Bloodline Fallacy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 5)

by Lan Chan

  “This is a lie for attention, isn’t it?” she sniped. Even if it was, just the hint of a possible rift had her sniffing around.

  “No, it’s not. He’s all yours.”

  She searched my face. I wasn’t sure what she was looking for exactly. I’d been denying the bond for months. “If you’re done staring, I have to go home.”

  Not that there was any relief at the Academy. Giselle and Matilda had been called away to help the elite guard disable the rifts. Left to my own devices, I ended up cross-legged and slumped on the mat in the illusion training room moping.

  The mirror in our room went off like crazy. Sophie fielded all my calls, though she drew the line at taking the brunt of Nanna’s lecture for me. “I’m not sure why you find this so surprising, Nan,” I said. “I’ve been saying no for months.”

  She brushed trembling fingers to her lips. “Yes, but I thought…are you sure, love?”

  “Very sure.”

  We stared at each other for a long beat. After a while, she sighed. “I don’t know why I bother,” she said. “I can never tell if you’re lying. Are you okay?”

  I plastered on a smile. “Yeah. It’s a relief, actually.”

  The conversation with Jacqueline was much harder to avoid. I received a summons bulletin from the first mirror I walked past just after lunch. Blowing out a breath, I skipped out on Supernatural Sex Ed and steeled my spine.

  “Heard the news,” Alex announced as I walked past his desk. “Sucks to be you.” That was about as soft as he got so I took it.

  Cassie was sitting on the chair I usually occupied. “Umm…am I interrupting?”

  Jacqueline waved me over. “Not at all.”

  “I can come back another time.”

  “Honestly, it’s not a problem.”

  I bit my bottom lip. “What I mean to say is, I don’t really want to have this conversation with one of you, let alone both of you.”

  Jacqueline brightened, taking my sarcasm as a good sign. I flagged the air with my arms. “We really are done,” I said. Something occurred to me. “Have you been in contact with him?”

  Jacqueline shook her head. “Nobody’s seen him.”

  Shit! “Is anybody looking for him?”

  Cassie rested her head on the table glumly. “Yeah, right. Like we want to be the first people he sees if you guys have really broken up.”

  It was only then that I remembered they didn’t know about the Angelical. “Should we be worried?” I asked tentatively.

  “Are you worried?” Jacqueline hedged.

  “In a general sense.”

  Cassie groaned.

  “Did you pull me out of class for something school related?” I asked. Two sets of eyes blinked at me like I was a dolt. “Right. I’m going now.”

  “Lex,” Jacqueline called out. I turned back around. She was patting Cassie’s hand. “I’m sure whatever happened, you’ll work it out.”

  I shook my head at her. “Not this time.”

  Never again.

  As I pushed open her door, the finality of it hit me. I would never again be the first one Kai looked for when he entered a room. I’d never be the one to argue with him when he was being unreasonable. When I was hurt, he wouldn’t be there to heal me. When I was afraid, he would be indifferent.

  Two days later, Kai returned to the Academy. I knew it the second he set foot on Academy soil. I was in the Grove and the nymphs suddenly froze. They let out an ecstatic chorus of chirps reserved specifically for Kai. Well, I guess we knew where their loyalty lay.

  I may have dawdled for too long with my chores while debating whether I should skip Weaponry and Combat until I could get myself together. Then I thought of how it would look if I just didn’t show up to any of his classes.

  Reminding myself that I was going for cool detachment, I had no choice but to face the music. By the time I made it, the first part of class was already underway. Everyone had paired off and were sparring with each other. The flurry of movement meant that I didn’t have a focal point to settle my attention on. Using an advanced form of selective gaze that I had just invented, I snuck into the room and kept to the edges. I was just about to start a couple of stretches when a voice cut through the sound of weapons clanging and thudding against each other.

  “Is there a reason why you’re late, Alessia?” Kai asked from behind me. Having gotten used to the warning from the bond, I was completely unprepared for him sneaking up on me. Suppressing a full-body shudder, I turned around. My broken heart lurched at the sight of him.

  He was in navy Bloodline sweats and a maroon T-shirt. Last time I’d seen him, the colour was bleeding from his face. Today, he was glowing with Nephilim health. Apathy coated his expression. It reached out and slapped me so hard I felt my knees wanting to buckle. Kai had been many things since we first met but never uncaring. Through sheer force of stubbornness, I made myself speak.

  “Sorry. I was with the nymphs and lost track of time.”

  His looked at me like I was barely there. “Don’t make a habit of it.”

  Sasha snuck up beside me as Kai turned his back and walked away. Trey, Roland, and the girls were with him.

  “What’s the protocol here?” Sasha asked. “Are we kicking his ass for hurting you or what?”

  I bit my lips together, but instead of the stoic power pose I intended to imitate, my head leaned wearily against his shoulder. “Lex?” There was a dangerous catch his voice. He wrapped an arm around me.

  “That’s it,” Trey said. His nostrils flared. “I’m going to go get myself killed. Who’s coming with me?”

  Roland blew out a breath. “If we must. Tell Mum I love her, Diana.”

  “As if I’d stay behind!” Diana shot back.

  I thought they were kidding until Trey flexed his fist and started walking. “Whoa!” I jumped in front of him. “Don’t be ridiculous. He’ll knock your head off.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Nobody messes with our friends.”

  “Trey.” He tried to move around me. So did Sasha. “Can you guys stop? Please. I’m really tired of being under a microscope. I just want to let it go.”

  Copper flared in Trey’s eyes. I planted myself in front of him and wouldn’t budge. “Fine,” he said. “But if I see you crying, I’ll find a way to kill him.”

  My bottom lip was almost chewed raw by the end of class. I’d spent most of it sitting on the sidelines while my classmates eyed me speculatively. Kai and I had been on tentative ground before. And then he’d started up with his campaign to win me over. So now nobody knew how to behave. When the bell rang, James was over it.

  “For goodness sake,” he said. “There’s an easy way to settle this.”

  He strode past and shoved me hard into the wall. With no warning, I only just managed not to trip over the bags of equipment by the bleachers. Muscle memory urged me to phase, but I caught myself just in time. The last thing I needed was to get sick again so soon. My hip smashed into the bench. I came away with a gash the length of my hand.

  “What the heck was that?” I yelled, marching up to him. Trey’s vicious snarl filled the room, but it was the distinct lack of response from Kai that had the entire class dumbstruck. If he even had a smidgen of affection left for me, there would be a James-sized hole in the wall. Kai stood on the other side of the room in an at-ease stance, just watching us.

  “You have classes to get to,” he said. Then he turned his back and started packing away punching bags.

  It wasn’t even worth hitting James back even though I desperately wanted to wipe the elated smile from his face. “The insanity has finally lifted,” he said when Sophie bundled me past. Diana turned around and jabbed him in the head. He toppled backward onto the mat.

  “It doesn’t feel any better,” she muttered as we filed out the door.

  No, I wanted to tell her. Nothing would feel better again.

  James had a big mouth. By the end of the week, news had spread far and wide. The calls from party vendo
rs died out. They were replaced by calls from everyone I knew.

  I sat stony-faced watching Durin pace around through the mirror. Yolanda’s voice was sceptical. “So you both just decided it was in your best interest to end things?” she asked for the third time.

  Durin grumbled. “He must have done something. A Nephilim bond doesn’t just go away.”

  “It does if I don’t accept it.”

  He rounded on me, nudging Yolanda aside so that his head filled the whole mirror. “What did he do?”

  “Nothing! We’re just really bad for each other. He finally realised that after what happened with Andrei. I don’t want him to spend the rest of his life beating up on people because they look at me sideways.”

  They shuffled off into a corner of the room away from the mirror to deliberate. I was going to kill Sophie for picking up this call.

  “If you ever stop beating up on people because they look at me sideways,” Yolanda hissed at her mate, “we’re going to have a problem.”

  “Nobody is going to get a chance to look at you sideways,” he growled in response.

  When they returned, the verdict was unchanged. “You’re so full of it,” Yolanda said. “Just because we can’t tell that you’re lying doesn’t mean you’re not.”

  Urgh!

  It was the call from Max that sent me over the edge. Neither Sophie nor I wanted to speak to him, so we didn’t answer.

  “Better just avoid him,” Sophie said. “His transfer’s been delayed on account of the Reserve needing additional guards. He’s in a crappy mood already.”

  Not wanting to be alone one night after dinner while Sophie had work, I ducked into the Grove and sat there licking my wounds. The nymphs weren’t sure what to do with me. Bullying me at the moment had little effect. I was already as miserable as possible.

  Phoenix came to sit beside me at the Arcana pool. I spent hours stroking his hair and sniffing away ridiculous tears. He licked my hand and sat down, placing his head on my knee. I leaned over and pressed my cheek to the top of his head. My tears fell on his nose, but he didn’t move an inch. After what felt like forever, I splashed water on my face and dabbed it clean with the sleeve of my top. I touched the tip of my finger onto the water’s surface. “Andrei Popescu, please.”

  The surface of the pool rippled and turned into a mirror. Andrei’s battered face appeared a moment later. I tapped my chin. “How are you feeling?”

  “How do you think I feel?” he said. “I fell fifteen storeys and that’s the lesser of two evils. That uptight old woman is in my face twenty-four-seven. I’m going out of my mind here.”

  “It can’t be that bad.”

  “She keeps trying to trick me into drinking blood.”

  “Maybe you should give it a try. You’re not looking so crash hot.”

  He snorted. “You’re one to talk. Last time I saw you, there was blood coming out of your eyes. And yet you looked less dead than you do now.” He paused. “How did you pull it off?”

  I wrung my hands, debating whether I should tell him. What could it hurt? Andrei was many things, but he wasn’t much of a gossip. “I hit him with an Angelical word.”

  His face froze so completely I thought the mirror portal might have glitched. Then he whistled. “That’s really bad, squirt. Mind telling me why you’re doing a kamikaze run?”

  Dammit! I regretted it already. “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t give me that.” He peered at me through the mirror, his bruised eyes narrowing. “This isn’t a goodbye conversation is it?”

  It was a good thing he couldn’t hear my heart beating. “You’re talking gibberish.”

  “Lex.”

  Why did everyone keep saying my name like that? In an effort to redirect his line of enquiry, I told him what the wraith had revealed to me. In the blink of an eye, his face closed over. A ring of dull red throbbed in his eyes. “I have to go,” he said, voice shaking.

  Goodbye, Andrei.

  I hoped it was enough for him to make his own investigations. That was one less thread loose. It was getting late and I hadn’t really moved. The yowies came out to play while I sat there contemplating whether the nymphs would lose their tiny heads if I turned the Arcana trees into topiary. It seemed like it would be therapeutic.

  I was smiling manically when Phoenix suddenly raised his head. He let out a soft growl that was more of a warning than a threat. All sense of serenity disappeared at the sound of wings flapping and the feeling of displaced air hitting my back. Phoenix got to his feet and padded around to place himself between me and where Kai had just touched down.

  Affection overwhelmed me. I wrapped my arms around the dingo and hugged him. Phoenix leaned into me as though trying to transfer his strength.

  “Go,” I told him. “I’ll be okay.”

  He pressed his nose to my cheek as his upper lip trembled. I could just imagine him issuing the same threat Trey had done in class. He trotted slowly back out the path with the yowies following behind.

  Dusting grass off my butt, I stood up to face Kai. Standing there bathed in moonlight, his expression was steeped in shadow. His green eyes were night-glow but lacked emotion. They were vacant like nobody was home in there. It was apt. My Kai had left the building.

  “Lights out was an hour ago,” he said. He really was a barrel of laughs.

  “I lost track of time.”

  “That seems to be a frequent excuse of yours.”

  I shrugged. “I’ll try harder next time.”

  Thinking he was just being an uptight guard, I attempted to move past him. His arm came down in front of me, barring my way. “Wait.”

  I halted, my pulse an unsteady beat in my ear. “Yes?”

  “I wanted to ask, are you okay?”

  There was that hysterical laughing in my head again. Ask a stupid question. “I’m just peachy.”

  He frowned and then ran his hand through his hair. At the last second, I stopped myself from etching every movement into my soul. Stop it, Lex. He’s not yours anymore.

  It was going to be a difficult habit to break. Luckily, it wouldn’t be prolonged.

  There was hesitation in his touch when he took my hand. Always before Kai had held me with contained possession, locking my wrist so that I couldn’t move. Now his touch was cold, his fingers just as detached as his feelings. I held my breath.

  “I know you and I have had a strained relationship,” he said. “But I want you to know that I won’t say anything about what happened in the manor.”

  “Eh?”

  He stared at me unblinking as I made the connection. Oh. Right. Disappointment was a sharp sting. He was doing the letting me down gently routine. It would have been awkward if I could be assured that he felt anything. Even guilt. But as I took in his calm, unconcerned posture, it hit me: Kai remembered everything. He still had his memories. It was just that he didn’t feel anything associated with them. I had effectively turned him into a sociopath. If questioned, he would know all the details of our relationship. It would be enough to convince anybody that he’d suddenly stopped caring about me.

  Even I was impressed by the effectiveness of the Angelical. Being impressed didn’t blunt the pain of a thousand knives stabbing me in the heart.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Water under the bridge.”

  “Alessia.”

  It was as if a stranger had spoken. I had never hated the sound of my own name so much. Not even when Lucifer spoke it. Thinking of the seraph made rage boil in my gut. It chased away some of my grief and allowed me to match Kai’s indifference.

  “I’m perfectly fine,” I told him. “If I wasn’t, you would know, wouldn’t you?”

  His eyes darted. I imagined him searching for a clue amongst his own feelings for the truth in my statement. He didn’t feel anything. So, how could I?

  Finally, he nodded at me and teleported away.

  Tired of wallowing, I went back to the dorm room with the intention of gett
ing some sleep. If I wasn’t awake, I wouldn’t feel this constant ache that made me want to jump out of my own skin. Too late I realised that I’d been spoiled and arrogant. I’d been walking around denying the bond with the self-assurance that Kai would stubbornly keep it in place. Now that it was gone, I felt it keenly.

  The walk back to the dorms was a complete blur. Light spilled out from the crack beneath the bedroom door. Odd. Sophie shouldn’t be up at this hour. I opened the door to find Basil sitting on my bed.

  “Hi,” he said.

  I burst into tears.

  46

  After convincing Basil not to murder Kai on the spot, I wiped away the tears from my cheeks. “Does Jacqueline know you’re here?” I asked.

  He gave me a smug grin. “I slipped right past security. You’d be surprised how much you learn about avoiding security when you work for the Dominion prison.”

  “How’s that going?”

  He yawned. “Boring. I miss the good old days of reading in bed until dinner time and then going to the library.”

  “Err...you forgot to mention your full-time job as MirrorNet extraordinaire,” Sophie said.

  Basil sighed, learning back against the wall. “Are you sure yo –”

  “Don’t say it,” I warned. “If I hear it one more time, I’m going to scream.”

  He leaned in closer so his shoulder bumped mine. “And are you going to tell me what really happened or just the same lie you’ve been giving to everybody else?”

  “It’s not a lie.”

  “Not if you believe it, right?” He snapped his fingers and a line of orange light zapped under the door. It skirted along the wall and windows, sealing up the room. A dampening spell. “I still maintain that boy isn’t right in the head. But there’s no way I’m going to believe he’d break the bond. I spoke to him before I came here –”

  Sophie and I exchanged alarmed looks. Basil grinned. “Did you think I wouldn’t check it out for myself? He’s a security risk.” Oh dear Gaia. He was taking his new position as head of the Dominion prison way too seriously. “Bruce and I had to make sure he wasn’t possessed.”