Chapter 6
The next ten days passed in a blur oftraining, blood hunger, and ass-kickings. And straight up, Ryder was doingninety percent of said kicking. I was getting a little bit better at fighting,but if my fellow ash fought anything like Ryder, I was a dead woman. I wasstarting to wonder if Ryder was punishing me for the revelations that day withthat doctor, where she’d spoken of the anomalies in my blood. He’d been ridingthe shit out of me since then – pun intended – determined to turn me into aninja freak show, and he was dragging my aching butt out of bed all hours ofthe day and night to do it.
A week ago we’d startedweapons training, though Ryder only trained me on one weapon, the samuraisword. He thought it gave me the reach I needed on these big tall ash males. Itold him it was stupid to teach me to use one weapon, especially if we had noguarantee that I would get the sword in my fight. He had said to shut up and dowhat he said because he had a plan.
The culling was tomorrow.One final day of training. And I was flat on my ass again.
“I can’t freakinglevitate, Ryder. If you throw another fucking knife at me, I swear to thevampire gods I will find out where you sleep and I will sneak in and fill yourbed with spiders – the kind that bite and kill.”
The enforcer haltedhimself mid-throw. Apparently he thought I lacked proper motivation to tap intomy supposed power of the fourth house of the Originals. I thought he lacked afreaking soul, and was determined to kill me before I even made it into theculling.
“Charlie, you have morethan a little untapped potential. I see it rarely, but it’s there. I’mstruggling with a way to break down this wall of clumsy incompetence you hidebehind. The culling starts tomorrow, and if you don’t deal with your shit you’regoing to die.” His broad chest heaved in and out as if he was struggling not tocompletely lose his shit on me.
Wait, had he called meclumsy and incompetent? What a bastard. I was trying my best. A surge ofemotion knocked into my chest, tightening it before it rose up in a burningwave of righteous anger. I was so going to rip his arm off and beat him todeath with it. That would show him who was clumsy. I flipped to my feet andleapt forward, ready to strike. The movements came easier, and I was finallystarting to understand why he’d drilled them into me day after day. In sparringI could hold my own now, even with Ryder, but I still lacked deeper technicaltraining, which would be impossible for anyone to gain in such a short period.
I generally came at himfront on and quite aggressive, but this time I did something different. I swunginto his face, and right before I would have hit him, and he would have blockedme, I dropped down to my knees and drove both of my closed fists into his gut.
The shock reverberated upmy arms and my hands ached instantly. There was not one ounce of fat on Ryder.Hitting his abs had been like smashing my fists into a wall. But I had hit him,and hard enough to stumble him back a little. I then swung one of my legs out,and ignoring the current pain in my knuckles, kicked out and smashed into hisknee, hitting from the side and collapsing it in on itself.
The entire attack hadtaken no more than three seconds. I was fast. Ryder had been trying to get meto take advantage of my speed, and I was finally hearing his words. As he hitthe ground, I dived across the long length of his body and straddled him, beforeslamming my fist down into his nose. He shifted his head at the last moment,and I knew he could have halted my movement – I saw that in his black andsilver gaze – but he let me hit him, and it was this knowledge which stopped mefrom slamming into his face again.
We stared at each other,my breath heaving in and out as I fought for control. I knew I needed blood.I’d been trying to stretch myself out longer between feedings. But I was at theend. I wanted to bite Ryder so badly my teeth and gums were actually aching.
His expression was almostgentle as he stared up at me. “There is a wild strength in you, Charlie. Youhave beauty and brains. You need to figure out how to bring that all together.If you do that, there is no one who could stand against you.”
Those soft words brushedagainst me, and for a fraction of a second his eyes flashed pure silver. Irealized then I was still straddled across his muscled form, and needed to movenow. I blinked a few times, but my body didn’t seem to be responding.
Crap, Charlie, get yourass off him. He’s already tried to kill you five times today.Mypep talk wasn’t doing its job either. I had to touch him, I needed to taste theskin on his neck. God he smelled so good. The way he stared up at me, before heraised his hands to my hips. His grip tightened and I almost moaned at thestrength in his hold.
He leaned up, and as ourfaces moved closer together, he shifted his shoulders and … lifted me to theside. Disappointment flashed through me as I lowered my head and fought forcomposure.
“I’m going to the feedingroom,” I blurted, stumbling to my feet and basically racing from the room. Iglanced back just before I crossed out of the gym, and noticed that Ryder hadmoved across to one of the large bags hanging from the beams. He was alreadysmashing the crap out of it, in a series of attacks that were controlled andsmooth, leaving me breathless with jealously. I would never fight like him.
He snarled then, and in ashow of unprecedented power drove his fist all the way through, completelydestroying the bag and letting the seeds inside run out onto the floor.
That was all I got to seebefore I was out of sight. I’d never seen Ryder lose control like that before.He was always contained, but the pure fury as he ripped through that bag justthen had my pulse racing and my heart stuttering.
I knew I frustrated him.But for some reason that had seemed more like he was fighting himself and hisown control. I didn’t understand Ryder very well. He was this strong, powerfulenigma, and I guess I had never stopped to think about his story. How long hadhe been an ash? I knew we aged very slowly, not quite immortal like vampires,but there was a long life in front of us. I had never seen Ryder much in socialsituations. From the little I knew of him, he mostly hung around the otherenforcers in the sexy six, trained me, and went out on missions – though they dialedthat back during the culling period. They only contacted Ryder now when it wassomething the rest couldn’t handle.
He was strong, he wastheir leader, and I was starting to find it hard to tear my gaze from him whenwe were in the same room together. I needed to get back to working on thatgetting laid thing. I wasn’t easy or anything. I could count the number of guysI had slept with on one hand, but lately I was having a hard time dialing downmy hormones. Tonight, right after I got me some blood and Tessa time – mybestie was scheduled on the feed tonight – I was heading out to the undergroundclub, Base Level. It was embedded deep into the Hive on level three. Tomorrowmight be my last day on Earth – if I was called to the early culling fights –and I was not going to spend it alone or crying in my bed.
Screw Ryder and his hotand cold bullshit. I was a strong, independent, bloodsucking ash. I did notneed his sexy butt in my new life. It was confusing enough already.
I slowed my run as Ifinally made it to the elevator, taking it to floor eleven. I only visited thefeeder room to see Tessa and stock up on blood. I still wasn’t cool with suckingon a living person’s neck. When I entered the double doors, I went straight tothe fridge and grabbed three bottles, before ducking into my usual feedingroom. Tessa was sprawled back in the chair, her skin clammy and pale – thoughshe jumped up straight away and threw herself at me.
“Friggin’ hell, Charlie,I’ve missed you so much.”
She stumbled a little inmy arms, and I grabbed at her to keep her on her feet, pulling back to see herbetter. “What’s wrong, Tess? Are you sick?”
She waved me off. “No,nothing like that, just…” She held a hand over her neck to cover the rightside.
I must have been slow orsomething tonight, because it was more than a few moments before I clicked into what the hell had happened.
“Who?” I demanded, myhands gripping her biceps a little hard. “Who fed from you, Tess?”
No vampire or ash wasallowed to just randomly feed, which meant she had signed up for this shit – additionalfeedings. Her round eyes widened a little and she dropped her gaze. I knew myown eyes would be a blaze of silvery green, so I closed them to try and regaincontrol.
Placing my friend, withher overly pallid skin, back in the chair, I ripped into the top of my bloodbottle. I was not going to be able to deal with this on an empty stomach.
