As my eyes opened, the first thing I noticed was the steam from the coffee cup.

I pushed myself up to a sitting position, rubbing my face in my hands instantly noticing that the corduroy fabric had left a striped mark along my cheek.

"Yeah, that mark will stay for a while," Taylor laughed.

I wrapped my hands around the coffee cup and instantly felt uncomfortable. Had he noticed the mark on my back when I was sleeping?

"Don't worry, I'm sure your cheek will go back to normal in no time," he sat down in the small arm chair across the coffee table from me. 

I hesitated for a moment, wanting to tell him about the mark but I had had enough of him looking at me like I was a circus freak. I'm a Vortex. Whatever that mark is, he won't know anything about it.

"So what should we do today?" I tried to keep my voice steady and normal.

"I think we should test your ability to use magic," Taylor started.

I nodded my head, he was right. I needed to learn how to control it, especially if Aaron's men were going to keep search for me with their magical compasses.

"But first, I think I need to tell you a bit more about the royal families," Taylor started off.

"Why?"

"You have been thrown into this world, you are tethered to Lucas Mathlow and Aaron Charlet has a hunting order out on you. You are mixed up in the fight for the throne whether you like it or not."

"Why does that matter? As long Aaron's guys don't get me and no one finds out that I'm tethered to Lucas?" The words were easy to say, but just saying it out loud made me realise how complicated it all were.

"That's not all, you have a Grimstaw warrior," he smiled at me weakly.

"Yeah that oath thing," I shrugged my shoulder.

He sighed, his facial expression was a mixture of amused and exhausted, "That oath is the different between life and death in our world."

"Because you die if you are a rogue?" I added.

"Pretty much," he replied darkly.

"Why?"

"That's how our society is organised. We have five royal families, those who do not belong to one of the royals will swear an oath connecting them to the army of that family. Not everyone agrees with it, but that's the way we organise ourselves. Have done for centuries."

"So those men yesterday...?"

"They are Charlet warriors. Aaron is the heir to the Chartlet name. What he needs for his father to step down and retire, is to take the throne in London."

I didn't know what to say so I just nodded.

"Warriors are connected to the family they swore the oath to for life," an intense look played in his eyes.

I finally started to connect the dots, "Your father is the king on the throne in New York, so that means that you're the heir of the Grimstaw royal family?"

He nodded again,"I didn't want to be part of the game."

He looked out into the distance, clearly struggling with how to continue, "My parents are great. They take care of their warriors and they are fair to them. But I never wanted that. They sent me back because they know that the king here is dying. He's been ill for a while. So they wanted me to fight for the throne here."

"But you're not fighting for the throne?"

He shook his head, "I ducked out. I just slipped off and got a job and this place." He gestured around the room, "It's pretty different from where I lived in New York. But at least here, I can make my own decision on what to do with my life."

I suddenly felt guilty, Taylor had made a life for himself here. It might be a dirty bachelor pad life but it was his nonetheless and then I had stumbled into his world or rather he had stumbled into mine.

"But then I met you. At first I was so excited to see a Vortex," his eyes glistened with excitement at the memory.

"And then you got dragged into the whole royal families business again because of Aaron and Lucas," I added.

"I knew I had to help you. You never asked for any of this, it just happened to you. So I wanted to help you," his words were urgent and he moved over to sitting next to me on the couch.

His hand clasped mine and he looked into my eyes.

All I could think of saying was, "I'm sorry for dragging you into all of this."

His eyes sparkled with intensity as a wide smile played on his lips, "Don't be. I'm your warrior now and the best part of it is that a warrior can't claim the throne. Only heirs can do that."

The words sunk in slowly, as I started to grapple the meaning of what he was saying. He had been protecting me since we first met, but it turned out I was also his exit ticket out. I stared back into his eyes, gripping tighter around his hand. There were so many questions I wanted to ask him.

He got up so quickly I barely saw him move, pulling me up off the couch with him.

"Come on then. Let's start teaching you some proper magic tricks," he smiled and released the grip on my hand.

"Oh. Okay then," I agreed, almost shell-shocked from how quickly he had shifted from serious to playful.

Taylor placed a stack of the books on the kitchen table and pushed the chairs up to wall.

"So what's the plan?" I asked.

"According to legend the warlock you are tethered to gives you a link to his magic. So I thought we'd just try to see if we can make that work."

He gripped my shoulders and moved me over, so I was standing a few steps away from the edge of the table, in a clean line in front of the books.

"Now, think of what you felt last time you used magic. Try to remember that feeling of pulling power from within and as you do that also think about knocking those books over."

"Oh right, that sounds simple," I replied sarcastically and rolled my eyes.

Taylor stepped back and eagerly looked over at me.

I opened my hands, exposing my palms and looked down at them. They looked as they has always looked to me, if felt so silly thinking that magic would be flow out of them. I stared at them, trying to remember that feeling. I closed my eyes, for a moment remembering what it had been like when the waves of purple magic from Taylor's Circle has enveloped me. But it was hard to conjure up. I tried harder thinking of the flashes of light, for a second the purple light in my mind switched over to an ice blue colour, swirling around me and I could feel power surging into me. It was so intense that I scared me, I opened me eyes and looked over at Taylor.

"Are you okay?"

He nodded his head and looked at me as if nothing had happened. The last thing I needed was to pull any more power from his depleted resources.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he confirmed.

I looked back over at the stack of books, flicking my palm out in front of my body like some absurd martial arts move. Move. I flicked open my other plam. Fall over. I stared at the books again. Fall over before I get angry. A small fizzle of ice blue sparks emerged from my palms.

"It works. You're using Lucas power!" Taylor exclaimed.

His words completely ruined my focus, "How can you be sure?"

"The colour, ice blue it's the Mathlow family. Each family has their own colour," he explained hastily.

The sparks had evaporated from my palms now. I looked over at him, "And the Grimstaw family's is purple?"

He nodded in confirmation, "And the Charlet are red. The Brownlow family is pink and the Mortimer's use green."

"I see." I started at him for a second, I hated that I felt like I was constantly learning new things about this magic world. As soon as I thought I had a grip on it, there was some new piece of information.

"Come on, let's go back to practicing. It's important that you know how to use magic. I don't like the fact that I couldn't deal with both of Aaron's men on my own yesterday. So let's work on getting you better at protecting yourself...." His voice trailed off for a moment, "...just in case."

I turned my focus back to the books. He was right, I should learn. If Aaron was going to keep sending his warrior's after me, I had to know how to protect myself. I stared at the stack of book, opening my hands and pushed my palms away from my body. This time it felt oddly more natural, I didn't even have to close my eyes to conjure the ice blue sparks. They grew to small flames, dancing up my fingers. Focus. Fall over. As soon as I had thought the words, the energy left my palms. Rushing forward and clumping itself together to a small globe the size of a tennis ball, a second later the books where smack off the table by the impact.

"That's great," Taylor shouted happily.

But I could barely hear him. My hand instinctively grab on to left shoulder as I felt my legs buckle underneath me. I sunk down to the floor as the burning jabbed at the skin on my shoulder blade.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know," I whined. I pulled down the grey knit dress to expose my shoulder blade. I couldn't see much from this angle but the mark looked irritated, it was a sharper shade of red at the moment.

"What is that?" he breathed next to me.

"I don't know, I noticed it yesterday."

We started at it in silence as the sharper shade of red seemed to fade away and it settled down to the calmer port wine shade it had had the night before.

"I'm not sure what that is. But I can't be good," Taylor pulled a serious face. He grabbed my hand and helped me up.

"I think our best bet might be Mr. Liu. We should go and get that checked out."

"Do you think it's dangerous?" I couldn't help but ask even thought I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer.

He shrugged his shoulders, "Let's just get there first. Mr. Liu more than anyone knows a lot about the legends surrounding the Vortex and their powers."

I nodded gingerly and rubbed my hand over my shoulder blade.

~*~

The carriage of the train was nearly empty, only a couple of people sitting at the far end from us.

"It's so annoying that my bike is still at your place. It would be so much quicker train taking the train," Taylor grumbled.

"Don't worry. We'll get there soon enough."

As the train pulled up to the station, we hurried out. Something in Taylor's demeanour made me feel uneasy, clearly something about the mark on my shoulder had unsettled him.

We navigated our way up and out onto the busy street, a steady stream of tourists where moving like salmon through a river towards Leicester square. Taylor placed a hand on my lower back and guided me through the crowd, we cut across the street and headed towards Chinatown.

As we turned the corner, something shifted. It was very slight, like a change in the soft spring wind but by now I never better. I hesitated for a moment and Taylor stopped beside me.

"What is it?" he asked whilst craning his neck, letting his eyes survey the busy street.

"I don't know, something just doesn't feel right," I admitted in a low voice.

There is was again, the shift in the atmosphere around me. This time I could pinpoint the direction. I grabbed hold of Taylor's wrist and nodded my head towards the right.

Taylor eyes followed the direction and confirmed what I had feared, "Mathlow warriors."

Instantly he had a hold on my arm, pulling me upstream through the crowd of people. I looked over my shoulder and saw the three men following us. They were dressed in full on black outfits, but ordinary clothes. The only thing out of the ordinary was the small metal pin that decorated their chests, from this distance I could not make out the details of it but there was no need to. I had seen the crest of that pin up close before.

"What do we do?" I hissed underneath my breath.

"We move quickly and hope we make it to Mr. Liu's in time."

Taylor pushed us forward even faster, "They won't attack around this many humans."

"Is there rules against that?"

Taylor smiled for a moment, "Kind of." His eyes told me that this was yet another thing that demanded a longer explanation.

He turned us into a smaller side street. Logically I knew it was the quickest way to Gerrard Steet, but the drastic decrease of people made me nervous. I saw Taylor's hands spark up gently, he kept his hands against his thighs trying to shield what he was doing. I scanned out surroundings as we continued to walk forward quickly, the few people milling about where either locked into conversation or looking into the shop windows.

"No one's looking," I confirmed.

I could feel him released the energy towards the ground and as we walked forwards I could almost sense the line in the ground.

"Human's won't see it or be bothered by it," Taylor confirmed.

"But it won't last long. So we need to run," he grabbed my hand and we ran.

We ran faster than what I thought my legs could take me, onto the busy main street of Chinatown. My eyes desperately searching for the door. I could hear running footsteps behind us, whatever Taylor had done had not detained them for long. Taylor rushed for the door, dragging me behind him.

As soon as the door was shut behind us, I saw him do that same thing as he had done the first night he had saved me. He was sealing the door, keeping the warlocks hunting me out.

"Thank you," I breathed.

Taylor just turned around and started walking up the narrow staircase to the room where we had met Mr. Liu last time.

"Mr. Liu, it's me," Taylor called out.

As we enter the room, the first thing I saw was Mr. Liu's back as he stood by the window. His hand gently shifted the drawn curtain to one side, giving him a sliver of visibility to what was happening downstairs.

"Mathlow is hunting you," he stated in the most unamused tone of voice I had ever heard.

"What have you done Taylor?"

Taylor sunk down on one of the cushions around the low table. I hesitated at the door but after an inviting hand gesture from Mr. Liu, I followed suit.

"When Mathlow's people call, tell them they made a mistake. They don't want to chase a Grimstaw."

Mr. Liu cocked an eye brow, "And if they ask about the Vortex?"

"Tell them they were mistaken. We don't know anything about a Vortex," Taylor's voice had a sense of authority in it that I had never heard before.

As if on cue the phone rang.

"Please excuse me." Mr. Liu disappeared behind the curtain, into the inner room to answer.

"So we're safe?" I whispered.

Taylor looked back at me, something helpless mixed into his facial expression, "We can't just keep fighting and running. I don't have enough magic in me to protect you from his army." 

Author's Note: Thank you all for being so patient :) And for being so awesome! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Things are starting to ramp up a bit again. How do you think Taylor and Cara are going to deal with Aaron?

Song: Host - Totemo