We stared for a few moremoments. I was trying to wrap my head around this new Tess. Even her makeup wasdifferent, heavy but tasteful, and her hair was tightly pulled against herhead. Which she usually hated.
“You look different,” Ifinally said, hoping she would start bouncing around in her usual manner. Ithadn’t really been that long since I’d seen her. What had changed?
Some of my icy feardissipated as a smile crossed her lips; the ghost of my best friend was stillthere. “I’ve missed you, bitch.” A trickle of relief followed, and I took theopportunity to cross the room and throw my arms around her.
“I’ve missed you too,” Isaid, 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 chuggedinto the first bottle of blood, which slightly eased the ache in my stomach.
“No, Blake owns a designhouse. He’d been helping me out. Styling me so I fit in more.”
My face fell. It hit methen 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 workher into Hive society before that. Very few humans were allowed to becomevampires. Firstly, the human government took any forced infection seriously,and no one wanted scrutiny from them. And secondly, Hives across the world werevery limited in space.
I wanted to lean forward,grab her hands, and start begging her to not be so stupid, to not throw herlife 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 uscould be trusted. None of us were human any longer, and I wasn’t sure about theother two, but I’d have given anything to have my old life back. I missed mymom. I missed school. I missed the normalcy.
But there was no goingback for me. It was too late. Tessa, on the other hand, she was choosing thisand I wasn’t sure I could sit back and let that happen. I wrenched the bottlefrom 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 havekids.”
My eyelashes flutteredfor 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 wordsI 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, Ididn’t actually hate my life here that much. But it wasn’t a choice I’d havemade either. I wanted to scare her, make her question this thing with Blake. Iwasn’t sure it was enough, I knew how stubborn she was. Maybe I needed to pay avisit to Blake, or even Lucas. My previous sponsor was the head of the sixthhouse, and that was Blake’s house.
Maybe he could have aword with him. I wasn’t sure how much control the heads of the houses had overtheir members. The heads were the Quorum leaders of course, and as a group theywere scary, but they didn’t seem to do much individual day to day monitoring ofanything. I had never even officially met the head of the fourth house, eventhough I was in that branch. Which led me to believe that they were always offdoing other things. The rules of the Hive were basically enforced by Ryder andhis men. Despite the fact that vampires thought of themselves as superior, theyseemed to do jack all in regards to the heavy lifting.
I often wondered why theygave so much power to the very race which might one day band together and riseup against them. It hadn’t happened yet, but one day the ash would revolt. Theculling was barbaric, and I wasn’t sure I could be in the Hive for the nextone. I still, on occasion, had nightmares thinking of the men I’d killed.
I didn’t know where Lucaswas, but I figured the best place to start would be his penthouse. Ipractically ran my ass through the Hive, up the elevator, and out onto levelfifty. I didn’t pause before I reached his suite and started slamming my fistrepeatedly against the white door.
“Lucas!” Patience was notmy strongest suit right now. I was panicking, and this made me do stupid shit.
There was no answer and Icould hear nothing on the other side. He wasn’t here. Dammit! I’d have to comeback later. I couldn’t hang around now, I was due for my shift in the callcenter. At least the enforcers should be back. Maybe I’d work off some of thisfrustration by kicking the shit out of kiss-me-and-not-call-for-three-daysRyder. Yes, I decided, as I turned away from Lucas’ suite, that sounded like aperfect plan.
There were two ash in the room when Ientered ten minutes later, neither of them enforcers, both lowly shit-kickerslike me. I so badly wanted to be an enforcer. It was unfair they were out theredoing things and I was stuck here taking calls. Ninety percent of which werefalse alarms. Their shift was over, so they left without a word. I was stillgetting plenty of extra looks, and more than a few had approached me aboutspending somequalitytime 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 mypadded, high-backed chair. For some reason, even though it was generally a twoperson shift, I was always in here alone. Or with one of the sexy six or theextended group of enforcers.
Speaking of, they should havebeen 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 Iwas 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 forthe first time since “the kiss” and see if the same heavy emotions still lacedthem. I needed to see if he had missed me too.
In my musing, I didn’thear the scuff of boots, and by the time my head shot up, Kyle was in thedoorway. I jumped to my feet, taking the two steps across the room to standright before him.
“Hey…” I sounded a littlebreathless, and knew I needed to try and find some cool again. I was officiallyscrewed right now, and my feels were leaking all over the place. “How was thecall out?”
Details on theiroperation were limited and had seemed a little sketchy. Oliver had told Jaydenthat the Hive in Seattle had had some sort of internal problem which requiredspecialist 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 hadheard 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 leftus virtually unprotected. But clearly I was just a worrier, because they wereback now and nothing terrible had happened while they were gone.
“Hey, Charlie bear,” Kylesaid with a massive grin. He leaned forward and swept me into a hug. “Good tosee you holding this place together while we were gone.” I hadn’t expected theshow of affection from him. I think I had officially been accepted into theenforcer 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 losehis cool was in regards to Ryder. Their history clearly had some pain burieddeep down.
“It’s been quiet here.What was the big deal in Seattle?”
Kyle, who was dressed inthe usual black on black, patted me on the head as he strode in and dropped heavilyinto the chair I hadn’t been using before. “Seattle was a pain in my ass. Theirculling ash rioted and joined forces to hold the Quorum hostage. They killedtheir lead enforcer. Bloody mess. We’re called in for anything to do withQuorum members. By the time we got there, it had died down a bit. Only onemember was in any danger, and that was mild at best. We had to stay for a fewdays of the culling to make sure no trouble stirred up again, but it was allcalm. Ryder and I barely slept. Spent nearly the entire time throwing ashbitches in their version of the pit.”
He lifted his long legsand dropped heavy boots onto the bench, stretching back in his chair.
“We were supposed to bethere 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 behindtheir backs, and stuck around just long enough to ream them a new one forwasting our time. He should be back tonight.”
I sort of knew I wasn’thiding my interest in Ryder, even though I hadn’t said anything specific. Kylewasn’t stupid, and he’d seen our heavy make-out session. I worked hard toconceal my disappointment that he wasn’t back yet, but clearly failed at thattask.
