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

rogue. That was not it. He’s not some run-of-the-mill shifter. He broke through a sorceress’s ward for goodness’ sake!”

She gave me a genuinely bewildered look. “Yes, but maybe if you were mated–”

“Why? So I can be chained to the Reserve for the rest of my life because he can’t control himself? However he is now, he’ll be worse if we’re mated.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Noah said.

I arched a brow at him. “I can’t continue to have this conversation with you if you’re going to pretend nothing is wrong.”

“She’s right,” Anastasia said. Though the way her jaw clamped made it seem as though agreeing with me was the worst possible thing she could have done. “I’ve never seen him like this before. He’s agitated beyond what’s normal.”

“Yes, but he’s not normal,” Gwen pressed. “He’s half-mage born. That’s got to count for something.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I sighed.

“It matters to us!” Jeremiah argued.

I bit my tongue and inhaled slowly before answering. “I know how you feel. But I’m sorry. I can’t do it. So I’m asking you to please have my back when the time comes.”

They exchanged glances. Something charged filled the air with a preternatural quietness that made my hairs stand on end. Silent predator communication. The pack mind at work.

Anastasia’s hand fisted. I swore I heard bones cracking. “Do you love him?”

The question was not unexpected. Regardless, the lie I had cultivated on the way here was harder to push out past my grinding teeth than I thought. Years of practice being meek, being compliant, being Sophie Mwansa, was the only thing that allowed me to make it convincing. “Yes.”

Harris threw his arms in the air. “Well, then what are we having this conversation for?” Beaten amber light reflected in his eyes. The first wave of his aggression filtered through the room, stoking the fires of their animal hearts until half of them were growling softly. “Just give in and be done with it!”

And with those words, he handed me what I needed.

I willed my jaw to stop clenching. “That’s the thing,” I said. “I don’t want to just give in. I’ve given in my entire life. I’ve been the quiet child, the sidekick best friend, the suspected criminal. I’d rather not spend the rest of my life as the placid mate.” By speaking them aloud, I realised for the first time that it was true. “I love him. Which means when it comes to things that matter, I’ll let him have his way because I don’t want to hurt him. Over and over again, until I’ll lose who I am and what I want. Until I’m no longer me. Is that the future that you want for me? Is that the kind of mate that will be good for the pack?”

Silence permeated the room. So quiet that I could hear the birds flitting on the branches that cocooned the conference room.

“He wouldn’t–” Gwen began to say, but then she snapped her mouth shut.

After that display in the arena, we all knew my leash would be very short. “Dammit.” Gwen slammed her fist on the table. She tugged at her hair. “You realise that eventually he’ll have to mate with someone.” It was all I could do not to glance at Anastasia.

I nodded. “I understand.”

Jeremiah swallowed. “Maybe it’ll be better for everyone if you left the–”

I didn’t hear the rest of what he was saying because inside me, the mating link suddenly flashed like a white-hot beacon. The blood drained from my face as Gwen’s head snapped up, her nose twitching in the air.

“Shit!” she spat a second before the door busted open right off its hinges.

Noah was the one who grabbed me. Ignoring his injury, he shot out of his chair and snagged the front of my shirt, dragged me into his arms, as the shifters around me kicked furniture out of the way to form a protective circle around me. Harris and Jeremiah planted themselves in the line of fire, their shoulders pulled back, their lips quivering.

“Get out,” Max said, his voice like a deadly blade. The chilling bite of aggression scraped over me. It seeped through my skin and sank like a dead weight in my gut.

He was just wearing jeans and a green T-shirt but the aura around his flickered with unwavering conviction. There was no way the elite guards had willingly let him go in this condition. Which meant he’d broken out of containment and probably injured a bunch of guards on the way.

Pulling the lie around myself like a protective cloak, I forced myself to meet his gaze and froze. His eyes hadn’t changed back. They were still that depthless black.

Noah tightened his hold on me, even though we both knew it was a mistake. Max’s insidious rage slid abrasively over Noah, making the wolf’s features waver between man and beast.

It was instinct for shifters to change into their animal forms when threatened. Right now, Noah was doing everything he could not to shift and roll over to show his belly.

“You have to let go,” I whispered.

He swallowed hard. “If he comes at you, I’ll run.”

Max’s nostrils flared. “You step out of this room with her and it’ll be the last thing you do.”

“Max!” Ari grated, coming up on Max’s left. “This isn’t right.”

The snapped-out punch wasn’t unexpected, but Ari hadn’t counted on the deadly force behind it. When Ari went sailing across the room, broke glass, and dropped to the ground, everybody became still. There was no movement below.

I realised then that I’d miscalculated so badly during that first pack circle. Max had held back so much it was laughable. Perhaps he always had been hiding behind his charming, playful mask. I saw now that I was looking at the future leader of all the shifters. Not just the lion clan. And that just made everything so much worse.

It was not in the shifters’ nature to know when to quit for their own good, though. They had decided to protect me, and