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

Marshall launched his angel blade. I inhaled sharply, trying to reach out like an idiot, as though I was going to somehow stop it from piercing Max through the shoulder. I needn’t have worried. Faster than I could ever move, Max pivoted to the side. He leaped slightly in the air and snatched the angel blade before it came close to striking him.

The supernaturals went deathly still. Both Marshall and Curtis had been elite guards before they were commissioned to protect the Academy. They were amongst the fastest and strongest of their kind. An angel blade was the most effective weapon in the dimensions. And Max had both caught it and was holding it without any kind of effort.

The one time I’d tried to touch an angel blade, it wouldn’t budge. Kai had left his blade on the grass and Diana had dared me to pick it up. That wasn’t happening. While Kai had made it look so easy, the blade became an anvil when I touched it. Diana actually screamed when she placed her hand on it, the flash of green so bright she said it was like staring into the sun.

Max gripped the hilt of the blade, his hand tightening so hard I thought he was going to snap it in two. A blossom of golden light stole across his fingers only to be slapped back by midnight-and-pink streaks. Oh hell. Whatever Lex had done to him, Max was now able to withstand Nephilim magic. Rather than hang on to the blade, Max threw it on the sand and closed him arms around me.

He bent his knees, uncaring that we were surrounded by threats. In his head, I sensed that if they budged, he wouldn’t hesitate to lash out. Angus and I traded bewildered looks. This was something beyond the rogue-shifter state. He wasn’t in a killing rage, but he wouldn’t let go of me and he had no idea that it was his friends around him. It was almost as though he was caught in some kind of compulsion.

Isn’t that what a mating link is? a voice in my head had always asked me when I tried to rationalise that I didn’t want or need it. I’d compared the two as Andrei set the compulsion in my mind to stop the malachim from taking control of my thoughts.

I argued with myself that the mating link was just a magical compulsion that forced itself on a person. So really, what would I be losing if I chose not to accept it? Looking up into Max’s unseeing black eyes, I saw with absolute clarity that he and I had the exact opposite thoughts on the matter.

I swallowed that apprehension for later.

It seemed that the elite guard were thinking along the same lines as me. Ivan moved forward in their ranks, his arms held out in front of him, his voice low. “Let go of her.”

The power of his compulsion was almost a physical thing. When I wasn’t the recipient of the compulsion, it manifested in the appearance of the other person as a slackening of their features for a split second before they resumed as though nothing had happened.

Max’s eye twitched. The sweep of compulsion was almost tangible as it attempted to breach his mental barrier. The amber pulsed in his eyes. In one swift movement, he laid me down gently on the sand and charged at Ivan.

I gasped as Max grabbed the vampire by the throat. One of the Fae tried to blast Max with a gust of chilly wind, but it slid off him with little effect. Hauling the vampire up, Max smashed him into the brick wall.

When the others tried to get at him, Max turned around and snarled. Ivan struggled with the clawed hand that constricted around his throat. The tips of those claws were just pointed enough to draw blood. Max was playing with him. Using him as an example of what would happen if the others tried to attack him again. Ivan began to cough as Max slowly winched tighter. Ivan’s already-pale complexion turned almost translucent as Max compressed his airways. Devoid of any emotion except the primal need to protect me, Max was going to end up killing the people he cared about.

“Stop,” I said. The effort to speak almost made my eyes roll back in my head.

Behind the back of the elite guard, I saw Charles sneaking up. He halted at the beaten sound of my voice, but I waved him forward with a sliver of hope that Max would recognise his own blood.

“Max,” I breathed. Every inhale was laboured. “Please let him go.”

For a second, Max shook his head like an animal shaking off water. I didn’t know what he saw when he looked at me, whether he saw at all or if he was just functioning on a purely instinctual level. But the sound of my voice seemed to be getting through. It was a shame speaking made it feel like someone had stuck hot pokers into my ribs and were twisting it for dear life.

Gritting my teeth, I made my mouth open. “You don’t want to hurt him. You don’t want to hurt any of them. Please put Ivan down.”

He held tighter. For a second, I thought it wasn’t working. I could feel the blood rising in the back of my throat. Suppressing it with a hand on my chest, it seeped out the side of my mouth instead.

Desperate and unsure of what else to do, I shrank inside me and let out a mental gasp. The mating link was a ball of fire enclosed by barbs. The blood barrier was a hairline-thin wrapping that only just managed to stop it from snapping into place. It was no wonder Max was so far from the edge.

I didn’t have any strength left in me to boost it. “Noah?” I rasped.

I heard the sound of scraping before Noah appeared being held