Frost Burn (The Fire and Ice Series, Book 1) Read Free Page A

coming?”
    “I don’t know; I haven’t seen him since the RV.”
    Julian nodded and led the way out of the room and into the cooling night. Even this far south, the edge of winter could still be felt in the air flowing over his exposed skin and wet hair. Tilting his head back, he stared at the stars in the seemingly endless sky. The full moon hung heavily above them; its glow illuminated the buildings and desert more than the few streetlights lining the roadway did.
    “So glad we’re not in Canada right now,” he muttered and shoved his hands into his pockets to ward off the chill of the breeze.
    “You are really cold blooded, dead boy,” Chris said.
    Julian’s eyes narrowed on him. “I stopped being a boy long before I was turned into a vampire. Plus, I don’t have a pulse to warm my body.”
    Chris’s sapphire eyes focused on him. “True.”
    He may only be nineteen, but Chris had most certainly stopped being a boy already too. Julian wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened but sometime between their final battle with The Elders and their search now for more Hunters and Guardians, Chris had matured far beyond his years.
    The final battle with The Elders had aged them all, and decimated the hierarchy that had ruled the vampire race for most of the time he’d been one of the undead. The only two Elders still alive were he and Devon. Three years ago, he’d been more evil and twisted than most vampires. Now, he was the second oldest vampire in existence, one of the most powerful on earth, and he was working side by side with people he’d once considered his sworn enemies.
    If someone had told him three years ago this is where he would be, and the company he’d be keeping, he would have laughed in their faces before ripping their throats out. He could clearly recall the vampire he’d been before meeting Cassie and her friends, but he felt no connection to his past self anymore. That vampire had died when he’d been held prisoner by The Commission with Cassie in that godforsaken basement beneath the school. The vampire who had emerged from there wasn’t an angel, but he also wasn’t a bloodthirsty monster determined to destroy Devon, the Hunters and Guardians, and any other unsuspecting soul who managed to piss him off. Over the years, he’d come to realize that if his kill ratio was any indication, he found many who walked this earth to be extremely irritating.
    It had been two years since he’d consumed blood from a live human. A small part of him still believed he would return to it one day, but he knew he would never take an innocent life again. He didn’t kill anymore because he was tormented by the atrocities he’d committed in his past, those deaths didn’t haunt him. He’d quit because he’d finally figured out he didn’t have to be a monster just because he was a vampire. When he’d first been turned, and throughout most of his lengthy existence, he hadn’t understood he could be something other than a murderer. If he had, then he never would have snuffed out all of the countless lives he had over the years.
    There were far too many years ahead of him to be weighed down by regret and sorrow for his past transgressions. He’d spent five hundred and seventy-four years as a killer after being turned into a vampire, and two years doing good. Since he planned to live at least another six hundred years, he figured he’d eventually even out his bad/good ratio and that was enough for him.
    They reached the bar with the packed parking lot. Julian glanced at the large glass window in the front with the name, Clint’s Bar, painted in white on it. Stepping back, he pulled open the door for Chris and Lou. The sour smell of stale alcohol, peanuts, pretzels, smoke, and body odor filled his nose; the sound of clanking pool balls echoed in his ears. He looked around for the pool tables, but the noise came from a room he couldn’t see through the talking and laughing crowd.
    Julian began to make his