Breathing Fire

Suddenly she ripped free of Cam, rushing across the room. I braced for her, but Cam caught her again. Christian grabbed both of my arms from behind, pulling me farther into the room. I struggled against him, though I held back. She’d almost made it to me. I wished she had.

“If you touch her, and Dom finds out about it, he’ll punish you. As unfair as it is, none of us can harm her,” Cam was murmuring softly to Siobhan, but I heard him clearly.

“You all act so scared about that,” Siobhan responded. She sounded more calm than she looked. Then again, she wasn’t talking to me. “I poisoned her once, and he didn’t do a damned thing about it.”

“He never knew about it,” I spoke up. A room full of angry eyes turned to me. I shrugged at them. “I didn’t tell him. Unless someone else did?” I knew no one had.

“I won’t tell you this again,” Siobhan was screeching again, in my direction. “Stay away from him. If you ever touch him again, I’ll f**king kill you!”

I couldn’t help it. I smirked at her. She went crazy for a few minutes, but couldn’t get loose of the growing group of men restraining her. Christian was still the only one restraining me. I knew he was really just trying to help. He knew that if he didn’t restrain me, one of the druids would try, and things would get quickly out of hand, then. I let him get away with it, though I didn’t make it too easy.

Siobhan stilled as two figures filled the doorway. Her tantrums had brought her within arms length of it.

Lynn and Caleb studied the scene in front of them rather indifferently.

“Good,” Cam panted at Lynn when he recognized her. “Go get your sister under control, and tell her to shut her f**king mouth.” I had the urge to tell him I hadn’t even spoken for several minutes, but bit my tongue.

She didn’t obey, but she looked at me, raising a brow in question. She looked remarkably recovered from her drunken ordeal. Caleb had obviously succeeded at sobering her up. I nodded at Siobhan, who was carrying on like a maniac again. “That’s Siobhan,” I told Lynn.

Lynn’s fist met Siobhan’s face before anyone saw it coming. Siobhan finally stopped running her mouth. She was out cold. Adding insult to injury, I swear Lynn muttered, “Cunt,” at her loudly enough for all of the druids to hear. The druids wouldn’t appreciate having the C-bomb dropped on their favorite princess.

Lynn totally ignored all of the shocked looks aimed her way. Even Caleb was looking at her strangely. She just grinned at me across the room. “Man, I’ve been wanting to pop that bitch in the face for years.” Oddly enough, we were the only two in the room that laughed.

None of us were surprised when Cam ushered the four of us into another room. We’d been separated from the rest of the group like naughty children, though I’d be the first to admit that we kind of deserved it. But only kind of. Siobhan had more than kind of deserved a few punches to the face.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Wouldn't Know Functional

 Christian started instigating the moment the door closed. “Jillian did the wild thing with Dom. Word is, they tore up his office.” He grinned at me while he spoke.

Caleb looked at me, disbelieving. Lynn merely raised a brow at me, though she didn’t look like she believed him, either.

I looked pointedly at the ceiling, refusing to respond.

It was the wrong approach to take. All three of them started laughing and talking at once.

“That didn’t take long,” Caleb noted.

“Wow, so you lasted a whole five minutes before you jumped him, huh?” Lynn smirked at me.

I curled my lip at them all. Bastards. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Apparently they can’t be in the same room with each other and not bang. I’m surprised you managed to keep your hands off each other at my house.” His eyes widened in realization. “Shit, did you screw him in my living room?”

I glared at him. “Bite me.”

Lynn and Christian hooted with laughter. Even Caleb was grinning.

“Sounds like someone has been,” Lynn chortled.

“Dirty girl,” Caleb said with a small smile.

“Goddammit, girl, that’s just rude. That room will never be the same now. I might need new furniture.”

“And new carpet,” I added just to torment him. He winced. “And new walls.”

“So you reconciled?” Caleb’s tone was dubious.

I shook my head. “Far from it. In fact, he hates me.”

“Well, that’s not at all dysfunctional,” Christian quipped, his tone sarcastic but annoyingly lighthearted.

I gave him that look reserved for when members of your family say something particularly dense. “Ya think? The people in this room wouldn’t know functional if it gave us all a roundhouse kick to the face.”

“Amen, Sista,” Lynn said, snapping her fingers.

“Dom and I just need to stay away from each other. I’ve known that for a long time. He’s a stick of dy***ite, and I’m a blow-torch. Dysfunctional is putting it lightly.”

That depressing conclusion was enough to move them on to a new topic rather quickly.

About an hour later Christian and Caleb were comparing the sizes of their guns while Christian braided my hair. No, that’s not a joke. They did it all the time. It was the number one topic the two of them liked to talk to each other about. It was definitely a man thing.

And yes, Christian loved braiding hair. He carried hair ties and bobby pins in his pocket on the way to any fight, doing my hair on the way. We always gave him shit, but it never fazed him. His favorite style was tight braided buns on each side of my head. He actually executed the style perfectly, and I let him get away with it. No, I hadn’t lost a bet. The buns actually worked well for fighters with long hair. Seriously. “It’s just a tinge purple at the moment,” Christian tried to comfort me as he finished up. I gave him a dirty look for even mentioning it.