Bloodline Alchemy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 6) Lan Chan (uplifting novels .TXT) 📖

“Demons!” she shouted.

Already at the window, I pulled the curtains aside to find the moon had become a throbbing crescent of red. Just beneath it, a purple ringed mouth of a portal was expanding. The glowing, silver-threaded magic was all too familiar. Agatha.

As I watched, dark creatures sailed through the portal and swooped down on something they spotted on the ground. My heart was a blackened, corrosive thing inside my chest. There were no mages in the Reserve. No Fae. Without their high and elemental magic, how were we supposed to defend ourselves against an insane sorceress?

Laila grabbed my arm. “We need to get to the shelter now!”

A blast of fire erupted in the night air as a creature of membranous wings and hard grey scales sailed past the window. One of the para-humans! Dark splotches appeared in the backs of my eyes as an imprint of the sudden flash of light.

“Sophie!”

Scrambling to get my sneakers on, I tried to find my emergency backpack. Being on the run had meant that I always had a kit on hand. Snatching it from the floor beside my ingredients chest, I followed Laila down the stairs.

“Where’s Hank?” I asked, scanning the bottom floor for him.

“Guards are being pulled to the perimeter.”

Without another word, she yanked the front door open. In the event of an invasion, the civilians were meant to make their way as quickly as possible to the laddered conference rooms. Aside from the Cabin, that was the place with the most heavily strengthened wards. It was also defensible on every side by guards who knew the terrain like the back of their hand.

“This way,” Amy screamed as she herded the civilians. “Hurry!”

Laila grabbed my hand. On either side of us, shifters of all shapes and sizes streamed from the living quarters. They abandoned everything besides each other and followed protocol to the very last.

Guards flanked the procession, moving with the precise hunting instinct they were born to utilise. At intervals, low demons came barrelling down on us. The guards intercepted them, taking them out before they could disrupt the evacuation.

As humans, we were slower than the very youngest of the shifters. We were running with the crowd to join those milling at the base of the staircase up to the canopy when a roar like impending doom cracked through the Reserve.

On any other day, that roar that was laced with unconstrained fury would have had the shifters cowering on the ground. Tonight, as the air filled with the damning scent of blood and death, it was their lifeline. My heart seized as the thunder in Max’s roar shattered through the Reserve like it was touching every leaf, every blade of grass, as though giving them strength. And then another lion’s roar rose up on its heels. Charles. This was followed by the echo of a dozen wolves howling and the chest-busting growls of a silverback gorilla.

All around me, the shifters’ vocal chords stretched and reshaped. They raised their heads to the red moon in defiance and joined in the song of their pack.

Laila’s grip was white-knuckled. I could feel the bones in my hands creaking, but I squeezed back as hard as I could. All of the hairs on my body stood up and I felt the overwhelming urge to flatten myself to the floor.

On and on the voices cried out until I knew I would wake on nights when things were too silent, and I would be able to dredge up this memory and feel comforted. When the sound finally subsided, a hundred glowing yellow eyes looked back at me.

We continued to scramble up the staircase. As the last of the pack chorus died, the sound of other creatures in the night could be heard. Creatures whose bodies no longer resembled what they had once been. Demons.

Somebody ran into the back of my legs. Turning, I found Edward and Lizzie attempting to weave past me. Cheyenne came stumbling after.

Her face was marred with worry, but when she saw me, she tried to muster up a smile. We went up the stairs in double file, parents clutching their children to their chests while older siblings guided the younger ones. Laila and I found ourselves in the huddle of humans. For a second, I allowed myself to find humour in the fact that a space had been made for us within the middle of the conference room. We were surrounded first by the pups and cubs, then the younger children, the juveniles, and then the adults.

I cocked my head to the side. “Doesn’t do much for the ego, does it?” Zoe asked. I gave her a small smile. Zoe was Wanda’s mother. Even though Wanda’s parents were both human, they had moved to the Reserve when she started at Bloodline Academy.

“Wanda?”

Zoe shook her head. “Max co-opted her somewhere when all of this began.” She pressed a fist to her side. “I’ve been complaining about missing her, but now...”

We both allowed our attention to be pulled to the floor-length windows. Up this high, we could see over the canopy of the lower trees and out onto the lawn of the ascension field where the portals had opened up. Outside, the portal, one of many now, was an ominous ring that cut off the rest of the world.

Below us, in a circle three shifters deep, the guards of the Reserve were taking their defensive places. Claws scraped against the glass in a sickening crunch that had me shuddering.

“Kate!” Brielle Cho snapped. “Stop it!” Brielle yanked her daughter away from the window before Kate could do more damage. The teenager’s face was a thunderclap of anger.

“Why am I stuck in here with the babies?” she railed.

“Because you’re a baby!”

“We should be out there fighting!” She kicked out at the floor, but since we were so crammed, she ended up booting one of the wolf juveniles in the shin. The boy whined, his ears flattening.

Kate’s hackles rose. Literally. All of the