Breathing Fire (Heretic Daughters)

by Rebecca K. Lilley

  I laid my hand on his shoulder, but he wrenched away, pacing. The relief I’d felt just a second before, when I’d realized he wasn’t here to take us, left as quickly as it had come. Now I felt fresh a pain that should have been more dulled by the years.

  “It wasn’t just that, Dom, and we both know it. You were assumed heir to one of the Arch positions, and your people hated me. The demons of my past were just one thing in a very long list of reasons why it never could have worked. Your people mate with humans, or other druids. I’m neither. You wanted Arch. You lived for it, more than anything. You’ve been preparing for it since you were a child. Your uncle would never have held elections while I was around. And your people never would have elected you to Arch with a mysterious Other as consort. And you refused to take it through combat.” Who was I trying to convince? I wondered. Him, or myself? I didn’t like the answer, so I made my mind ignore the question.

  “You’re a fool. Don’t pretend you did what you did as a favor to me,” he said bitterly.

  I swallowed hard. “We’re both fools. But I want you to tell me that you could have made Arch with an unknown Other on your arm.” He was silent. “Exactly. I get it. I handled the break-up badly. You have every right to hate me for that. But I didn’t exactly have to return a ring when I left you.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” His voice was a shout. He was back in my face in a flash.

  “It means that you weren’t going to give up Arch, and I wasn’t going to make you. So maybe we aren’t such fools, after all.”

  “Bullshit. That’s all bullshit. The only problem we had that couldn’t be worked out was your propensity for fucking other men.” I kept my expression blank, but my nails dug into my palms hard enough to draw blood. “At least have the decency to take credit for a decision you made alone.”

  I inclined my head towards him. “I take it. I always have.”

  He stared at me for awhile. “How was I with you for so many years and I never saw how cold you are? Your element must be ice.” He’d done some research. Not many knew much about the dragon elements.

  Each dragon adopted a different element. It was the gnosis to our power. And the focus. The element colored every magic we had. In my clan, fire was believed to be the most powerful element, but I had always been skeptical. Every element could wield equal power in the right hands. Fire simply put on the biggest show.

  “Is that a question?” I finally asked.

  He just shook his head at me. “I can’t believe you’ve trusted the dragonslayer all this time. But perhaps trust is the wrong word. You know what he’d do if he found out what you are. He couldn’t help himself. An unfulfilled destiny is a powerful thing to come between friends.”

  I smiled at him sadly. “Indeed. It’s a problem without a solution. The story of my life.”

  “Maybe you like your life like that. I mean, how perverse do you have to be, to be a dragon, with a slayer for a best friend?” He wasn’t being funny, he was being mean, but strangely, it still made me want to laugh.

  I smiled wryly. “Pretty perverse, I suppose. No more perverse than the druid King who lives in the desert.” He glared at me for the jab, but was silent. “Are you bringing any charges against him?”

  His mouth hardened. “I don’t see the point. He won’t learn anything, and he’s too stupid to be humbled.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me.”

  We were silent for awhile, and I thought we were done. We didn’t look at each other. “The dragons won’t stop hunting you. None have been born to your clan since you left. I got the impression that your clan was very short on females.”

  I shrugged. I always assumed I was being hunted. And I didn’t want to talk about The Purging. “Are you having them followed?”

  “Of course. They wait patiently at the hotel for my answer. You should wear more clothing,” he commented, changing the subject suddenly. “You never used to dress like that.”

  I rolled my eyes, still not looking at him. “I always dressed like this to work out. I didn’t come here expecting a meeting.”

  “Does it work, not looking at me?”

  I shrugged, still not looking. “It helps some. I haven’t jumped you, so that’s a good sign.”

  “So much has changed, but the wanting hasn’t gone away. Do you suppose it was only ever lust?” he asked. Ouch, that one hurt. I tried to shake it off. His shot had hit it’s mark squarely, though. I only wished it had been aimed to take out my libido.

  Finally, I met his stare. It hurt my chest just to look at him. The pain was sharp and enduring. He was the only thing in my life I’d ever wanted badly enough that it made me shake like an addict.

  I had never been like him. His absolute faith in our love, in our ability to be together, in spite of the odds, had floored me. And I had stolen it from him. And from myself. In the cruelest way that I could think of.

  I’d never just been with him, thinking it would last forever. I’d always known the clock was ticking on our affair. My sense of borrowed time had always been acute. But it still made me ache to know I’d never have him like that again. A brief taste of his body only made it harder to bear the permanent loss of his love. Still, I couldn’t seem to stop myself from coming back for more.

  “Maybe,” I said vaguely. “We can always just blame our libidos.”

  “I’ve grown rather accustomed to blaming you,” he said with a rare combination of bitterness and humor.

  A corner of my mouth lifted slightly. I shrugged. “Join the club.”

  He moved toward me, and that was all it took to sweep me back in.

  He backed me deliberately into the wall, pressing hard against me until I gasped from the sheer, solid contact. “Ask me for it,” Dom growled at me, and it was clearly an order. He was trying to get a reaction, I thought. I wasn’t in the mood to balk at his methods, though.

  I ripped his shirt open. My hand slid down his chest and directly to his heavy erection. I gripped him with just the right amount of pressure that I knew he would love. “Please, Arch, may I have this?” I asked without a hint of mirth.

  He answered by gripping my hair and pulling down until I went to my knees. I freed him from his pants and he buried both hands in my hair, pulling me towards his length. I obliged eagerly, taking him into my mouth with wet lips pulled taut over my teeth. I sucked him hard, drawing a groan out of him that I knew he was reluctant to give. I began the familiar rhythm that I knew he wanted, and that I myself relished. I used my hands at his base in a wet, twisting motion, and took him deep into my throat. He held my head and pushed into me. I felt the very air around us changing when he was close to release. He climaxed deep in my throat with a muffled groan, and I swallowed. I pulled back to look up at him, licking my lips. He put a hand on the wall, leaning heavily against it for a moment, but he’d always been quick to recover.

  He lifted me back up to stand not even a minute later. And this time it was him that knelt, pulling down my tiny lycra boy shorts and my lacy thong in one efficient movement. He buried his face against my core, throwing one of my legs over his shoulder, and his clever tongue had me screaming in seconds. “Please,” I said, even after I came. I loved what he could do to me with his mouth, but it never felt complete until I had him buried deep inside of me.

  He rose fluidly, burying himself to the hilt in the smoothest motion. He kissed me while he thrust, and I ate at his mouth, missing that intimate contact amidst all of the rest. He pulled back to watch my eyes near the end. Their changing depths had always mesmerized him, I knew. I wondered, not for the first time, if I had inadvertently cast some sort of spell on him. There was so much I didn’t know about my own power. But if it was a spell, why would I myself be just as caught up? I lost myself just as completely in his extraordinary gaze.

  “Come,” he commanded harshly, and it did the trick. We climaxed together, our eyes staying locked.

  “What do you look like as a dragon? I’
ve never seen one before. Is it similar to the legends?” he asked unexpectedly. We were both getting dressed. I finished first. My few scraps of lycra were much quicker to get in and out of than his tailored gray Armani suit. I kept my back to him as he finished getting dressed. Why did it sometimes seem so much more intimate getting into clothes than it did getting out of them?

  “All of the dragon-kin are different. Different sizes, different shapes and proportions, different colors. But yes, we’re much like the legends. I have to imagine that most of those renderings came from real encounters with dragon-kin. My family does love to be worshipped.”

  “What color is your dragon?”

  “It’s unusual actually. My dragon never chose a color. She’s just like my hair, she changes on some whim, against my will.”

  “Does that happen to dragons often?”

  “Never that I’ve heard of. But I left the clan before I knew much. I’m flying blind on most of that type of information. Why do you ask?”

  “So other dragons’ hair doesn’t do that?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m horrible at changing my appearance on purpose though, which would be far more useful. I think the shifting colors might just be a sign of my lack of control over my magic.”

  “What is your element?”

  I looked at him now. He was just finishing his tie. It was a solid, vibrant blue that set off his left eye to perfection. “Fire. A lot of our kind are a mix of elements, which can be useful, but I’m almost completely fire. It’s the least subtle magic.”

  “So no ice at all?”

  “No. Are you surprised?”

  “Only a little. I guess I always saw the fire. Though I have seen you practice subtle magics.”

  I shrugged. “I was taught that we are the Firstborn. The gods gave us many magics to work with. I can use some of the subtler stuff, but it’s always been my weakness. Even simple glamour gives me a headache. I have no patience for it. Fire is great for an all-out battle, but outside of that, the other stuff is far more useful.” I studied him for a long time. It was so strange, talking to him about this, about what I was, after all of the years of secrecy. It made me want to tell him more, now that I was free to. “I don’t know if they believe it now, but draak used to believe that every kind of Other race after us was a sort of bastard version, stealing just pieces of our lesser magics. They believed that we were the perfect prototype that couldn’t be improved on, only copied poorly.”

  “Did you believe that?”

  I smiled ruefully. “I left them when I was barely more than a child. But no, I believed little that they tried to teach me. You won’t be surprised to know that I was always obstinate. I despised my father and his ways. He and his brothers believed themselves to be gods. You and your druids struggle to be fair and just. The dragon-kin are the opposite. They are so deluded about their own godhood, they believe that any horrible thought in their heads is divine. Power has driven them mad.”

  “I do recall that Lynn doesn’t mind playing goddess.”

  I smiled at that. “It’s different. She doesn’t mind being worshipped, I’m sure. It is more her dark sense of humor though, than any belief in her divinity, that makes her collect lost souls to follow her. Sometimes you have to laugh in the face of the things that scare you about yourself, or the fear alone will drive you mad.”

  “Both of you always did have a dark sense of humor.”

  “In our family, you either go insane from the horror, or learn to laugh at it.”

  He handed me two business cards that were blank but for two phone numbers. “Keep one, put your contact information on the other. Don’t worry, I won’t be calling you. My people will simply keep you updated on the draak’s activities if it seems pertinent.”

  I nodded, jotting it all down. “Thank you.”

  “I hear you’ve been invited to the necro assault.”

  “Yes. I’m rusty, but I should still be useful against a race that can burn.”

  “I’m having them put you in my unit. You’re less likely to get any trouble from my people that way.” He left the room. I watched him leave. Neither of us said goodbye.

  I followed him out no more than a minute later. The druids were gone, leaving Christian still bound and gagged. I couldn’t really blame them. There was murder in his eyes as I approached him. I ripped the tape off his mouth, and he started cursing fluently. “You should have let him fight me when he mentioned it, Jillian. You don’t know how much I’d like to take a shot at him.”

  I raised my brows at him. I should have known that would be the only thing he focused on. “Are you ok?” I asked him.

  “Yeah. You?”

  I nodded. “Just the usual Druid politics bullshit,” I lied, adding to the already huge pile. “Let’s head back to the retreat.”

  “Those wankers,” he said darkly..

  “Your British is showing.”

  “Bloody wankers,” he elaborated, making me smile. He smiled back, always quick to shake things off. It was by far his best quality.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Too Much Dough For A Super-Nerd

  Christian took the condition of his slightly charred porsche better than I would have expected, considering how much he always waxed poetic about it. He was more teasing than mad about it as we drove to his retreat.

  Christian’s mountain retreat was an impressive compound set up with Christian’s keen eye for both security and style. It consisted of several small buildings, and one much larger building. The entire compound was tucked into the mountains, almost completely hidden from the small dirt road that took us the last few miles from the interstate. The exterior of the buildings were stones that matched the desert mountains like camouflage.

  I had no idea what was in the smaller buildings. I knew that the larger building was all of the housing, with enough rooms to comfortably house us and even most of Lynn’s followers comfortably. If I had to guess, I’d say the smaller buildings were probably bunkers stockpiling weapons. I knew I wouldn’t have to wonder long to find out. Christian would give me the grand tour.

  “Does it make your skin crawl to have all of the goth humans in your safe house?”

  He shrugged, seeming unaffected. He probably loved the thought of showing off his pride and joy to more people. “I’d rather not be bored up here. And anyways, they’re all humans. What’s the worst they could do? Lynn even made them all leave their phones behind.”

  It still made me antsy. An overcrowded safe house… so much was wrong with that.

  Christian sped into the oversized garage that opened before us with surprising swiftness. The concrete ground below the porsche began to lower immediately. It was a surprisingly smooth ride, and went down a shockingly far distance. I gave Christian wide eyes. “How far underground does this thing go?”

  He grinned. It was such a smug, toothy grin. It made me want to either smile or punch him, depending on why he was wearing it. “You’ll see.”

  Something occurred to me. I smirked at him. “Did you make yourself a bat cave?”

  He wiggled his brows at me, shameless. “A slayer cave, to be exact.”

  I shook my head, grinning. “You have way too much dough for a super-nerd. The combination is a danger to society at large.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. It was infectious, especially after such a tense, volatile morning. “Wait ’til I give you the grand tour.”

  We got out of the car. The room could have almost passed for an oversized version of a normal garage, all smooth gray concrete. A small elevator took us back up to the main floor of the house.

  As we stepped out of the elevator and onto the main floor, a goth kid handed me a note and a flower, darting off without a word. I shared a confused look with Christian before looking at the note. I handed Christian the flower, muttering, “candy ass,” when he took it. He just smelled the flower, smiling pleasantly, unfazed.

  The letter was on old parchment, wax seal and all. “What the
hell,” I said, ripping it open. I felt my whole face turn red as I began to read it.

  Christian whistled softly from behind my shoulder. He had read it shamelessly from over my shoulder. “Oh boy,” he said, and I could hear the laughter in his voice.

  I turned sharply, jabbing a finger hard into his chest. “Don’t even think of breathing a word of this to anyone.”

  He shrugged, grinning. “I won’t, if that’s what you want. But, damn, Jilli-”

  “And don’t breath a word about it to me, either,” I growled. I was shocked that he actually listened.

  Lynn approached me next, looking strange, and worried. Christian gave us a moment of privacy to speak to each other, and I caught her up quickly on all of the messes I’d been making, and attempting to clean up.

  She seemed distracted at all of my news, which worried me. Some messy stuff must have been going on with her life if she didn’t so much as blink at the the catastrophe of mine. “What’s going on, Lynn?” I asked her finally. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. That was all. I got a real bad feeling, deep down in my gut.

  My guided tour of the palatial retreat ended at the full-sized bar. It was an impressive room, complete with an actual bartender manning the fully stocked bar. “Is that one of Lynn’s followers, or did you really hire a bartender?” I asked him, running a hand along the grainy pattern on the sandy toned granite that topped every surface in the place.