Page 23 of Heir

It was magic fire. You couldn’t put it out like that. You couldn’t really put it out, period.

He continued to scream. Then he got up and found a patch of empty, loose sand. He flopped down and rolled back and forth, crying like a little bitch.

People crowded around him, beating him with the pillows they’d been sitting on to snuff out the flames. Casually, slowly, I walked over to where he writhed in pain.

Not only was it a controlled burn, but it wasn’t even that fucking hot—the pussy.

I stood over him. “Do we touch women without consent?”

“Huh?” He’d had his eyes shut. His face was pinched into one of unbearable agony.

I crouched down. “Do we touch women without consent?”

His eyes opened, and he focused on me. “N-no.”

“Do we bark orders at the waitstaff and act like obnoxious tourists, ruining the vacations of others?”

“N-no.”

“Are you going to apologize and tip Busaba handsomely?”

His eyes darted to his friend.

“Dude, you’re fucking on fire. Give him whatever he wants.”

The man nodded. “Y-yes.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise. I promise. Now put it out.”

Rolling my eyes, I slid down to my knees. “No manners with this generation.”

“Please!” he screamed.

“That’s better.” I angled my face over where the flames danced across his chest, pursed my lips like I was about to suck from a straw, and instead, sucked the fire back into my mouth until there was nothing burning left on his chest. Only a first-degree burn—similar to a bad sunburn. “You’re going to want to put some aloe on that.” I stood up and dusted off my legs.

The roar from the crowd was deafening now, and it followed me all the way up to the thatch-roofed bar where the bartender, Jai, handed me a tall bottle of water. I chugged it.

“Never ceases to amaze me when you do shit like that, Max,” Jai said with a laugh. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“All smoke and mirrors, my friend.”

I glanced out at the sky and the endless stars. It would be the full moon party on Ko Pha-Ngan in a few days. I usually went over because the money was good. Twenty thousand people on a beach, and almost all of them were really drunk, or high on psychedelic mushrooms. I could light a match and put it out on my tongue and they’d all think I was a fucking god.

Busaba came over with a drink tray full of empty glasses. Several Thai Baht were tucked safely beneath one big glass. She pulled out a bill. “Thank you.”

I held up my hand and shook my head. “I don’t charge you for protection. We’ve had this conversation before. We’re friends, Busaba. I’m going to look out for you—free of charge.”

She batted her thick lashes at me. “Can I come to your bungalow later then? Thank you properly?”

Jai chuckled.

“Now that’s a ‘thank you’ I can get on board with.”

“Hey!” came a familiar, stupid voice. “I don’t know what kind of shitty stunt you just pulled, but it wasn’t funny.” Dum-dum, who I pretended to almost torch, stomped his too-big-to-be-natural—unless he was a shifter—body over to me. “I don’t gotta apologize or put up with a puny little shit like you. Making a fool of me like that. You owe me an apology.”

I loved my life—except for this part.

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