Bloodline Secrecy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 2) Lan Chan (pdf e book reader .TXT) 📖

An eye for an eye. A soul for a soul.

My mouth opened in a silent scream. I tried to draw circles around myself, but they would be useless against her. She’d already bypassed my protection circle once. They were meant to keep out demons and other supernatural beings. Low-magic users had a certain level of immunity to them. We weren’t supposed to be fighting each other.

I bit my tongue to keep from whimpering as she got on her knees inside the circle. She raised her hands once more. This time, she reached down and drew the circle and wave symbol around Basil’s body. Oh God no. She was using him as a conduit. When her spell was complete, the only way it could be broken was if the conduit was destroyed. She was going to steal my soul. The only way for me to get it back would be to kill Basil.

“Don’t!” I screamed. She touched her palms to the circle. “Please! You don’t have to do this.”

The light flared. My eyes snapped wide open as a thunderclap of magic erupted inside of me. It wasn’t my magic. The pool of dark energy that was Azrael’s gift tried to rise to the surface to meet it. But the spell was already in play. The scene in front of me flickered. Fire blazed over every inch of my skin.

Inside the circle, Giselle was shaking. She muttered words in a language I thought might have been druidic. Something sharp pierced my skull. The symbol on my forehead pulsed. It felt like someone had reached inside my head and was squeezing my brain for all it was worth. When I was four, I’d gotten sick with a sinus infection that almost reached my brain. For weeks it felt like my head was throbbing. This was like that times fifty. The wind picked up around us as my world turned upside down. I blinked and suddenly I was looking at myself. Small and skinny, my skin bleached of all colour. A shadowed figure stepped out from the tree line and cut my body loose.

No.

Oh hell no. She wasn’t just stealing my soul, she was swapping them. Transmutation of the soul. It wasn’t meant to be this easy. Then again, she was Sisterhood.

My stomach roiled like I was going to be sick. Basil made sounds like a dying animal. The threads around him were fraying. They constricted further and further. He was being squeezed to death.

The world began to spin. Except I was spinning with it. I’d seen rides where you went inside and paid for the pleasure of having your body spun like a washing machine. My eyes rolled back in my head as every inch of my body and mind was assaulted by blinding silver magic.

Giselle groaned. I couldn’t open my eyes, but I knew she was my parallel. Our souls spun in tandem. Round and round until I could no longer discern what was real and what wasn’t. There was an almighty clap of thunder. I felt weightless for a moment. And then my body fell down to earth. It was like gravity didn’t exist for a second, and the next I was a piece of metal being dragged down by the world’s biggest magnet. I heard footsteps but couldn’t lift my head to save my life.

I wasn’t sure how long I stayed like that. Light brushed my lids once more when I came to. I felt grass beneath where my cheek was mashed into the ground. Wincing, I pushed myself into a sitting position. The silver circle was extinguished, leaving behind a blackened symbol in the grass. Whatever Giselle had done, it wasn’t in tune with nature. That was the core of low magic. It was meant to be balanced. She’d gone off the deep end for sure.

I place a hand to the ground to push myself up. My heart spasmed. My hands were huge and pale. I held one up closer to inspect it. My hands had gone through a lot in my relatively short lifetime. They’d done some pretty gross things. I knew every inch of them. But I didn’t know these ones. Scrambling to get up now, I saw the ground from a different height. The trees around me were also shorter than I’d remembered.

Making a mad scramble to find a path out of this forest, I was running directionless when the sound of boots hitting the gravel behind me caught my attention. As did the flap of wings too big for any mortal bird.

Awkward in this new body, I ran straight into the golden-armoured chest that appeared in front of me. My shoulder collided with the Nephilim at my back when I tried to retreat.

The one in front reached out and grabbed my arm. The one behind clamped a rough hand on my shoulder. Before I could test the extent of my circle work in this body, I was being teleported.

I screamed as we came out the other side into one of the cells in Seraphina. The Nephilim who had grabbed me shoved me inside the barrier of glowing golden bars. They flared to life as I placed my hands around two of them. The shock of electricity had me gasping. They turned to leave.

“Wait,” I screamed in Giselle’s voice. “You’re making a mistake!”

They ignored me and stomped out. I grabbed a lock of hair and pulled it around so I could see what colour it was. Though I wasn’t surprised that I was a blonde, the shock of it had me slumping down into the cell.

No sooner did my head dip did I hear the door open again. I didn’t bother glancing up. Several footsteps beat against the cold, white floor. They came to a halt in front of me. I finally glanced up into cold, indigo eyes. Orin.

When I scooted over on my knees towards him, the Fae almost flinched. The bear shifter beside him