Demon (The Northern Kings MC #1)

Chapter Fifteen

Ciara

I drove the few minutes home, my head in a mess of thoughts and feelings and emotions, all jumbled together in one big ball of confusion. Suzy had seemed lovely and something about her had really made me feel relaxed. The first time in ages. In fact, the first time that I can remember. It made my chest swell. She’d talked about the Northern Kings as if they were her family. One big extended family. Something I’d never really had. And then suddenly it had hit me. I don’t know which emotion was the first assailant. Jealousy? Hope? Guilt?

It had consumed me. Overwhelmed me. It was hope that had been the biggest kick in the teeth. Hope that my life may be looking up, hope that I may find friends and family again after so long, that I could put down roots, fall in love. And then he was there, standing in front of me, offering me a little piece of all of that. Dangling it like a carrot. Teasing me with something that might not be. So, I ran.

The house seemed quiet when I pulled up, an irritated hiss from the tyres that I slid across the uneven stone curb. Shit. I didn’t need another fucking flat tyre. The day was still murky, the rain never having let up much at all, and the clouds crowding the sky. There wasn’t the tiniest light coming from any of the windows which faced the street, not even from the old velux windows on the roof. The people in the attic rooms were nearly always home. I barely saw them, but I could hear them stomping around above me at all hours.

Inside was just as quiet. No muffle of noise from the televisions playing in the downstairs rooms, not even the drone of voices. I flicked the light switch on the wall just inside the door. Nothing. And now I looked there was no slither of light under any of the doors on the ground floor.

“Hi, Ciara,” a voice sounded from the shadows.

“Hey, Trevor. We got a power cut?” I asked the old man who I could now make out lurking in his doorway.

“Nah, pet. Jimmy next door tried the fuse box. Everything looks good in there. No gas either. Reckon it’s been cut off.”

“Really? Why?”

“Stu won’t have paid the bill again.”

“He’s done this before?”

“Aye. From time to time. Goes on a bender with the rent money and doesn’t pay things. Don’t think he cares when it just affects us.”

“Fucking great. How soon does it normally take to get sorted?”

“Sometimes a few days. Sometimes a couple of weeks.”

“Couple of weeks?”

Fuck. I could do cold showers for a few days. But a few weeks? I didn’t think my skin could take it.

“Good job it’s nearly summer. See ya, Ciara.”

And with that Trevor sank back inside the dark bedsit on the ground floor. He and his neighbour Jimmy had been there the longest. Not by choice, I suspected. I didn’t know anyone who would choose to stay in this dump longer than was absolutely necessary. Fucking Stingy Stu, I grumbled, trudging up the stairs. Guess without the distraction of my TV I could get this assignment finished. There wasn’t anything else to do.

My bedsit had a chill to it thanks to the relentless rain all day and now, with no electricity, there’d be no way to take the damp out of the air. I pulled the curtains wide, the murky evening daylight the only thing lighting the room. I pulled the duvet up around me, taking the clunky laptop from its bag, and convinced it to wake up. The screen spilled a green, ectoplasmic light across the bedsheets, lighting the room and animating the shadows. And then it beeped, the battery symbol flashing at the top of the screen. Ten minutes left. And no electricity to charge it with.

I sat staring at the screen, wasting precious minutes whilst I concentrated on the frustration bubbling away in my stomach and trying to decide what to do next.

I could drive to Uni. The library was open till midnight. I could charge my laptop and my phone and pray Stingy Stu paid the bill tomorrow. The laptop clicked, the screen turning black. Guess it didn’t even have ten minutes in it.

*****

The rain had softened a little. The pounding raindrops turning to a fine mist, a mix of fog rolling off the River Tyne and low cloud still full of rain. My windscreen wipers were whirring away angrily, a big chunk in the middle of the windscreen not clearing properly. They needed replacing, but I didn’t have enough money for that. Maybe next month? Or I could just pray we suddenly had a drought. If only. I lived in the North East of England, not the desert. The weather here was nearly as miserable as Ireland, and equally unpredictable. One day I could be wearing a t-shirt, the next a scarf and jumper, even in early summer.

The traffic lights turned to red, and I slowed to a stop, the car idling in an uneven rhythm. I turned the radio up. The best thing for a knackered car. Whack the music up and you couldn’t hear all the telltale noises that counted down its days to the scrap heap. Red and Amber. I pressed my foot onto the clutch, selecting first gear, the bonnet of the car sitting up slightly. Green.

Shaking my head, I checked my mirrors quickly and then turned the car across two lanes and off to the left into the industrial estate. This was a stupid idea. I should have gone straight on. Like I’d planned.

The Dog on the Tyne looked just like it had when I’d left. A sea of shiny metal and black glossy tanks, of overly polished spokes and leather seats and panniers. And no riders in sight. The bikes were left unattended in the carpark. No worry that anyone would be stupid enough to steal from them. I found a space for the car and parked it, looking out of place amongst the herd of Harley Davidsons. There wasn’t another make of bike in sight. Every single one was a Harley.

Music spilled out from the doors, loud thumping rock music. Tunes I’d heard before on a radio a long time ago. Something to do with a black night and being a long way from home. Tentatively, I pushed the door open, the outside air rushing in, and a thick plume of cigarette smoke flowing out.

Men mingled in groups, most with the same leather waistcoat over whatever they wore underneath. A t-shirt, a jumper. One guy wore nothing, the cut directly onto his bare skin. The picture on the back was the same. Three skulls, their mouths gaping in some demonic laugh, a crown on each head. There was a smattering of women, a much smaller ratio to the men. There was only one I recognised. The petite blonde woman glanced across at me, where I stood in the doorway, unnoticed by anyone else. She smiled, waving at me, the man beside her looking up. I didn’t move. The place was suddenly so full. There were so many people, a roar of voices competing with the music. This was a stupid idea. I turned to go. Uni. I should have driven straight on at the lights.

The touch was light on my arm. A tiny pull of restraint.

“Ciara,” the voice was barely audible over the music.

I turned into him, my eyes trailing over the white t-shirt that clung to his body, the front of it lazily tucked into the waistband of his jeans, the polished belt buckle catching in a random light that bounded haphazardly around the pub. The skull on the buckle stared up at me, menacingly, and stupidly a sudden heat pooled between my legs.

“Hi,” I said, suddenly lost for words.

“What are you doing back?”

“I…er…I thought I could stay for a drink after all?”

I looked up at him, at the dark eyes that bore down into mine, at the thick dark eyebrows that met in the middle and a cut on his lip that hadn’t been there a couple of hours ago.

“Sure, darl’. What you drinking?”

His hand tightened around my arm, gently pulling me with him and steering me through the bodies that swarmed in front of the bar.

“A vodka and coke, please?”

“Double?”

I shook my head. “No. Thanks. Just a single.”

It had been a long time since I’d last had a drink. Or had anyone to drink with. I needed to stay in control, to stay aware of my surroundings, of who might want to hurt me. Because the last time I’d had a few drinks, I’d let my guard down. And I barely escaped with my life intact. I shuddered.

“You cold, Ciara?” Demon asked, waving at Indie who was propped up behind the bar talking to someone at the far end.

“No. Just someone walking over my grave.”

I glanced around again at the men in the leather cuts, and despite the fact that I was in the middle of a biker party, I felt safer than I had ever done in years. I shivered again.

Demon pushed the glass towards me, dragging the pint of gold liquid off the bar and lifting it to his lips and wincing.

“Your lip. What did you do?”

“Ah nothing.”

“He beat up Magnet,” a voice from beside us cut in, the blond-haired man leaning an arm against Demon’s shoulder.

Demon rolled his eyes, taking another gulp of the pale drink.

“You beat up Magnet?”

Demon shrugged.

“Why?”

“Misunderstanding,” he replied, wiping the froth of the lager from his lips with the back of his hand and immediately wincing again as he caught the split in his lip.

“A misunderstanding? What sort of misunderstanding means you beat the shit out of someone?”

I glanced over to where I had been sitting earlier, to where Magnet and Suzy sat together, the dark-haired Fury with them. Even in the pub’s darkness I could see the shadows and swelling on his face, and then against a pillar a broken table was propped up. I hadn’t noticed a broken table earlier. Fuck. Maybe I wasn’t so safe after all?

“We don’t call him Demon because he’s so mild-mannered, y’know?” the blond twin continued, moving his arm around the back of Demon’s shoulders. “That and because of the monster in his pants.”

“Fuck off Cade!” Demon complained, ducking out from his arm.

“It’s Caleb.”

“Whichever fucking one you are. Fuck off.”

The blond twin moved past us, pausing as he got alongside me. “Given the lack of surprise on your face, I’m guessing you’ve already ridden the cock of death?”

“Of death?”

“You’re telling me you didn’t scream for God when he fucked you?”

My mouth dropped open, my brain scrambling for something to retort with. But there was none. Nothing.

“Yeah, we’ve heard them all scream when he gets them alone.” Caleb winked and walked away.

I turned back to Demon. His lips had curled into a big wide grin, the corners of his eyes wrinkling in amusement.

“What are you laughing at?”

His faced stilled, suddenly serious again, his eyes drilling into me once more.

“You know you’re beautiful when you’re pissed off?”

His hand rose to my face, his fingers tucking round the back of my neck, pulling me towards him. And when his lips met mine, the rest of the room faded away. The music stilled into a thick drone of vibration, and it was just us. Just us in the bar, our lips searching and our tongues exploring, hot and furious. A deep, low thudding started between my legs.