Cold Burn: The Demon Chronicles #1

Chapter 4 - Surprise

          I stood outside alone, with nothing but my purse and the clothes on my back, waiting for Tyler to appear amidst the crowd of cars coming and going. Due to his motorcycle, he told me when he called I could get my stuff tomorrow when he got the car from London. So I waited, watching the people pass by on the sidewalk across the street from the condo's; going into the mall or finding their way into what I had dubbed the hanging garden that sat suspended over the two way street, like a glass jar, holding its specimens.

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          The singular noise a motorcycle makes rushed into my ears long before he appeared up the half-circled drive of the Conrad. The solid matte black and yellow striped Honda CBR300R motorcycle came to a halt and Tyler remained stationary as I approached, handing me a black helmet nearly identical to his own. He waited, not speaking, so without greetings and not expecting a conversation, I put it on and climbed onto the back of his motorcycle. My arms wrapped around him a fraction of a second before he peeled out, my hair flying out behind me with the whipping of the wind as we disappeared into the crowded city streets heading for my new home with a complete and utter stranger. Though deep down I wasn't sure I could call London that, for he'd been right... it was all in the blood. Everything he knew about himself to be true, I too knew to be true and found it undeniable. On the contrary, he was more like a very distant relative that I hadn't seen in a while and was just beginning to catch up with, if anything, it was---interesting to say the least.

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          Finding myself back at the house on the canal, in the district, Tyler parked the Honda motorcycle and I got off, handing the extra helmet back to him after he removed his own. Brushing his fingers through his brown hair, his eyes once again caught my own.

"There's three of us here already," he said unexpectedly. "Not including London. This isn't the coven house, that's on the outside of the city; I imagine he'll take you there later when he thinks you're ready."

"Okay," I replied, not really knowing what else to say and we simply stood there staring at each other for a few minutes before he took off towards the door, pulling out his house keys.

"What did Jake mean when he said you were London's first lieutenant?" I asked.

Tyler stopped and looked back at me. "It means I'm in charge of the well-being of the coven above all else-even London's own health. Next to him, my word is law."

My eyebrows furrowed slightly, 'Boy, is this guy serious or what?' I thought. He hadn't seemed to be that way back at the club that afternoon, but something had changed since we first laid eyes on each other and it wasn't anything for the better.

Taking that as a queue he turned back around, opening the door, allowing himself to vanish inside without another word. In the matter of seconds it took me to step inside, Tyler was already gone and the only telltale sign he was even in the house was the slamming of an upstairs door. Vampire speed-it was turning out to be a pain in my ass.

"You're back I see," came the all too familiar voice from my earlier excursion to the house that day. "Glad to see you didn't get mugged along the way. Though not really."

I snorted out a cynical laugh. "Exactly who are you?" I asked.

"Name's Andre Blackwood love," he replied with a slow smile upon seeing my confusion. "I see you've met my distrustfully, scornful older brother."

"You're brothers?" I asked. Grey eyes wide, in bewilderment. "You two look nothing alike. I mean like completely different ends of the spectrum."