Free Breathing Fire (Heretic Daughters) by Rebecca K. Lilley Page A

that.   Even the lower ranking druids were tough bastards in a brawl, and this guy wasn’t half-bad.   He backhanded me hard, and I was stunned for a minute.   A bitch slap.   I had a second to hope that no one had seen.   I’d never hear the end of that.   The worst part was that I really felt it.   With my body’s healing ground to a halt, I was literally crippled.   Everything became harder.   And more painful.
    My heel connected with his chin solidly enough that I heard something important pop.   Probably his jaw.   Crap , that had been an accident.   I was compensating for my injuries by using more brute force.   He was up and rushing at me quickly, ignoring his jacked-up jaw.   I ignored it too, focusing on   landing a solid blow to the back of his head.   My goal was to knock him out quickly, but I seemed to just be pissing him off.   I finally settled for choking him out, his hands beating at me the whole time.  
    He suddenly went limp, and I worried for a second that I’d killed him.   A quick check showed him still breathing, and I let out a sigh of relief.  
    My guy made three of the four druids down for the count.   Christian was still toying with his.   It was the leader, obviously the toughest of the bunch, but that wasn’t why Christian was still fighting him.   It was completely deliberate on his part.   His was simply prolonging his own fun.  
    “Christian, finish it,” Caleb barked at him sharply.   Christian complied, knocking the druid out cold with one powerful, perfect kick to the back of the head.   He stuck his tongue out at Caleb.   Oh yeah, we were a bunch of badasses.   Badasses with the maturity of fourteen-year-olds.
    We lined the four unconscious druids up next to each other.   “Can you do a sweep outside, Christian?   Make sure no one heard anything,” I asked.   He went without a word.   Lynn and I shared a look.   I got to work on my part.  
    It was harder than it would have normally been for me to heal each druid, but I worked quickly.   Christian would only be outside for a few minutes.
    Lynn started working on each druid immediately after I finished.   I stood when my part was done.   Caleb was watching us strangely.   I gave him a questioning look.   Finally he asked,   “I can tell that you healed them.   Lynn is what, wiping their memories?   How long will that last?”  
    I shrugged one shoulder.   “Impossible to say, exactly.   One day, maybe.   Three tops.   She can’t work them over too hard or they won’t recover.”   Christian returned, and I shut my mouth.   He didn’t even look at the downed men.  
    “All clear.   We ready to roll?” he asked.   He had a hyper, after battle look on his face.   Fighting made him perky.   Go figure.    
    “You’ve got issues,” I told him.   I was mostly messing with him.   I loved a good fight as much as he did.   I just wasn’t all chipper about it.
    He smiled happily, not in the least insulted.   “I found one of Lynn’s flunkies.   They’re getting the goth-tard bus ready to go.”
    Lynn nodded.   “Good.   Let’s get out of here.   We’ll leave these guys with the tent.   My people should have the rest packed up in a matter of minutes.”
    “Think these guys’ll be out long enough for me to grab an elephant ear on the way out?” Christian asked.   Caleb gave him a borderline disgusted look.   Lynn and I laughed.
    As we made our way quickly to the parking lot, I pulled Lynn aside.   I held my arm up.   It was literally steaming.   I was burning up again.   She studied me closely, saying, “You ride with Caleb in Christian’s car.   You’ll have to take one of my kiddies with you.   We have a full house.”  
    “What about Caleb’s car?” I asked her.
    “God only knows.   He says he doesn’t have a car here.   I have no idea how he got here.”
    “The bus?” I joked.
    “I have a feeling he didn’t take the bus, either.”   We