Ash (9 page)

Problem? I gritted back
my retort. He’d quite possibly just saved my life. “Yes, sir, ash, sir.”

He heaved out a breath,
before leaving me in Jayden’s care. “See you in the morning, number forty-six.”

“Leave your torture stick
at home,” I reminded him.

I looked up to see Jayden
smiling at me, relieved to see that his wound was pretty much closed up now.
“What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”
And we walked back to the front of the Hive.

That night my dreams were the most vivid I
could remember. Again with the red blood rain, with the constant thirst. But
there was a new addition: Ryder and Lucas, both half-naked, both trying to teach
me to fight. Or teach me something anyways. The half-naked thing was sort of
distracting, even in a dream. As the dreams faded away, I awoke to see Jayden on
his bed, slowly rotating his shoulder. I sat up and rubbed my eyes a few times,
before reaching for my hair-tie and twisting my hair into a top knot.

“How’s your arm?” I
croaked out through my scratchy morning throat.

Jayden flicked me a small
smile. “I’m almost fully healed. Took a fair amount of blood. His knife sliced
through something important.”

I winced at the memory
and my hand went instinctively to my head. I could already tell I was a million
times healthier today. Which was fantastic. Just in time for someone else to
kick the crap out of me.

“Yesterday made shit real,”
I said to my roomie, my nerves shaking my voice. “Like, those ash were prepared
to off us just like that. And in two weeks you and I are legit going to go on a
legal killing spree.”

Jayden gave me a half
smile. “Yeah, those boys could have stopped the party before it started. Thank
God Ryder showed up.”

Ryder. I had mixed
feelings about that man. On one hand, he was clearly lethal as eff, and had
saved me more than once in here. On the other hand, he annoyed the heck out of
me with his “number forty-six” dismissiveness. Still … I couldn’t suppress the
tingling of anticipation in my stomach. If he wanted to see me three times a
day, we were going to be training together a lot over the next two weeks. Which
was both something I wanted and dreaded.

Truthfully, I wasn’t harboring
the same level of hate toward ash any longer. It’s hard to hate what you are. But
I wasn’t sure I was ready to start crushing on them either. I just couldn’t
figure out why Ryder drew me in so much. It was almost like … I knew him from a
long time ago, which was crazy talk – I would definitely remember meeting
someone as hot as Ryder.

I snapped out of my haze
and focused on Jayden.
“So, since I never
got the welcome packet, tell me … what are the best ways to kill an ash?”

Ryder had snapped a
bullet between red’s eyes and he was gone. So even though we were harder to
kill than humans, a bullet definitely worked. Still, I needed to know all the
other ways.

Jayden handed me a bottle
of blood and I drank while he talked.

“We’re hybrids, so we can
regenerate like full-fledged vampires, but we are also still living, like
humans.” He was slowly drawling this out and I needed the information faster.

“Hit me with it.” I
hurried him on.

He shook a finger at me. “I
hope you aren’t this impatient in the bedroom.” I flipped him off but we both
smiled. We had officially reached BAFF status.

“We heal really quickly,
so you need to inflict a lot of damage, masses of blood loss or major organ
failure. Blow us up, light us on fire, put a bullet in the brain, rip out the
heart, or decapitation.”

My mouth hung open.
“Jesus.”

He winked. “You asked,
sweet cheeks.”

I shivered. “So the
culling?”

He frowned. “Is a blood
bath. No one really survives, ya know?”

That hit me. What he said
was really deep for my normally lighthearted BAFF. You could survive some things
in body but not in mind or spirit. I had never forgotten about the night I was
attacked, and if those asshole ash hadn’t been scared off, I knew things would
have been much worse – death of soul worse.

I raised my blood bottle
to clink with his. “Here’s to hoping they pay for therapy after we get through
it.”

He gave a deep genuine
laugh and clinked my bottle before saying: “You should slurp that blood down,
girl. Something tells me Ryder doesn’t like tardiness.”

Shit! He was so right. I
downed my bottle and leapt for the shower.

I entered the training gym slowly, part of
me expecting Ryder to jump out of nowhere and start whooping my ass without
warning. It was empty. I peered up into the rafters and was pleased to see them
empty as well. Now that I had a chance to have a proper look, I noticed rows of
weapons lining the walls. At least four large walls’ worth.

I was surprised to see
that there looked to be something from a range of different cultures and
martial art disciplines, including but not limited to samurai swords, whips
with barbed ends, throwing knives, curved blades, crossbows, throwing axes –
Jesus, my stomach rolled.

“Nervous?” a low voice
said from behind me.

I jumped and grabbed my
chest.

“Fucking A, Ryder!” I
needed to get him a bell or something.

He smiled, showing those
goddamn dimples, but then quickly replaced it with his signature clenched-jaw
stare. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

I took a shaky breath. “I
wasn’t scared,” I lied. “I just don’t like being snuck up on.” That part was
the truth at least.

His smile was back.
“Right, well, in the culling there will be sneaking, so get used to it.”

I eyed the weapons again.
“Are there rules, or do I get to run over to the wall and grab an axe and try
to cut someone’s heads off?”

He tilted his head
slightly, as if trying to gauge whether I was serious or not. “There are a few
rules – but not many. The weapons are out of your control. The opponent’s
sponsor chooses your weapon, and Lucas will choose your opponent’s weapon.”

Great. I hadn’t had
weapon training in my defense class. And there were no guns up there.

“Let’s start,” he said,
crossing over to the thickest of blue mats. I followed, taking note of the casual
clothing Ryder was wearing. I didn’t often see him out of black camo enforcer
gear. He had on loose judo pants and a tight-back muscle shirt. He pulled a gun
out from behind his back waist belt and laid it on a bench. The flash of that
weapon reminded me of how he had saved my life, and Jayden’s.

“Hey, about yesterday … thanks.”

Suddenly his eyes were
locked on mine. “It’s my job,” he said.

I sighed. Okay.

“Get into your fighting
stance.” His voice was clipped now. He was in training mode.

I did, holding my fists
in front of my face, right foot planted in front of me.

“Are you a southpaw?” He
gazed at my stance, eyes roaming over me.

“Yes, I’m left handed.”

He shook his head and
then grabbed my hips and twisted me a little. I tried to stand firm, but he was
strong. He clicked his tongue between his teeth. “You’re weak.”

“Screw you,” I said,
glaring at him.

“But you have some spunk,
so I’m going to work with that. This scrappy fighting style of yours will only
last as long as it takes for one of the ash to take you down to the ground.”

“Guess you’d better have
a magic wand then.”

“I don’t need magic.” I
could smell the faintest metallic scent on his lips. He’d recently fed.

I tried to focus as he
took a step back. “Put your arms out, like you’re flying.”

I wanted to roll my eyes,
but managed to simply sigh and do as he said.

“Resist,” he commanded as
he applied pressure to my arms, pushing them down with ease.

“Again.”

I resisted him as hard as
I could, but my arms still fell easily.

He nodded, his chestnut hair
sweeping across his eyes. “Your left arm is stronger. On top of three times a
day training, I’m recommending twice a day weight training. I’ll have Jared
train you. He loves his weights.” I knew Jared was one of the sexy six. The
blond Australian. I’d only ever seen him from across the way, but he definitely
had impressive biceps. Still, that was a lot of training.

“When do I sleep?” I
challenged Ryder.

“When you have survived
the culling.” His serious tone wiped the attitude off my face. Swallowing
roughly, I nodded. The instinct to survive was strong in me and this guy was
willing to help me. The least I could do was give it my all.

“I’m going to teach you a
five step sequence. This sequence will be the only thing you do, three times a
day for the next week. You will be so sick of it by the end of the week, you
will be doing it in your sleep.”

“Wow, you really know how
to sell your services,” I muttered.

He ignored me. “Left jab,
right hook, left leg kick, drop and sweep.” It sounded like a chant almost.

“Watch me,” he commanded.

“Left jab.” He lightly
pushed his left hand out and brushed my chin.

“Right hook.” His right
hand swept around and lightly touched my right temple.

“Left leg kick.” He took
his left leg and slowly brought it up to touch my ribcage.

“Drop.” He dropped to the
ground. “And sweep.”

From a crouched position,
his leg snaked out and swept my legs out from under me. I fell back on the mat,
my teeth clacking as I hit the ground. I had totally not expected that, since
it was simply supposed to be a demonstration. He stood and looked down on me.

“You’re a dick. You know
that, right?” I waved away his hand.

He dropped his arm back
to his side. “Would you rather have a dick teach you to stay alive or a nice
guy babying you through training?”

Shit, the dick had a
point. As soon as I was back on my feet, Ryder walked over to a wall and
wheeled out this big-ass punching bag figure of a man. He put it right in front
of me and stood like a sentinel next to it.

“Ready to sweat?” he
rumbled. I forced myself to focus. It was really unfair that the unique rumbly
quality of his voice totally threw my equilibrium off.

Taking my position, I
began the sequence he showed me. I was unable to sweep the heavy mannequin, but
I assumed we would work on that later. Maybe I’d be lucky enough to return the
gesture from before and sweep Ryder on his ass.

Every time I punched, he
intercepted and adjusted my hold, or twisted my arm. It made me feel like I
didn’t know shit about fighting. I grit my teeth and kept going. After twenty
minutes of this my muscles were screaming at me to stop, but I wouldn’t give
Ryder the satisfaction of seeing me quit.

An hour later of non-stop
“five step program,” I heard the door creak open and glanced across to see
Lucas. Vamp was still fully dressed in a suit and his white trench coat. He was
hot, but I was starting to think he was a pimp in his spare time, or a Vegas
card shark.

“How’s our girl?” he
asked, crossing toward us, smiling the entire time. I locked in on his
beautiful face, appreciating the fallen angel look he was rocking. Hey, I was
female and he was hot, and thankfully not my dad.

“Eyes forward.” Ryder’s
voice was cold again. What was this guy’s problem?

With a loud exhalation,
just so he knew I was annoyed, I started up the sequence again. Ryder crossed
the mat to meet Lucas off to the side. They started to chat, but in a tone too
low for me to hear. Left jab, right hook, left leg kick, drop and sweep. It was
irritating me already. I couldn’t imagine three times a day for a week.

God, help me not die of
boredom.

Dinner for Jayden and I consisted of a
trip to the feeding room during our scheduled time. I had told Tessa only to
meet me once a week, and we were still days away from that, so I didn’t check
with the receptionist for any scheduled feedings. I grabbed a couple bottles of
O-negative and we left the feeding hall and made our way to the entertainment
section. This was on a higher level of the Hive. Level forty-four. I followed
Jayden to a plush lounge. Live music filled the space, low and jazzy. Soft
green velvet couches circled the room; on a dais stood a baby grand piano. A
sexy and voluptuous vampire with long golden brown hair was crooning out a
sultry song as a man played on the piano.

No one came near us. The
jumpsuits did their job of keeping the ash who had yet to survive the culling
separate. We were nothing more than numbers.

We found a free lounge
and sank into it. Jayden guzzled his blood, wincing as he banged his elbow on
the side of the chair.

“You healing okay?” I
asked him.

He’d been training
separate from me, with the other male ash, and it was already starting to get
brutal. Ryder had assured me that our training would continue to be different
times from the rest. That way none of them could ferret out my weaknesses
before the fights. It was under two weeks until the culling and everyone was
freaking out. I’d trained twice already today, not to mention weights, and all
I could think about was that stupid five-step program. One thing was for sure,
those movements were going to be stuck in my head for a long time to come.