CROSSING FIRE, page 1
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Synopsis
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue BOOKS BY R.K. LILLEY
CROSSING FIRE
R.K. LILLEY
Copyright © 2023 R.K. LILLEY
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62878-053-6
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of events to real life, or of characters to actual persons, is purely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction.
This book is for the OG Breathing Fire fans. I wrote this one for you. There aren’t a ton of you, but you’re my favorites. I’m so thankful for your patience and your grace while it took me for-fucking-ever to finish this.
BOOK TWO IN THE HERETIC DAUGHTERS SERIES
JILLIAN
It had always been clear to me that we had different songs playing in our heads. My music was usually more a of death metal battle march that involved a lot of blood being spilt. Dom's. . . Dom's music was something that a romantic Irish bard would listen to, whatever the hell that might be. He was a warrior, but i'd always known he had a poet's soul. There could be no denying that it was one of the things I loved most about him. Still, it had always made everything hard. It wasn't easy to be the other half of someone's perfect, immortal love story when you were as imperfect as me. I'd always known I'd mess it all up. It had only been a matter of time.
DOM
It had always been as clear as day to me that it was fate that brought us together. Our love was written in the stars as clearly as ink on paper, but I knew she couldn't read it. She was no star gazer. And certainly no dream chaser. Her feet were planted too firmly on the ground. Except, of course, when she turned into a dragon.
CHAPTER ONE
HOT MESS
The house was small and nondescript, and right smack in the middle of a shockingly populated area. This, though, was the best thing about the hot mess that was Las Vegas. Hiding in plain sight. Mixing in with loud, messy crowds of strangers. Conducting top secret meetings in rows of cookie-cutter houses.
I parked my black, brand spanking new Dodge Challenger at the curb and approached the house cautiously. My two-handed, double-bladed battle axe stayed in the trunk, unfortunately. I had a small pistol strapped to my ankle, hidden under the hem of my boot-cut jeans. A large knife was strapped to my other ankle. I wasn’t expecting trouble at this meeting, but ruling the idea out completely went against every instinct I had.
My weapons were a considerate gift from my ex. Ex-ish? Hell, I didn’t know what he was, but he’d supplied me with everything he thought I’d need on short notice.
It had been a nice thought, but I was already itching for my old, familiar arsenal, which had been lost when I’d been captured by my deranged relatives. I’d escaped, but hadn’t been exactly in the mindset to find my confiscated stash as I’d bolted from the place in my dragon form, then promptly flown far, far away.
I knocked softly on the light blue door of the tiny stucco house. It was the darkest house on the street, the porch lit only by the streetlights. From what I could see of the inside from the small, twin front windows, every light inside of the house was off, as well.
The place looked deserted. There was even an old for sale sign in the tiny desert landscaped front yard.
I wondered briefly if I was somehow at the wrong address when the door flew open and a hard hand yanked me inside. A harsh voice that I recognized well kept me from lashing out at the sudden contact. “About time,” Caleb told me, shutting the door quietly, then dragged me further into the dark house.
I shook him off, waving him ahead of me when he shot me a glance.
I certainly didn’t need the sociopath chameleon alien to hold my hand.
He led me down a dark hallway to a door with faint light showing through the bottom. I was surprised, when he opened it, that it led to a basement. Basements were hard to come by in Vegas, especially in a tiny house like this one. But it did explain why the rest of the house was completely dark.
Caleb waved me down the narrow stairway first, closing the door very quietly behind us.
I just blinked for a moment when I saw the inhabitants of the top secret basement meeting place, and what they were doing.
Christian and Luke both rose as I entered, but I didn’t miss what filled their computer screens, the bright colors vivid even across the room.
Christian was the dragon slayer to my dragon, we were an odd pairing but it was hardly the oddest thing about me.
In fact to me it made a strange sort of sense to my way of thinking.
I’ve never needed an archenemy, I’ve always had myself.
So of course I made my natural enemy into my best friend. It was decades ago and he was one of a very small number of dragon slayers that lived in the States. When I’d found out he was living in my city, I’d scoped him out and even befriended him just to keep eyes on him and suspicion off me and my sister, but the calculation had ended there. Everything that our friendship became I attributed to enjoying each other’s company and making each other laugh. Normal friendship stuff had superseded all the natural instincts. I personally thought it was a heartwarming story even if he had tried to kill me once he finally found out what I was.
Christian positively beamed at me, rushing forward to lift me up in a bone-crushing hug, spinning me around and talking all at once. “We missed you, girl. And you’re all glowy and golden. Pretty. Is that what color your dragon is?”
I didn’t answer, since he was both squeezing the air out of me and not stopping long enough to let me get a word in.
Caleb managed to cut in with an answer. “The pictures I saw of her landing on the roof looked to be pale gold, or even silver, in the dark.”
“Ohhh,” Christian said, setting me down to study me. He took a lock of my hair between his fingers, rubbing it. “It’s so bright, it looks like it could rub off.”
I shrugged it off, not really worried about the after-effects of my dragon trance. I knew that they would fade away, eventually. I pointed at his computer. “How’s WoW treating you these days? Is that a new patch? Please don’t tell me that you made me come here for a top secret World of Warcraft party,” I told him archly. If they had, I was going to be royally pissed.
Christian waved a cursory hand at the gaming computers set up in the corner. “That? Naw. That was just to kill time.”
I looked at Caleb. He met my gaze with a very blank expression. “No, Jillian, we did not invite you here for a gaming party,” he said, his tone slightly disgusted.
I supposed that, while I could have expected something that silly from Christian, I should have known better with Caleb involved.
I was suddenly distracted by Luke, who had moved close behind me and gone to his knees, his head lowered.
Now Luke, he wasn’t a friend but a strange complication.
Oh Lord, he was still doing that.
I sighed.
“Um, hey, Luke. How’s it going?” I asked, patting his head rather awkwardly.
“Good, Mistress Jillian, now that I’ve gotten to see you again. My Mistress is even more beautiful than I remembered.”
Christian giggled like a school boy. I glared at him. I had no idea what to do with a submissive man. Generally, the men I hung out with were sarcastic, crude, dominant, aggressive, borderline or not so borderline psychotic, violent to the bat-shit crazy degree, and sometimes just plain obnoxious. None of those qualities could be called submissive. Frankly, I didn’t even know what to do with a man that didn’t give me shit just for breathing. Which reminded me…
I pointed a finger at Christian. “You need to stop baiting Dom. It’s gotten old already.”
His giggles died until he was just smiling at me, an almost fond expression on his face. “You know I’d do almost anything for you, girl, but I won’t do that.”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. This meeting was not off to a productive start.
Caleb spoke, finally bringing up the reason I had come. “Tianlong is still in town, though the rest of his people left months ago. Luke here has joined his household, becoming one of his favorite pets. He overheard news of another dragon visiting Vegas, one of the Chinese, and he thinks it might be Drake. Luke needs to get back undercover very soon, but he refused to go without getting to see you, since he unfortunately overheard us talking about your return.”
Caleb gave Luke a very unfriendly look. “Well, here she is. Anything you want to say before you go back?”
Luke just shook his head, darting a quick glance at my face, then looking back down at my feet. “No. Everything I need to say to Mistress Jillian I’ve said in the letters that Christian is holding for her. And I have gazed upon her beauty. I can go back to my duties with a light heart.”
I shook my head at him, exasperated, but still, I tried to be nice. I could do nice. Sort of. “You’re, um, doing a good job, Luke. Thank you for helping us.”
He kissed my feet suddenly, and I backed hastily away, the room filling with Christian’s most obnoxious laugh.
“I am not worthy of your thanks,” Luke said, prostate on the ground.
I cringed, but tried to talk some reason into him. “You are, Luke. Of course you are. I’m proud of you. It sounds like you’re doing a really good job, and it’s a very selfless thing that you’re doing to help my sister.”
He turned his head until his cheek lay on the basement’s concrete floor, a look of near bliss on his face. “Mistress is so kind. I live to please you, Mistress Jillian,” he said.
I sent Caleb a wide-eyed help me kind of look. Luke’s kind of adoration made my skin literally crawl, and I didn’t know what the hell to do with it, especially since I owed the strange hunky sub so much for his unexpected help.
Caleb gave me his little shrug. That shrug said it all: Who knows? Who cares? Not me. Deal with it. It was Caleb in a nutshell.
And Christian was even less helpful, of course, just clutching his belly and laughing at me. If he’d been a few feet closer, I’d have kicked him.
“Get going, Luke,” Caleb finally said, after an awkward pause. “You know how to contact me if you learn anything useful.”
I breathed a sigh of relief when he finally made his embarrassingly adoring goodbyes.
Caleb seemed unaffected by the uncomfortable exchange, getting back to the point after Luke had gone. “We’re as sure as we can be that Tianlong doesn’t have Lynn. And we’re nearly positive that the Chinese took her. That makes Drake our most likely suspect. He’s due in town in five days. We need to have a plan for when he gets here. I say we kidnap him, torture him for information, and get this mess figured out, once and for all.”
I processed the information while he paused for long moments.
Christian showed considerable restraint, being that he was a dragon slayer and we were talking about an enemy dragon. For all of a minute. “And then we slay his ass!”
I sent him a baffled look, opening my mouth to retort. Caleb beat me to it. “No. We keep him until we have Lynn back. After that, whatever. Who cares? But we use him alive, as a hostage, until we get her back.”
Christian just sighed, not a bit surprised. “A slayer’s gotta try, ya know?”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s easy to say we’ll kidnap him. Harder to do it. We have a plan for that?”
Caleb smiled, his cold, creepy smile. “Yes. You owe Tianlong a date. It’s time to deliver.”
I groaned. I had been a tiny bit busy since I’d made that promise. I had completely forgotten the stupid thing. “It’s not a date. I promised him a meeting.”
He gave his little shrug. “You need to set it up, in six days, with the druids to act as intermediaries. I’m sure you can talk Dom into that, for your own safety and all. Drake won’t want to come anywhere near that meeting, being that he has to know that you’ll suspect he has your sister.”
“This will hopefully tie up Tianlong and the druids for a few hours, leaving Drake to Christian and me. And since the druids clearly won’t approve of kidnapping one of the few dragons that they aren’t actively warring with, you need to get as many of them involved with that meeting as you can manage. Make it real official, real political, and real long-winded. Hell, work the jealousy angle with Dom. If he knows that Tianlong wants you to have his dragon babies, that mess could last for days. If we really luck out, the whole thing might dissolve into outright war. You just have to get your psycho ex mad enough. You seem to have a talent for that. The more time you give us to work, the better our chances are of snatching Drake.”
Christian finally piped in, helpful as ever. “We’ll call it, ‘Operation: Baiting the Bear and Snatching the Dragon.’”
“We’re not calling it that,” I retorted instantly.
I closed my eyes, rubbing my temples. Caleb’s plans were usually solid, but this one already made me want to beat my own head against the wall. There was no question that I’d rather be in on the kidnapping part, as opposed to the whole meeting fiasco.
“Fine,” I said finally, “I’ll talk to Dom.”
“Good. And while you’re at it, get him to set up a meeting for us with their captured dragon.”
My eyes snapped open. Dom had mentioned something about that… and then promptly distracted me. “Who is it?” I asked Caleb.
His mouth hardened. Touchy subject. “We don’t know. We don’t know anything about him, and we haven’t been allowed to speak to him. They have him held in some sort of underground compound in the desert, but I haven’t been able to get close enough to check it out. Dom won’t tell us a thing. He wouldn’t even discuss the prisoner with us, until he saw you again.”
“Bastard thought we knew where you were,” Christian piped in. It had been an unusually long period of silence for him. “He thought that we just weren’t telling him.” He sounded disgruntled, his English accent growing thicker, at the thought.
I had to smile just a touch at that. Everyone in this room knew that if they had known where I was, and I hadn’t wanted them to tell Dom, there’s no way in hell that they would have, so him getting defensive about it was just good comedy. And very typical Christian.
“I’ll talk to him about that, too,” I assured them.
“Make sure to stipulate that we all get to talk to the dragon,” Caleb said, a hard glint in his eye.
I arched a brow at him. He was very much overestimating my skills of persuasion, but I supposed I’d try. “I’ll see what I can do. In the morning. Dom didn’t seem too happy with me when I left. I’m going to give him some time to cool off before I start asking for favors.”
Caleb shrugged. “No one knows how to play Dom like you do, so I’ll leave it to your discretion.”
I gave him a very hard look for that one. “That’s going a little far. I do not play Dom.”
Christian coughed slightly, muttering, “Like a fiddle,” under his breath.
I didn’t look away from Caleb, who had started it, but I suddenly had the strong urge to deck Christian.
Caleb met my eyes steadily. “Just calling a spade a spade. You can look at it through the filter of your emotions, if that makes you feel better, but I see it solely for what it is.”
I felt my temper boiling, though I knew Caleb well enough to see that he could never understand my feelings for Dom. “And that would be?”
“Extremely useful. I don’t see that as a bad thing. On the contrary. Wrapping one of the most powerful druids around your littlest finger is a very good play. But we’re getting off track. If you won’t ask him tonight, I have something else planned.”
I stayed silent, just waiting for him to continue.
I was trying real hard not to be pissed about his assessment of my relationship with Dom. I had never been so mercenary, never set out to make him utterly obsessed with me. And I certainly hadn’t chosen to stay just as obsessed with him, though no one ever seemed to notice my feelings.
I knew that the druids saw me as the cold bitch that had played with Dom’s emotions. I was used to that. Having my own friends thinking that… stung. But that was just how Caleb’s mind worked, so how upset could I get about it, really? And Christian was, well, an ass, likely giving me grief just because it tickled his fancy. I should have been used to them both, but I struggled for endless moments to stifle my rage and hell, my hurt.
Why was I being so sensitive? Was it the dragon trance, still keeping some hold on me? Was I feeling a sudden bout of postpartum depression? I really didn’t know.
Finally, when I thought I had a good handle on it, at least enough to drop the subject for the moment, I spoke. “What did you have planned?”
