Free Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs Page A

hand before I could hit him in the jaw, then pinned me in a lock I couldn’t break, my back to his front. “It’s okay,” he said. “This one isn’t just a kid. Watch.”
    Joel snarled at the boy, who ignored him and touched the tibicena’s shoulder. Joel, who was not Joel but the volcano demon who lived inside him, looked smug, probably waiting for fiery death to consume the boy the way it had the troll. Horrified, I waited for the same thing.
    We were both wrong.
    The skin of the boy’s hand flushed red, and the color traveled through him, and he rocked back a little, then leaned his weight on his hand.
    Whatever he looked like, that was not a human boy. His hand hadn’t burst into flame or blackened with third-degree burns. No human could have touched Joel when he was running that hot without getting hurt. Tad released my arm with a pat. I took two steps so that I stood next to Adam’s prone body, in case the tibicena decided to do something rather than just stand under the boy’s touch, because fire was only one of Joel’s weapons.
    The hot air on my face faded, replaced by river-cooled wind. Joel staggered and collapsed. The curious blackened-stone exterior of the tibicena lost the redness of heat and became entirely black.
    â€œI told you it would be okay,” Tad said.
    â€œHe’s not hurting Joel?” I asked anxiously.
    â€œJoel?” he asked. “Is that the name of the fire-breathing foo dog? I thought you killed it. How did you manage to take the volcano god’s servant? I assume he’s yours from the way he was fighting.”
    â€œNot a foo dog,” I said tightly. “He’s a tibicena. They are very hard to kill, and when you do, they go out and invade the body of friends. Like Joel. But we . . . I made him pack.”
    The black stone surrounding the tibicena cracked and fell away, leaving Joel in his human body, pale, naked, and unconscious, facedown on the roadway. The boy stepped back. When he metmy eyes with his own, for a moment I could see that fire lived inside him. Then they were just ordinary hazel eyes.
    â€œDid you hear that, Aiden?” Tad said. “The fire dog is a friend.”
    â€œYes,” said the boy, “I hear you. I heard, when the big man who killed the troll told us both the same thing before we set foot on the bridge. I’m not an idiot. I need them. The man who bears the fire dog will come to no harm from this. I didn’t kill anything, just banked the fire for a while.”
    The boy’s accent wasn’t so much a matter of pronunciation but of cadence. English wasn’t his first tongue.
    I took a good long breath and took stock.
    Darryl, the big-man-who-had-killed-the-troll, was a couple of yards away—in position to step in if the boy hadn’t defanged the tibicena. His hair still dripped water, but his various cuts and bruises from the fight had begun to fade.
    â€œHow did you get out of the river?” I asked. I didn’t move because, beside me, Adam had awakened and was considering rolling to his feet. Where I was standing, my legs touching him, he could use me as an unobtrusive crutch.
    His pack was loyal. Two years ago, Darryl might have put Adam down had he come upon him when he was injured like this. Adam’s decision to court me had weakened the pack, and Darryl would have viewed himself as the better leader. Part of me didn’t like seeing him so close to Adam when Adam couldn’t defend himself—even though matters had changed. Darryl respected Adam and had not so much as breathed a desire to move to the top of the food chain.
    I don’t need protection from Darryl.
Adam’s voice was clear in my head, though he made no effort to move.
I think you’ve gotten caught up in the battle that is over now, sweetheart. Butthere are others watching. I’d just as soon wait until I’m sure I can walk before I try to get