Breathing Fire (Heretic Daughters 1)

I listened as he spoke, staying silent. Caleb helped me put him in the backseat without a word. I moved into the backseat with Christian, and we all watched the show. Sloan and Cam couldn’t seem to help but put one on for the world whenever they got into each other’s vicinity.

Cam was gripping her arm tightly, and she was attempting to pull away, to no avail. “Get your hands off of me, you cave man,” she was yelling at him.

His response was to grab her other arm, leaning down until they were face to face, pushing closer until their foreheads literally bumped, and he was snarling at her in a whisper, all of his teeth showing.

“Can anyone hear what he’s saying?” I asked. I started rolling down my window. I wanted to grab some popcorn and watch this little reprieve. It was a nice temporary escape from the bigger problems at hand. The way they interacted had always been more fascinating to me than any movie. I had concocted a drama in my head where they were secretly in love, but couldn’t be together because they were both so stubborn and dominant. I was team Sloan, of course, but a part of me had always respected Cam for his staunch loyalty to Dom. And I couldn’t help but have a soft spot for someone who looked similar enough to Dom to be his brother.

I also couldn’t help but think how beautiful Sloan and Cam looked together, standing nose to nose, both tall, with straight black hair and blue eyes.

“Fuck you, Cam,” Sloan was shouting, a comical contrast to Cam’s fervent whispering. She was still pulling hard against him, but he was immovable. This went on for precious minutes while we watched.

I started, remembering that I had a phone call to make. I had a short, succinct conversation with a voice I didn’t recognize. “The desert stadium. The druid one,” it told me. That was all. I supposed it was enough. I certainly knew where that was. If it was a trap, it was a trap. I couldn’t walk away from a chance to get Lynn back. That wasn’t even an option.

Sloan and Cam were still going at it even after I hung up the phone.

Finally he seemed to finish his quiet lecture. He looked up at us, pointing. “You get her killed and I will hunt you down. I will gladly forfeit my life to take your miserable heads, if she is killed. Do you understand?”

We all nodded. My eyes were wide. Well, well, well. That had been revealing.

Sloan finally got free of him. She gave him the finger as she got in the car.

“See you next tuesday, Baby,” Cam called to her.

The moment she got in the car, Caleb started driving again.

Sloan and Cam had a hostile staring contest until we drove out of his sight. She punched the dashboard a few times when we were out of his sight, then fell silent.

“See you next tuesday?” I asked her finally, dying to know.

She just shook her head, and I caught a corner of her smirk in the rearview mirror.

“C U next tuesday. C U N T,” Caleb finally explained. I couldn’t hold back a laugh.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Torst

 Without further ado, I slashed a deep but small cut into my wrist, holding it to Christian’s mouth. “Drink,” I ordered. “As much as you can stand to.”

He obeyed without argument. That’s how I knew I had a contrary nature. Him not protesting made me antsy. But I held my tongue while he drank. It hurt more than I would have thought, but I’d be damned if I complained like a wimp in front of Caleb. He always turned everything into a badass contest, and I was in no mood for that today. Especially since I’d lose.

Christian drank for a solid five minutes, drawing hard, as though he did this all the time. Which was a little disconcerting. I’d add it to the growing list of questions I had that were definitely not going to get answered today.

My wrist had already made good progress towards healing by the time he finished. He drew back, looking breathless and dazed. He shook his head a few times, as though to clear it. “That is some powerful shit! Whew! Let’s party!”

I rolled my eyes.

“So…” I began. “You, uh, know what to do, Christian? I know you’ve never, yanno, ‘slayed’ a dragon before. But you know how, right?”

He glared at me, pouting exactly as though he didn’t know what to do. “Of course I do. I went through all the training. So I have a very good idea about what to do.”

“A very good idea?” My brows rose. It didn’t sound like quite enough to me.

He just continued to glare. My blood ringing his mouth made him look slightly more ferocious than normal. Sloan handed us a box of tissues without a word. I thanked her, and we began to wipe up.

“My father never got a chance to slay a dragon either….but he taught me all of the theories.”

I looked at him incredulously for a few tense moments. “Theories…” I said softly.

He became even more defensive. “I know enough, trust me. Besides, it goes against the grain to discuss the family secrets with one of you. They’ve been well guarded from your kind…obviously.”

I just raised a brow at him. “As long as you know what you’re doing…”

He shrugged, the casual gesture not working for him as it usually did. “I guess we’ll see, huh?” His response was defensive and childish, and far from the reassurance I had hoped for.

I brooded for a few minutes until I realized where we were. “We need to make a stop. Make a right on Tropicana, left on Warm Springs,” I told Caleb suddenly.

Three pairs of incredulous eyes swung to me, Caleb’s glaring into the rearview mirror. “Why on earth?” he began.

“Torst,” I said very softly, looking out the window.

“Torst,” Caleb repeated in the same voice, a wicked grin spreading across his/my face at me. “God, I love hanging out with you guys.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Torst?” Sloan asked.

Christian just sighed. “I thought that thing was buried for good. But, yeah, guess that’s worth a stop, under the circumstances. Torst means thirst in god only knows what language. And Torst is an…object of power that Jillian acquired, oh, who knows when? She won’t share the story.” He glared at me.

I half-smiled. “I’ll tell you what. If we live through this, I’ll give you the full story, or as full as it can be, without the when part.” Age was a touchy subject, as always, and the when would reveal far too much about mine.

His bloody mouth turned up in a shit-eating grin. It just looked wrong on his face. I started attempting to clean his face again. The blood had dried too quickly, so the dry tissue could only do so much. “Hell, yeah,” he said.