with their counterparts. My feet jerked to a halt at the sound of the rushing wind. Sparks of multi-coloured light burst at the seams of the portal. It roared like the disapproving growl of a lion. And then it began to close. Demon stragglers shot back through just before it winked out. Sorrow stabbed at my chest. Thousands of demonic faces stared back at me, their mouths open in glee, their eyes bright with a killing rage.

  I stared back, sickened by their expressions, frightened beyond recognition that I was here alone with them. The word built up in my mind. I was never going to get out of this one alive.

  “Mawatah!” I screamed. Death.

  A pressure in my mind rocked me backwards. It shot through the light of the red moon and gripped each and every one of the demons. For a second, they opened their mouths and fell to their knees in supplication. Then the world exploded in a blaze of blue and black. Thousands of screams imprinted themselves onto my soul.

  Everything went black.

  I came to lying in a pool of my own blood. There was pressure at the back of my eyes. I sniffed and scented salt and iron. My nose was bleeding. My arms and legs were so heavy it was like I was being magnetised to the ground. There was a blackened, clawed foot just to the left of my field of vision. Something with a tail lay to my right. It took me a long moment to remember that I had commanded thousands of demons to die. How long had I been lying here for?

  In the human world, Hell was depicted as an inferno. An eternity of fiery damnation. Most of the supernatural community thought of it as layers of increasing despair. In my mind, it had always been a cavern of ice. This was a barren wasteland. Completely without life and hope. I wouldn’t put it past Lucifer to shape Hell to every person’s perception of complete and utter misery.

  I was alone, hungry, and helpless. I was miserable alright.

  An attempt to get my body to move resulted in me vomiting down my chin. All good. I was covered in demon blood and guts anyway. What was a little vomit on top of that? My brain felt like someone had taken a pickaxe to it. My eyes closed once more.

  When I opened them again, the red moon was directly above me. If I used Earth logic to chart the movement, it meant that at least half a day had passed since I arrived. My body felt no stronger. It was a miracle nothing had come by and scooped me up. Then again, if they had, chances were they probably mistook me for dead. I certainly felt like it.

  My eyes wouldn’t focus. I lay there until the moon crept lower on the horizon. No matter how long I breathed it in, I still couldn’t get used to the bitter scent in the air. If there was anything growing here to produce clean oxygen, I wouldn’t even know it. I was tapped out. A quick look into the reserves of magic revealed two sparks: one blue with a green tinge, one black laced with silver. But there was no ocean of power. I was down to the very essence of myself. On a hunch, I slipped into the Ley dimension.

  Even though I was languishing in hell, the Ley canvas was back. Without my magic to overshadow everything else, I saw the glow of the lines of power. In the far distance were clusters of red seeping into black. It broadcast a sign that said: steer clear.

  Groaning, I pushed myself up to a sitting position using Morning Star as a crutch. Just that tiny bit of exertion had me shuddering for breath. Nausea ripped through my stomach. I arched forward and hurled again. Only bile came up.

  As I struggled to get to my feet, I was so dirty on the fact that I couldn’t open a portal. If I had the strength, I would have kicked something.

  I lay there breathing heavily, imagining the scent of honey on the breeze. Here came the hallucinations.

  But the more I lay there, the more potent the scent became until I was sure I scented Arcana fruit on the breeze. One of these demon bastards had gotten into the Grove. I faltered, thinking about what might have become of it.

  Sniffing around like a hound dog, I followed the scent to one of the popobawa demons. There. In its grimy paws was a half-eaten Arcana fruit. I descended on it like a vulture. Never mind that there was demon spit still on the chewed side. One lick of the juice and my head cleared.

  I sat on the back of a dead demon, chewing on the core of the Arcana fruit. My ears popped suddenly. My magic flared back to life. Though I wasn’t anywhere close to feeling full, the heavy ache in my bones subsided. Warmth spread through my body starting in the pool of magic. I frowned when I saw it. The blue pool was coated in a layer of green. As I watched, it raced along imaginary webbed lines parallel to my arteries and flooded my body in a bone-deep comfort. Like being wrapped in a hug. That was new.

  I was smiling like a lunatic when a green ember ignited in the air. Kai materialised in front of me. Heavy ribbons of black smoke smouldered around him. There were charred holes in his clothes. The gape in his T-shirt gave me a splendid view of his scarred pecks. They were in the final stages of healing. I winced at the long gash along his neck. They weren’t battle scars. They were from his attempts to find me.

  Celestial beings had a difficult time in the Hell dimension. Lucifer had made it that way when he conceived this wretched place. They wouldn’t die but it made them weak. Just how Lucifer liked it. Lucifer wasn’t a destroyer by nature. He was a ruler. He wanted subjects to adore him, and if that didn’t work, he would take fear instead.

  Kai’s features were cast in deep shadow that was washed out by the red sky. He crashed to his knees, crushing the ribs of a demon on his way down. I almost jumped out of my skin.

  “Kai!”

  I reached out for him only to find his fingers clamped around my bicep. Livid green eyes froze me in place. And then we were teleporting away.

  37

  I was so sick of all this teleporting and having absolutely no control over where I reappeared. The threadbare bedroom that we landed in had me completely disoriented. I sat down heavily on the single bed and dropped Morning Star on the carpet. This place made Kai’s room seem like a penthouse. The only adornment besides the bed was a closet next to the closed door. An open door led into the world’s smallest bathroom.

  Kai all but threw me on the bed. “Get some sleep,” he said. His voice was rough. “We’re leaving in two hours.”

  “Where are we?” I choked. After all that time in the Hell dimension, breathing in clean air took some getting used to. He didn’t answer. Instead, he wrenched open the mahogany door and marched out.

  “Kai?”

  I tried to go after him, but I was slow. I heard a locki
ng mechanism click into place. No. It couldn’t be. The door handle wouldn’t budge. That jackass had locked me in!

  I rifled through the closet. All it contained was a single black T-shirt and a medical kit that had nothing to do with first aid. Gutting it open, I recognised the vial of ambrosia by scent. I chugged it back while I entered the bathroom. Fizzy warmth saturated my insides. It wasn’t Arcana, but it would go a little way to filling the hollow in my stomach.

  Just as I suspected, all of the drawers below the wash basin were empty. Not even a comb. Without much hope, I placed my palm against the mirror. “Alessia Hastings.”

  A familiar tingle brushed up against my palm. Oh thank goodness. “Welcome to the MirrorNet, Alessia,” the disembodied voice said.

  I rang through to Basil. When his image materialised on the other side, he looked like he had aged several years. “Lex?” The relief in his voice was palpable.

  “Hi.” My own voice was raspy from smoke inhalation. Before the mirror had turned into a portal, my reflection showed me that I looked like roadkill dressed in vomit.

  “Where are you? Betty, she’s here!”

  I heard the thud of footsteps. Several of them. Nanna and Odette came into view followed by Sophie’s parents. My eyes started to water. “Hi.” My brain was malfunctioning.

  “Where are you?” Basil repeated.

  “I don’t have the slightest clue. Kai’s gone craz –”

  The door to the room burst open. Captain Nephilim strode in shouldering two enormous backpacks. He took one look at what I was doing and bristled. Without saying a word, he dumped the packs on the bed, marched over, and slapped his hand on the mirror. The image began to degrade. I countered his command. The mirror face jumped the way analogue televisions used to when they couldn’t capture the signal.

  “What’s the matter with you?” I asked. My temper flared the grainier the faces in the mirror became. Right now, the only thing keeping me going was knowing the people I cared about were safe. Kai was unmoved by my indignation. He snatched my hands and wrestled me out of the bathroom. The foundations of the room shuddered when he slammed the bathroom door shut. I startled and then caught myself. Do not cower.

  He tossed me onto the bed between the packs. I tried to reach for my magic but there wasn’t much to work with. Not even enough to draw a circle around myself. I pushed up into a crouch on the bed. Kai swiped at the pack on my right. It fell to the floor. He latched onto my left ankle and dragged me forward until our faces were inches apart. Something unhinged stared back at me from behind his eyes.

  “I told you to stay put,” he snarled. I wanted to curl into a ball or run. That was precisely why I forced myself to take a long breath. Years of practice trying to be invisible and hiding in plain sight allowed me to slow my heartbeat. Inch by agonising inch, my primal instinct gave way to reason. I was still skittish, but I’d be damned if I gave him the satisfaction of knowing he was getting to me.

  “Did you just want me to wait on my hands while all of my friends died?” I snapped back.

  “I expected you to have learned some common sense by now!” I tried to kick at his fingers to get him off me. It was like trying to move metal.

  “As opposed to kidnapping me and bringing me god knows where!”

  He leaned forward then. His voice became unnaturally even. “You better get used to this,” he said. His eyes flicked around the room. “Thanks to your stubbornness, this is going to be how we live the rest of our lives.”

  He let go of me and turned abruptly. My brain cascaded. I couldn’t comprehend exactly what he had said. He strode over to the bathroom. The door was jammed because he’d slammed it so hard earlier. He kicked it open at the same time I picked up the remaining backpack. I stood up in the bed and hurled it at his back. I misjudged the weight of the bag by a mile. He whirled around but there was no need for alarm. Instead of smacking him in the back and sending him sprawling like I had hoped, the stupid thing just dropped. Its contents spewed out on the carpet. Short-range weapons fell out amidst charms, an industrial-sized bag of salt, bottles of disgusting puce tablets, and two hand grenades.

  This was preppers gone horribly wrong. He had packed like we were preparing for a siege. “What in the world do you think is happening?” I screamed. “Take me back home!”

  His jawline became granite hard. “Pick that up.”

  “Are you kidding me right now?”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  The very short leash I had on my temper snapped. I curled my hands into fists and dug my nails into my palms so hard I could feel my fingers straining. It was a monumental effort not to scream.

  “Please take me back home.”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “No. You’re never going back to the Academy. Or the Reserve. Or anywhere the demons know you frequent.”

  My jaw dropped. “You don’t get to make unilateral decisions for me.”

  “I do when you can’t follow simple orders to save your own life.”

  “Not even then.” My voice came out cold. “If I want to throw myself on a demon blade, it’s my choice.”

  “And how are you going to do that? You can barely put one foot in front of the other. You’re not throwing anything anywhere.”

  “Just wait until I get my powers back.”

  “And then what? You’ll broadcast to the whole Hell dimension that you’re an all-you-can-eat demonic buffet and they can traipse through a portal anytime to get you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course not. You’re so busy trying to prove you’re a hardass and you don’t need anyone.”

  “I’m not joking,” I said. “Take me home right now.”

  He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Something flickered behind him, but I was too furious to care. “So this is what it’s going to be like?” I said. “I don’t get a say in anything?”

  “You’ll get a say when you make some sense.”

  “Screw this.”

  I jumped off the bed and made for the door. I ran right into his chest and grunted. I hadn’t even seen him move. He locked his hand around my wrist and forced me away from the door. I winced at the shackle.

  His grip released just a fraction. “When I give you an order, you follow it. Stay put. It’s not that hard.”

  I heard Chanelle’s words in my head. And I knew that as wicked as she was, it was the truth. As long as I was alive, I’d be in danger. And Kai would never have any peace. What would happen if Lucifer broke free of his chains and came for me? Kai would kill himself trying to keep me safe. Heck, if Lucifer never got free, I was a human living in a supernatural world. If Sasha or Trey ever went haywire, I would be dead in a second. All of this time I had pretended that safety was something I could cling to. But it wasn’t for me. And yet the thought of being locked up in an ivory tower grated on my nerves in worse ways than the thought of dying needlessly. An involuntary shudder arched over my spine as the memories of a childhood spent being neither seen nor heard assaulted me. Helplessness was not an option. Ever.

  “I can’t.” I tried to unlatch his fingers, but he wouldn’t budge.

  “Of course you can. Whatever you think you want to do, just turn around and do the exact opposite.”

  I swallowed and took a step back even though he still had a hold of me. You might be what he wants, but I’m what he needs. Those had been Chanelle’s exact words. At the time I had refused to see it. And now it was coming back to bite me.

  “Just do the exact opposite of what I think, huh?” I said. My voice had turned soft. The lid of the chest of bad thoughts flipped open in my mind. A part of me knew that I wasn’t naturally predisposed to being this combative. My size had predetermined me to be prey. But somewhere along the way, something went screwy. I came out the other side with thorns. I wasn’t sorry. Because if it hadn’t happened, I would already be dead. There was no way I was ever going back to bein
g the victim. Not even for him.

  Kai wouldn’t budge. “It’s a small price to pay.”

  “Then why don’t you pay it? You’re the last of Raphael’s line. You should be the one locked up in an ivory tower. But the seraphim don’t chain you up because guess what, there’s a pesky thing called free will. They haven’t taken away yours. Why are you allowed to take away mine?”

  His left eye twitched. Gotcha. The look on his face when he tipped his head down at me was beyond rage. Chained violence blinked back at me, fuelled by something far deadlier than anger. Fear. I blinked and my mind flooded with images of his family. Vacant-eyed. Unmoving no matter how much he begged them to get up. That was the nightmare he’d imagined while he searched for me.

  “I can’t do this again,” he said. Something felt like it was stabbing me in the chest. “All I’m asking is for you to be safe.”

  I shook my head. “You’re asking me to be Chanelle. I’m never going to be the girl who sits demurely by if I can possibly do something. That girl would have died in a fire a long time ago.”

  As soon as the words left my mouth, all of the energy from the ambrosia drained from me. Everybody you care about eventually leaves.

  “Are you that hell bent on throwing away your life?”

  “What makes it throwing away my life as opposed to choosing to protect the people I care about? Is it the fact that I’m human?”

  “It’s the fact that you’re his!” The sharp steel in his voice wasn’t what cut the worst. It was the wild desperation in his eyes. Behind the quiet words of reassurance, he was terrified that I would fulfil the prophecy too. Just like everybody else. Years of trying to play by their rules and I was still that low witch with too much power.