Breathing Fire (Heretic Daughters) (23 page)

Her eyes seemed clear enough as she stared me down.
 
“You need to trust me on this, sister.
 
He’s on our side.
 
I don’t have time to explain it now, but I will tomorrow.
 
Can you wait until then to question my judgement?”
 

I sighed.
 
She’d gotten way too defensive way too fast.
 
I knew my sister.
 
When she got defensive, she got stubborn, and a stubborn Lynn was nothing I wanted to deal with.
 
“Fine.
 
Tomorrow will work, I suppose, if it all doesn’t blow up in our faces before that.”
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

That's Siobhan

The meeting place we’d been assigned was a large warehouse in a seedy part of town.
 
Cars nearly filled the parking lot.
 
Anyone driving by the place probably thought a rave was going on.

The first person I noticed when we walked into the room full of druids did not set the evening off to a good start.

Siobhan was tall and voluptuous and every bit as beautiful as I remembered.
 
And the moment her bright green eyes met mine across the room, I knew that she hated me every bit as much as she had seven years ago.
 
The feeling was very much mutual.
 
She started whipping her deep red hair back repeatedly as she stared at me.
 
I made a note to tell her that horses did the same thing when they got agitated.
 
That might sound a little catty, but Siobhan brought me to catty in seconds flat.
 
She and I did not have a friendly past.
 
Ok, that’s putting it very lightly.
 
She’d hated me from the moment she’d heard of me.
 
I hadn’t really cared one way or the other.
 
Until she’d poisoned me.
 
The poison didn’t kill me, of course.
 
It did make me throw-up my dinner.
 
Oh yeah, and it pissed me off royally.
 
I’d returned the favor by throwing her headfirst out of a twelve story window.
 
It’s safe to say that didn’t help us to patch things up.
 

Siobhan was childhood friends with Dom and his cousins.
 
They had also dated some years before he and I became an item.
 
According to her, I was all that stood between them reconciling and living happily ever after.
 
According to everyone else, they’d always just been friends and occasional bedmates.
 
I was the only woman Dom had ever dated exclusively.
 
I’d also heard from other sources that Dom had flat-out told her he was planning to marry me.
 
So, all of her jilted lover angst always fell to me.
 
Go figure.
 

Christian, who had entered the room right behind me, whistled softly.
 
“This should be an interesting evening.”
 
His whistling suddenly turned into the tune for the theme from ‘Rocky’.
 

I shot him a glare over my shoulder.
 
“For you, maybe.”

“Hell yeah, for me.
 
I’d say I have your back, but if I touch that prissy druid princess, they’ll gut me outright.”

I nodded.
 
“Yes.
 
You definitely need to stay out of it.
 
It’s fine.
 
I’m going to ignore her anyways.
 
It’s all ancient history.
 
If she has half a brain, she’ll pretend she didn’t see me.”
 

“She always had more tits than brains,” Christian muttered.
 
Sure enough, she was striding across the room to us as he spoke.
 
Several druids paced after her, talking rapidly.
 
Trying to talk her out of doing anything stupid, I was sure.
 
The room was full, mostly of men.
 
Not surprising.
 
Most of them wore black, with various armored vests.
 
Christian and I were decked out the same.
 
Not Siobhan.
 
She wore a slinky red dress that barely covered her crotch.
 
Oh, and it clashed with her hair.

She stopped a few feet from me, her hands clenched.
 
“Whore,” she spat.
 
Not a good start.

I calmed myself before speaking.
 
“Siobhan.
 
It’s pointless for us to still be fighting each other for a man that doesn’t belong to either one of us.
 
Let’s just leave it at that.”
 
I really was trying to defuse the situation.
 
Honest.

If anything, it worked her up even more.
 
“Don’t you tell me where to leave it, you dumb bitch!
 
I’ll leave you buried in the fucking desert!”
 
I just blinked at her for a minute.
 
She wasn’t alone with that sentiment.
 
Apparently my desert burial was a popular fantasy amongst the druids.
   

“I’d love to see you try,” I told her softly.
 
I couldn’t help it.
 
Seriously.
 
When someone threatened me, and I was ninety-nine percent sure they couldn’t kill me, I had to call them on it.
 
And I would sincerely love to see her try.

“One of these days I will.”
 
Her voice was a purr.
 
I’d forgotten how much I hated that venomous drawl.
 

I shrugged.
 
“I’ll be waiting.
 
Has it ever occurred to you that your problems with Dom have nothing to do with me?
 
I left for over seven years, and it looks like all you managed to get out of him were some pity fucks.”
 
Okay, even I thought that jab was on the bitchy side.
 
But it felt so fucking good to say it.

She was literally quivering in rage.
 
She was showing considerable restraint though, for her.
 
Years ago, whenever we’d had a confrontation, half the room had had to hold her down.
 
“They have everything to do with you.
 
You fucked with his head.
 
If he had never met you-”

“Um, sorry to correct you, but he’s known you all your life.”

“Luckily I was there to comfort him when you left.
 
You were exactly what I’d always told him you were.
 
Guess whose bed he crawled into to lick his wounds?”
 

The revelation stung more than a little, but I shrugged, my face serene.
 
“Hmmm, let me think.
 
Probably whoever was clinging closest?
 
I’m assuming that was you?
 
He’ll fuck anything these days, I’ve heard.
 
Seems like he’s getting your kind of comfort from a lot of girls.”

“Even you now.
 
Rumors are you two tore up his office.
 
You think you’re reconciled?
 
He’ll never care about you again.
 
I hope you know that.
 
He’s on to
 
you now.
 
I always told him you were screwing around on him.
 
He denied it, but I knew he always suspect-”

I’m not even completely sure how it happened, but before she finished her sentence, my fist was flying through her face.
 
Not into her face, but right through it, as though I’d been aiming at a spot a foot behind her, and her face just sorta, I don’t know, got in the way?
 
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t gratified to see her fly back twenty feet, slamming into the wall.
 
Though I have to admit, it wasn’t quite as fun as that time I threw her out a window.
 

She lay there, stunned.
 
Every eye in the room was staring at me in shock.
 
I wasn’t sure whether they were shocked that I’d punched her, or that I’d punched her hard enough to throw her that far.
 
Suddenly every eye was centered behind me, on the open doorway.
 
I didn’t turn.
 
No way was I giving my back to the bitch after what I’d just done.
 

“I swear you show up just to cause trouble.”
 
I recognized the gravelly voice instantly.
 
Cam strode past me, going to help Siobhan to her feet, I assumed.
 
I assumed wrong.
 
He restrained her arms as soon as he reached her.
 
“This ends now.”
 
His authoritative voice commanded the room.

“You had sex with Dom?!”
 
Christian’s voice whispered loudly behind me.
 

“Shut up,” I whispered, just as loudly.
 

“Oh my God!
 
You really did!”

“Shut. Up.”

“You sneaky little tramp.”
 
Christian was laughing at me.

“I’m going to rip your head off!” Siobhan was screaming from across the room.
 
I stuck my tongue out at her.
 
It’s entirely possible that I was actually losing maturity as the years went by.
 
Likely, even.

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 fucking 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 fucking 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.