Ash (21 page)

I hadn’t actually been
sure he was going to kiss me, but my worries were finally unfounded. His soft
lips descended to press on mine. The first touch was gentle, barely the brush
of our mouths together, but as I fell further into him, h
is breath hitched and his hands came around my waist. This
movement brought our hips together, and just like that my body was plastered to
his.  He took control then, opening his mouth and deepening the
 
kiss, demanding more,
his teeth nipping at me as he sought entry between my lips.
I could deny
him nothing; the taste was intoxicating and I wanted more.

I moaned
softly as our tongues slowly explored each other. God damn the boy could
 
kiss
. The gentle
play started to ease as hormones took over. My body was humming now and I had
the strangest urge to climb up onto Ryder. I wanted more. I wanted to be closer
to him. As if he’d read my thoughts, he grabbed my butt and hoisted me up with
one hand. My body knew what to do then, and as I wrapped my legs around him,
crossing my ankles behind, this position felt like home. He turned around and
pressed me back up against the wall, our mouths still locked, kissing me like I
was the only woman in the world. Like he needed me to survive. Like I was
everything.

“Ryder!” Kyle broke
through my bliss. Ryder didn’t falter, although he did pull those lips away
from me as he turned to his best friend. Through my hazy lust vision, I noticed
that the other enforcer looked stressed. His hair was even messier than usual.

“There’s been a mass
illegal outbreak and hostage situation involving the Quorum in Seattle. Helicopter
is waiting.” Kyle had to shout to be heard over the music. I was still fuzzy
from the most amazing kiss of my life, but what he said sounded pretty darn
serious.

Ryder looked down at me,
regret and so many more things in those flashing silver eyes. “Charlie … damn,
I have to go.” He lowered me gently to the ground. My feet had barely hit the
floor before he was gone, Kyle close behind.
 

I exhaled a shaky breath,
leaning against the wall and giving my legs a chance to regain some feeling.
Ryder had kissed me … and then run off in the line of duty. Well, it wasn’t
exactly how I’d imagined ending that kiss – was kind of hoping we’d make it
back to my bedroom for a heavy make-out session, but … I guess I had to take
it.

I had planned on being
kissed by a hot ash tonight, and there was no denying that was exactly what had
happened.

The next three days were among the worst
of my life.

Dear Men everywhere, the
absolute worst thing in the world you can do is kiss a woman like you haven’t
kissed in years and then run off like your ass is on fire and don’t contact
her. Go screw yourself. With love, Charlie.

Jayden was allowing me to
mope around, but I knew he was sick of my shit. Frankly, I was sick of my own
shit too. I had all but convinced myself early on that night at karaoke that I
was okay without Ryder, that I deserved better … and then he kissed me – with a
skill that should be banned, as it was most definitely some sort of weapon.
That kiss had blown my previous pep talk straight out the window and I had done
nothing since he left than bitch and whine, take phone calls, whine some more,
jog, more whining, and think about that damn sexy man. Jayden had all but
slapped me up the side of the head today and told me that Oliver had emailed
him and the ash were due back tonight.

Yep, freakin’ Jayden got
an email and I got nothing. I was seriously going to kick Ryder in the teeth
when he finally got back here.

It was time for my
feeding, and I headed there at the pace of an elderly cripple. I just couldn’t
find the joy in bottled blood any longer. It was bland and cold. I was really
starting to hate that I’d fed off a living being. It was too hard to go back. Everything
felt too hard. Still, at least I now had the answer to what happened when an
ash bit another ash. The blood wasn’t as sustaining in the long term as bottled
blood, which was probably why we generally didn’t feed from each other. But
with Ryder, that hadn’t seemed to matter. It was perfect.

I finally dragged myself
to floor eleven, striding past the ash on the desk and grabbing my usual
bottles of blood. Slipping into my cubicle, I almost shrieked as a familiar
blond head of hair sprang into my vision.

“Tess!” I forced myself
not to bowl her over in my enthusiasm. This was not a scheduled visit but she
must have known how badly I needed her. We were totally due some girl talk.

In my distracted state,
it took me longer than usual to notice how glammed-up my best friend was. She
had always dressed nicely. Her mother’s family had more than enough money to
indulge her sense of fashion, but this was a whole other level. Her icy blue
dress was skin-tight and clearly designer. Its thin straps barely held her
boobs in, and there were these gold drapings of chain crisscrossing over the
backless part. Gold, which looked real. You could always tell that cheesy
yellow from the true golden color of the real stuff. Real freakin’ gold on her
dress! Her boots were thigh-highs, and looked to be made from the skin of a
seal or something, soft and rich. What the hell? This was Tess Couture Barbie.

We stared for a few more
moments. I was trying to wrap my head around this new Tess. Even her makeup was
different, heavy but tasteful, and her hair was tightly pulled against her
head. Which she usually hated.

“You look different,” I
finally said, hoping she would start bouncing around in her usual manner. It
hadn’t really been that long since I’d seen her. What had changed?

Some of my icy fear
dissipated as a smile crossed her lips; the ghost of my best friend was still
there. “I’ve missed you, bitch.” A trickle of relief followed, and I took the
opportunity to cross the room and throw my arms around her.

“I’ve missed you too,” I
said, before pulling back from her. “What’s up with all the Hollywood bling-bling?
You going out after this? Paris fashion week?”

We sat then. I chugged
into the first bottle of blood, which slightly eased the ache in my stomach.

“No, Blake owns a design
house. He’d been helping me out. Styling me so I fit in more.”

My face fell. It hit me
then what this was all about. Blake wanted to ask permission to turn Tessa.
He’d said so the last time I talked to him, and he was trying to slowly work
her into Hive society before that. Very few humans were allowed to become
vampires. Firstly, the human government took any forced infection seriously,
and no one wanted scrutiny from them. And secondly, Hives across the world were
very limited in space.

I wanted to lean forward,
grab her hands, and start begging her to not be so stupid, to not throw her
life away on a dude that she had just met. Blake seemed like a pretty good guy,
but he was still a vampire. Just like me and Ryder were still ash. None of us
could be trusted. None of us were human any longer, and I wasn’t sure about the
other two, but I’d have given anything to have my old life back. I missed my
mom. I missed school. I missed the normalcy.

But there was no going
back for me. It was too late. Tessa, on the other hand, she was choosing this
and I wasn’t sure I could sit back and let that happen. I wrenched the bottle
from my fangs, throwing it into the trash. “I am begging you not to do this,
Tessa. Think about your family. Think about everything you will be giving up.
This is not the glamorous life you believe. And you will never be able to have
kids.”

My eyelashes fluttered
for a moment as a heavy weight descended in my chest. “I can never have kids,”
I said with barely a whisper. “This is not a gift, it’s a fucking curse.”

And with those last words
I tore out of the room and left my wide-eyed, slack-jawed friend sitting there.
I was so all over the place. In all honesty, despite my words to Tessa, I
didn’t actually hate my life here that much. But it wasn’t a choice I’d have
made either. I wanted to scare her, make her question this thing with Blake. I
wasn’t sure it was enough, I knew how stubborn she was. Maybe I needed to pay a
visit to Blake, or even Lucas. My previous sponsor was the head of the sixth
house, and that was Blake’s house.

Maybe he could have a
word with him. I wasn’t sure how much control the heads of the houses had over
their members. The heads were the Quorum leaders of course, and as a group they
were scary, but they didn’t seem to do much individual day to day monitoring of
anything. I had never even officially met the head of the fourth house, even
though I was in that branch. Which led me to believe that they were always off
doing other things. The rules of the Hive were basically enforced by Ryder and
his men. Despite the fact that vampires thought of themselves as superior, they
seemed to do jack all in regards to the heavy lifting.

I often wondered why they
gave so much power to the very race which might one day band together and rise
up against them. It hadn’t happened yet, but one day the ash would revolt. The
culling was barbaric, and I wasn’t sure I could be in the Hive for the next
one. I still, on occasion, had nightmares thinking of the men I’d killed.

I didn’t know where Lucas
was, but I figured the best place to start would be his penthouse. I
practically ran my ass through the Hive, up the elevator, and out onto level
fifty. I didn’t pause before I reached his suite and started slamming my fist
repeatedly against the white door.

“Lucas!” Patience was not
my strongest suit right now. I was panicking, and this made me do stupid shit.

There was no answer and I
could hear nothing on the other side. He wasn’t here. Dammit! I’d have to come
back later. I couldn’t hang around now, I was due for my shift in the call
center. At least the enforcers should be back. Maybe I’d work off some of this
frustration by kicking the shit out of kiss-me-and-not-call-for-three-days
Ryder. Yes, I decided, as I turned away from Lucas’ suite, that sounded like a
perfect plan.

There were two ash in the room when I
entered ten minutes later, neither of them enforcers, both lowly shit-kickers
like me. I so badly wanted to be an enforcer. It was unfair they were out there
doing things and I was stuck here taking calls. Ninety percent of which were
false alarms. Their shift was over, so they left without a word. I was still
getting plenty of extra looks, and more than a few had approached me about
spending some
quality
time with them, but these two were professional.
They did their job and barely talked to me. Which was how I liked it.

I settled back into my
padded, high-backed chair. For some reason, even though it was generally a two
person shift, I was always in here alone. Or with one of the sexy six or the
extended group of enforcers.

Speaking of, they should have
been back by now. I swiveled in the chair, one eye on the door at all times.
I’d like to think I wasn’t so much acting like a crazy girlfriend as much as I
was acting like a concerned friend. But, in reality I was dying to see Ryder.
For so many reasons. But mostly to stare into those silver and black eyes for
the first time since “the kiss” and see if the same heavy emotions still laced
them. I needed to see if he had missed me too.

In my musing, I didn’t
hear the scuff of boots, and by the time my head shot up, Kyle was in the
doorway. I jumped to my feet, taking the two steps across the room to stand
right before him.

“Hey…” I sounded a little
breathless, and knew I needed to try and find some cool again. I was officially
screwed right now, and my feels were leaking all over the place. “How was the
call out?”

Details on their
operation were limited and had seemed a little sketchy. Oliver had told Jayden
that the Hive in Seattle had had some sort of internal problem which required
specialist treatment. And Ryder and his men were the best enforcers in America,
so they’d had to step in. It just seemed awfully strange that no one else had
heard of any mass craziness in other Hives. To take away all of our top enforcers,
it should have been huge enough to make the gossip-vine light up. They’d left
us virtually unprotected. But clearly I was just a worrier, because they were
back now and nothing terrible had happened while they were gone.

“Hey, Charlie bear,” Kyle
said with a massive grin. He leaned forward and swept me into a hug. “Good to
see you holding this place together while we were gone.” I hadn’t expected the
show of affection from him. I think I had officially been accepted into the
enforcer inner circle.

Yes!

I couldn’t hold back the grin.
Ryder’s best friend was such a relaxed dude. The only time I’d seen him lose
his cool was in regards to Ryder. Their history clearly had some pain buried
deep down.

“It’s been quiet here.
What was the big deal in Seattle?”

Kyle, who was dressed in
the usual black on black, patted me on the head as he strode in and dropped heavily
into the chair I hadn’t been using before. “Seattle was a pain in my ass. Their
culling ash rioted and joined forces to hold the Quorum hostage. They killed
their lead enforcer. Bloody mess. We’re called in for anything to do with
Quorum members. By the time we got there, it had died down a bit. Only one
member was in any danger, and that was mild at best. We had to stay for a few
days of the culling to make sure no trouble stirred up again, but it was all
calm. Ryder and I barely slept. Spent nearly the entire time throwing ash
bitches in their version of the pit.”

He lifted his long legs
and dropped heavy boots onto the bench, stretching back in his chair.

“We were supposed to be
there for another day. Their Quorum had some sort of fancy-ass dinner for us,
but Ryder was at the end of his patience with politics. He sent us back behind
their backs, and stuck around just long enough to ream them a new one for
wasting our time. He should be back tonight.”

I sort of knew I wasn’t
hiding my interest in Ryder, even though I hadn’t said anything specific. Kyle
wasn’t stupid, and he’d seen our heavy make-out session. I worked hard to
conceal my disappointment that he wasn’t back yet, but clearly failed at that
task.

“All good, little unicorn.
Our big bad leader will be back before you know it. He told me to tell you he
says hello.”

I tried to conceal the
middle-school squeal that wanted to rip from my throat. Instead, I nodded.

The rest of the day passed agonizingly
slow. Oliver and Jayden were shacked up in the room, so after my shift I took
off to the roof and spent the better part of an hour jogging my ass off. It
didn’t help with the frustration at all, and the fact that Lucas still wasn’t
home the five other times I checked that day didn’t help either. Tessa could be
in the middle of any shitty situation and I would never know, because for the
first time in ages I had no emails from her. My little outburst had pretty much
ensured she wouldn’t be telling me much about her vampire excursions.

I had to stop her before
she did something stupid, but of course the moment I needed Lucas, the
white-trenched-coat vampire was nowhere to be found.

I trudged back to my apartment,
grateful to find Jayden there alone, looking a whole lot relaxed. “Hey, ready
for dinner?” he said as I stormed through the door.

“Yeah, just give me five
minutes.” I was starving, but definitely needed to shower off my run sweat.

I was done in about eight
minutes, taking an extra second to choose my clothing and add a little makeup.
I might be a tad pissed at Ryder, but I sure as shit wanted to look my best
when we first saw each other. Three days and no email? Jerk … even if he was
busy working.