“I get the point,” Iinterrupted him. And I also seconded his point, but one couldn’t forget thathe’d electrocuted, shoved, and dismissed me on more than one occasion. Rydermight be a badass, but he was also mainly just an ass.
“Right, well, he is asstrong, fast, and lethal as a full-blooded vampire. Some say he might be adirect descendant of an Original, not a watered down mutt like us. He is fearedand respected. He was an automatic vote for the ash Quorum seat. Although Iheard he almost never bothers to go to meetings. Too busy keeping the streetssafe from us crazy ashes.”
That’s what he’d beendoing that night in the club, keeping humans safe. Kind of raised my opinion ofhim a little.
“Number forty-six…”
It took me a few momentsto realize the high-pitched voice was calling my number. I swiveled to see afemale vampire striding with our group along the hall and toward the trainingfacility.
She had long, very darkred hair. It was dead straight and rested against the curve of her butt. Hereyes were silver of course, and she had them heavily lined in kohl, which onlyenhanced the elfin beauty of her fine features.
“Yes…” I said withcaution. I wasn’t really keen on being separated out from Jayden right now.
“You have a visitor inthe Quorum chambers. This is not normally allowed before the culling, but Lucas… he wanted an exception to be made for you today.” Her voice held a tinge ofsomething … sort of a mix of anger and jealousy.
My eyes flicked across toJayden, who shrugged as if to say “No idea, babe.” Was my mom here? MaybeTessa? With a flick of her head, the vamp chick spun on her heels and startedto stride the other way. She wasn’t tall, but she moved preternaturally fast,and I hurried to catch up. There was no small talk as we crossed the hall andtook the elevator even deeper into the underground. Red wasn’t really clueingme in on where these Quorum chambers were, but I swear the dial read Sub20. Wewere deep underground, and I was going to have to work really hard to not thinkabout the amount of rock which was above me.
Stepping off, the hallsin this area were lit with fire lanterns up high in the smooth, rock walls.
“Stay close,” Red told me,before marching off again.
I was starting to getnervous. I should have stopped for a second and wondered if her words weretruthful before just blindly following her down here. For all I knew, she washere to kill me and wanted to go somewhere a little less populated. Jaydenhadn’t seemed nervous or worried by her, but he was new to the Hive too, andprobably didn’t understand the politics that well.
I had just aboutconvinced myself that she was leading me toward a fire-breathing dragon, or apack of pissed-off vampires who would eat the flesh from my bones while I wasalive, when she paused outside a large, ornate double door. There was an emblemengraved into the door, and words written beneath, but in no language I’d seen.Maybe some type of secret vamp language.
Red seemed to be waitingfor something. Finally, she tapped out a weird pattern and the doors silentlyslid open.
“They’re waiting foryou,” she cryptically said, before fading off into the dimly lit tunnel.
Great…
I placed my hand againstthe cool stone, and taking a few fortifying breaths, shoving the door back witha hard push. If I was going down, I wouldn’t cower out here, I’d march in withmy head held high and confidence in my ash eyes. Never let them see your fear,right?
It took me a few secondsto adjust to the brighter room. More fire lanterns were scattered around. Maybeit was hard to get electricity to run down here. There was also a massivefireplace with a heavy mantel, which had a huge fire burning inside. The roomwas circular, and in the center stood a heavy wooden table. It looked to havebeen carved from the largest tree in existence, because it was a single piecespanning at least twenty feet in diameter.
The room appeared to beempty, no dragons or gang of crazy vampires, or so I thought until a familiarhead of very blond hair came into view.
My feet were moving,stray tears rimming my eyelids as I dashed across the space.
“Mom!” I threw myself ather, forgetting for a moment that she was much more breakable than I was.
She held me tightly, nohesitation in her grip. It was the same as it had always been. Unconditionallove.
She still smelled likelilac and spearmint, her favorite gum flavor, and despite the fact that I hadto push down my urges when I was this close to her neck, I managed to controlmy desires and just enjoy having my mom here.
I pulled back, and weboth sank into one of the large chairs. I rested against the heavy wooden back,which was intricately carved with an array of roses, that towered high into theair.
“How are you here?” Icouldn’t tear my eyes from her, a little slice of normal in the last few crazydays of my life. I had no idea how much I needed this. Seeing Tessa was onething, but my mom was everything.
“I needed to speak withyou, sweetheart.” Her face was serious; I didn’t like it. “I have to explainwhy I never spoke to you of this. But I didn’t want you blindsided during theculling.” Her voice wavered a little on that, but she plowed ahead. “You neverwere very interested in this world, no matter how many times I tried to broachit with you. There are so many things you don’t know, but the first one is thatI never married the man in the war photo, John. He was just a boyfriend, andfor a long time I thought he was your true father because girl ash don’texist.”
I leaned forward in mychair, wondering where this story was going.
“I don’t like to speakill of the dead, but John was an alcoholic, and abusive.” She looked downtimidly at her hands.
Oh hell no. With that onesentence, part of my world and soul came crashing down. That asshole in thephoto that I had always adored and loved had hurt my mother.
She went on: “When he wasdeployed in the war I thought it was a good clean break-away for us. I wouldwrite him a letter and end things. We were intimate the night before he left,and afterwards he hit me again. This time there was no alcohol. This time hisexcuses fell on deaf ears. I was done with being a victim.”
