Blood Magic (Dragon Born Alexandria Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

accessories, though, darling. Did you raid an armory on the way over?”
    “No, just a Convictionite stronghold.”
    “Oh? Being reckless again?” He clicked his tongue.
    “Well, you know me.” She plopped down on another of the sofas and tossed her wig onto the side table. “Did you get our delivery?”
    “I did. The assassin’s program claims it’s almost finished sorting through it.” He gave Logan a cool look.
    The two of them had learned to work together. But the fact that they could tolerate each other didn’t mean that they were best buddies. That might take a few more years. Or a few more decades.
    Marek stood. “Are you ready for your post-mission bliss?”
    Logan grunted and sat down on one of the chairs beside the desk. Marek took the chair on the other side of the desk and pulled a syringe from one of the cabinets.
    “You fought Convictionites tonight?” he asked as he took a sample of Logan’s blood.
    “Yes.”
    “How long ago?”
    “About an hour.”
    A crinkle formed between Marek’s dark eyebrows. “That’s too long. Next time, return here sooner. The longer you wait, the less accurate the magic tests are.”
    “I’m familiar with the tests’ limitations,” Logan replied cooly. “I designed them.”
    Something he’d done after their confrontation on Lake Zurich with his mother, leader of the Convictionites. That day, he’d learned the truth: that his enhanced abilities weren’t thanks to genetic engineering, as his parents had always told him—but because he’d been enhanced with magic. His own parents had turned him into a weapon—and they’d built in a safeguard to make sure he obeyed.
    Alex had used her magic to break his mother’s control over him, but neither she nor Logan thought that was the end of the story. The Convictionites weren’t abandoning their weapon so easily. They would try to regain control of him, maybe with another magical device, maybe with magic itself. That’s why Logan had developed tests to check the magic in his blood after battle, especially after a battle with Convictionites. They had to figure out how the magic in his body worked. Only then would they have a chance to develop a defense against the Convictionites’ control.
    “None of the guards at Purge were carrying a device like the one the Evil Queen had,” Alex said. That was her name for Logan’s mother: the Evil Queen. He didn’t seem to mind. His names for her were much worse—and usually peppered with expletives.
    “Were there any other magic artifacts present in the area?” Marek asked her.
    “Besides a bunch of enchanted weapons, the only magical thing that I could sense was something that blocked out all magic in the area. They managed to mask it somehow. It bounced the anti-magic echoes like we were in a house of mirrors.” She frowned. “I didn’t have time to find it and shut it down. We had to resort to more creative means.”
    “I can see those ‘more creative means’ here.” Marek swiveled the computer around to show Logan a screen filled with various graphs. “Under normal conditions, your magic maintains a constant low level, hardly detectable, like background noise.” He pointed at the first chart. “However, when you use your enhanced abilities, your magic jumps. Here is your blood sample from last week, when you and Alex ‘stumbled upon’ a vampire nest.” Marek shot a hard look Alex’s way.
    “Ok, so there were a few more vampires in that building than I’d thought. Besides,” she added, smirking at him. “You’re just jealous you weren’t there.”
    He flashed his teeth at her. Alex felt the hum of magic in the air a moment before a fireball erupted from Marek’s hands. It roared her way, trailing the scent of sweet wood chips and sugar cookies. She caught the fireball between her hands and slowly rolled the flame away until it was a globe of crystallized ice.
    “I’ve been practicing,” she said and tossed him the ice ball.
    As the ball