Breathing Fire (Heretic Daughters #1)(41)

Lynn turned back to Caleb. They spoke quietly for several minutes. I went back to eating and brooding.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bar top go up in flames. My head whipped around. Shit. The flames had come out of Lynn’s throat. And it was going to happen again, going by the way she was taking a deep breath. All of the air in the room seemed to be going into her lungs for the next breath of fire.

I looked in panic at Christian, whose head was just starting to turn toward the commotion. There would be no explaining away breathing fire. Even fire sorcerer’s couldn’t do that. Shit. Shit. Shit.

I was across the room in a flash, punching Christian square in the jaw before he could get a good look across the room. It was an instinctual, knee-jerk, retarded reaction to the inevitable threat of discovery. I didn’t think it through enough to work out why it would help the situation. I just knew that I had to get his attention away from Lynn, and fast.

Christian stood up slowly, rubbing his jaw. “What on earth, Jillian?” he asked me, sounding wounded.

I covered up quickly. “Any guy wearing makeup deserves to get punched,” I told him with a smirk. There were gasps from goth boys in makeup all around the room. They were all looking at me, expressions of either fear or anger on their faces. Except for Luke. I noticed he was sending me even more smitten looks from beneath his mascara coated lashes. I heard Lynn fail to stifle a giggle across the room, where I saw the strange dragon had joined her and Caleb at the bar.

Suddenly the strange dragon-kin got everyone’s attention as he pointed at one of the goth boys. “It’s him.” The stranger’s voice was deep and certain. He walked towards the terrified goth kid. “Everyone else in the room had a proper response to what was going on. They all looked surprised or scared. This one showed no emotion until I pointed him out just now.” His accent was faint and asian. His english was very fluent, but still not his first language.

“Adam,” Lynn identified the goth kid.

Adam didn’t even try to run away when the strange dragon approached him. He just held up his hands, saying, “Ok, ok, you got me.” He was addressing Lynn. “I work for your Uncle Villi. He sent me here to spy on you. What are you gonna do about it? I know you don’t hurt humans.” His tone was belligerent. Stupid kid.

I beat the strange dragon to the kid. I slapped Adam hard across the face. Okay, it was a bitch slap. They seemed to be going around. But it floored him. Beating up humans was no fun. They were just too soft. But I was never one to balk at what had to be done. And any human who was unfortunate enough to be mixed up with my uncle had far worse things coming to him. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We will torture you until you tell us everything you know. Sound fun?” As I spoke, I hauled him to his feet. I dragged him across the room by his hair. He whimpered. I threw him roughly into a chair.

“K, what the hell is going on, guys?” Christian asked, confused. “Everyone is acting crazy. Anyone gonna tell me why?”

I ignored him, focusing on Lynn’s traitor. Caleb came up quietly beside me, speaking softly. “I’ll do this, if you don’t mind. I think we can all agree that torture is more my specialty than yours.”

I just raised my brows at him, but I was secretly relieved. I waved a hand at Adam, taking several steps back. “By all means, have at it.” I started to pace. I stopped mid-pace, addressing Adam again. “How old are you?”

Adam looked puzzled, but answered automatically. “Twenty.”

I nodded. “Good. Twenty, and too stupid to live long. I’m not too comfortable torturing anyone younger than that. Congratulations, you are of torturing age.” My tone was off-hand, even casual, but I felt none of it. You couldn’t look sick to your stomach, or scared out of your mind, when you were trying to intimidate someone into telling what you needed to know. I wasn’t nonchalant about torturing some dumb kid. I wasn’t even okay with it. But the thought that Villi might be moving to ambush us at any moment quickly dispelled me of any notion to take it easy on our one available source of information.

Caleb gave me a slight, chilling smile. His eyes were scary right then. He was going to enjoy this way too much.

“I’m over twenty,” Luke said quietly, but his voice reached us all. He was still giving me that cow-eyed stare.

I just frowned at him, and for some reason I felt myself blush. I pointed at him. “You just keep quiet,” I ordered him. He looked down submissively, a faint smile on his lips. Dammit, it was impossible to discourage someone who liked to be mistreated.

Lynn giggled. It was a stark contrast to the rest of the room. Most of the goths around the room were sobbing. Guess they didn’t see the humor. This was probably the most horrifying thing they’d ever seen. Lucky them. This little scene was more civilized than even the most tame family dinners of my childhood. At least I never had to wonder why I was so f**ked up. It would have been a miracle if I wasn’t.

“Have you considered torturing him in a different room, perhaps?” the strange dragon was asking Caleb. “Or do you prefer the crying audience?”

Caleb eyed him coldly. “I prefer it, actually. Let all of them see what happens to traitors.” Caleb addressed the room at large. “If anyone speaks of anything they’ve seen tonight, far worse will happen to them. And if I’m really put out, to their families as well.”