The Flame Game (Magical Romantic Comedies #12) - R.J. Blain Page 0,125

You two would need therapy.”

“Like hell I would. He wanted to use my wife!” Sam crossed his arms over his chest and grumbled curses. “My pregnant wife. Guilt would not have been an issue.”

“Yes, but your wife would have had enough guilt for both of you.” Yale pressed both of his hands to his cheeks. “Oh, no! My husband killed someone for me. He will be burdened. Everything is my fault. Woe is me.”

The bastard of an old man even managed to do a damned good impression of me at my worst. I flattened my ears. “Eat you, Yale!”

He laughed in my face, and with zero fear, he rubbed my brow, careful to avoid my steaming nose. “You wouldn’t. You’d miss me.”

“Hate it true,” I complained.

“Now, come along. We have a new blend of napalm for you to try. It’s even stronger than your absolute favorite. I’ve been told to gas you up and let you loose. Apparently, if you’re shit-faced drunk, you won’t feel as bad about setting a major fire. We also want to test how badly you dehydrate. We’re not going to let you suffer, though. We have hangover medication for you, and we brought enough to give it to you before you transform and after, too.”

“It’s your lucky day, Bailey. Looks like you get that bender you wanted. View it as celebrating your successful adoption spree. Yale, did you find any other living animals in the burn zone?”

“There’s limited wildlife still alive, but they’re on the verge of death. We’ll set up a drop zone for her while we’re setting up the first barrier. If she can herd out anything before we start pumping the napalm, we’ll save what we can. Don’t get your hopes up, Bailey. We scanned on our way in, and just about everything here is sick and dying. Your wolf probably came out of the zone we’ll be hosing down with neutralizer.”

“Okay. Will look. Help as can. Make rest burn.”

Yale led me to one of the tankers, and at our approach, one of the workers, who wore a gas mask, brought a sparkling bucket over. To my delight, he pulled a bottle of hot sauce out of his utility belt, opened it, and dumped it on top before giving it a stir.

“Spicy!” I pranced in place, bobbing my head.

“The capsaicin is a legitimate ingredient, but we were told cindercorns appreciate when the capsaicin comes in hot sauce format. This blend uses capsaicin as a catalyst ingredient. We’ll pump a tanker of the napalm into the zone, and then we’ll layer capsaicin onto it. Within sixty seconds, the batch is ready, and it’ll last for three hours before it begins to degrade and lose general potency. The ignition point is three thousand degrees.”

“F or C?”

“F.”

I turned my head and snorted blue flame. “I can do that.”

“And we haven’t even gassed you up yet. That’s impressive, Chief Quinn.”

“Mr. Chief Quinn’s fault. Him and his tiny terrors. Tiny terrors make me run very hot. Very hot. So hot.” To prove how hot, I rolled into the nearest snowbank I could find and burrowed into it. My coat steamed, and I surged back to my hooves and snorted more blue flame for them to admire.

“Really?” my husband asked. “It’s my fault, Mrs. Chief Quinn, who conspired with my relatives to make sure we had twins? I promise you, I would not have asked for twins. I would have gone for healthy, personally. You’re the one who wanted twins for Christmas.”

I dove towards my husband, thumped onto the ground, and slid his way, wiggling across the ground before coming to a halt on my back nearby, pawing at him with a hoof, taking care to keep from hurting him. “I in-no-cent cindercorn.”

“You had one little snack earlier. That is not an excuse to be waving your hooves in the air. If you want to wave your hooves in the air, go eat your treat.”

Whinnying my laughter, I got up and went to the bucket, taking a tentative bite to test it.

It burned in the best ways possible, and I abandoned my manners to get the sparkling gel into my stomach. I licked the bucket clean. Before I had a chance to whine over my treat being gone, the tech grabbed it, refilled it, and dumped another large-sized bottle of hot sauce into the mixture before stirring.

He made me wait a full minute before giving it to me, and I almost choked in my hurry to eat it