Breathing Fire (Heretic Daughters 1)

“Why should I believe anything you say? Why on earth would I trust you?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “I only want to help you and Lynn. That’s all I can tell you. ”

“The druids will have Christian under heavy guard. How do yo propose we get him out?”

He gestured at Sloan. “You have one of the druid leaders with you. The 2nd in command, yes? And if that doesn’t work, spring him.” And with that, he disappeared in front of our eyes.

“Ok, where did he go? What kind of dragon trick was that?” Sloan asked behind me.

“Hell if I know. This could be a trap. They could just be trying to distract us. And perhaps get their hands on Christian.”

“I say we do what he says. Personally, I hope it’s a trap,” Caleb spoke as he approached. He smiled, his cold, chilling smile. It seemed to fit too well on my face. “A trap means they’ll stop running, and we can finally start fighting. Let’s go.”

I couldn’t really argue with that logic. I strode back to the stage. I began to untie Luke, completely ignoring Johnny, who pleaded for the same treatment from beside him. I ignored him. He had turned on Lynn, and put her in danger. Why else would this whole mess, and her abduction, have gone down at his club? I just knew he was knee deep in it all. I wanted to kill him, but there wasn’t time, so I wouldn’t touch him, either.

“Caleb, why was Luke bound?” I asked him, but thought I had already grasped the situation.

“Johnny had him like this, before I got here. Luke tried to help Lynn.”

“And you couldn’t have untied him?”

Caleb just shrugged, making his/my heavy br**sts kind of gyrate. It was obscene. “He didn’t mind being bound, so it wasn’t really a priority.”

I finished untying him, straightening. The thought that he had tried to help Lynn, even though there was no way that he could have stopped the ones that were after her, warmed me towards him considerably. His doe eyes met mine, and I gave him an affectionate smile. I couldn’t seem to help it. “Thank you for trying to help my sister, Luke,” I said.

All of my fondness died a short death as he suddenly bent and started kissing my boot. I sighed. “Get up, Luke. I have an important job for you.”

He obeyed instantly. He would make a good soldier, I realized. His submission was so complete that he wouldn’t question orders, wouldn’t hesitate. I filed that information away.

“There is a child in here. A little blond asian girl, maybe ten years old. I want you to find her, and get her out of here. Take her to the druids. She isn’t human, and she doesn’t know where her parents are, so they’ll take care of her.”

He nodded, processing the order. “How do I find the druids?”

Sloan sighed beside me. A card just suddenly appeared in her hand. “Call this number. And the Grove is where they’ll direct you, so take her there. Tell them Sloan told you to call them, and explain about the kid. They’ll give you the exact drop-off location.”

Luke nodded, then took off at a run to search for the girl, a man on a mission. “He’s starting to grow on me,” I said, breaking into a sprint myself.

I felt and heard Caleb and Sloan match my pace behind me. We were headed for the druids’ lockdown.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

See You Next Tuesday

Day 5

 The sun was rising gloriously over the mountains to our left. The bright morning light was almost blinding. The night had gone by, seemingly in a flash, without a moments sleep. Caleb was driving, pulling rather crazily out of the parking lot.

“We need to make a second stop, after we get Christian,” I told Caleb. He shot me a look from the drivers seat. The look told me clearly that he thought I was crazy. That Caleb look coming out of my face made me glare back with feeling.

“You’re crazy,” he said, just to be clear, as if the look hadn’t told me his thoughts on the matter.

I ignored him, turning to look at Sloan in the backseat of the small car. “I know I’m the last person that you want to help, but please, for my sister’s sake, I need to know where they’re keeping Christian.”

She sighed. “I’ll help you get the dragonslayer. But you’re gonna do something for me first.” I was all ears. “I want the truth about what happened with Declan. I vouched for you when it all went down. I even had myself and Dom half convinced those pictures were a fraud-” her eyes widened, an idea occurring to her mid-sentence. “Ah, f**k, was that you, Caleb?”

I couldn’t keep a bubble of laughter from escaping my throat. Sloan glared at me. Caleb glared at Sloan.

“No. Unfortunately, it was really me in those pictures. And it was really Declan,” I added, guessing her next question.

Her glare held a real malice this time. “Tell me why? Why would you do that to him. If you’re lying, I will know it, and I won’t help you.”

I made a snap decision, for better, or worse. “Are you going to tell Dom any of this?”

She shrugged. “That’s for me to decide, and it’s not negotiable. He is my Arch. My King. I would die for him. Start talking.”

I shot a look at Caleb, wondering how he’d feel about our deception being revealed. “It was a setup,” I admitted. Caleb shot me a hard look. I shrugged at him. “Declan is dead, along with his Lieutenants No one that’s left alive is gonna care that you took some pictures, Cal.”

Her eyes widened. Something I’d said was a genuine shock to her. “What do you mean by a setup? And don’t even think about being vague with me. You’re wasting precious time here.”

“Declan needed to die, Sloan. And I couldn’t kill him myself. It had to be another druid, and a legal kill. He had been stalking me for months, threatening me and my sister. He knew way too much about us, and was trying to blackmail me into bed. That was bad enough. But then he tried to extort me to help with an assassination attempt against Dom. That’s when I knew he needed to die. So we set him up. I told him to meet me in that hotel room. Caleb took pictures through the window from a ledge outside. I let it get exactly as far as what you see in those photos, then I knocked him out cold. I knew Dom would finally kill him for what was on that film. So Caleb delivered the pictures anonymously and I got the hell outta dodge. Call me crazy, but I just didn’t trust the druids after all of the things that had happened.”

She cursed fluently. “What a mess.” After a short rant, she gave Caleb directions to the location where they were holding Christian.