Ash(75)

“I just about lost my grip when the car crashed into the building. It drew away the sniper immediately. He dashed in to make sure if wasn’t his men. That gave Sam and I enough time to get into position by the window.”

Turned out the sniper had been in the window next to our apartment. He would have taken out the boys if it wasn’t for the few distractions we had set up. Jayden had thought it was awesome they had gotten to smash up the main level. Of course, that was before Ryder sent him and Kyle back there to start repairing it, along with the rest of the enforcer group. Even though there were only six in the core group, there were dozens in the main enforcer team. Ten of their men had lost their lives, and I knew the Quorum was preparing the burial now. Ash didn’t get quite the same sendoff as the vamps, but they still had a ceremony.

I had not seen Ryder since those moments in my apartment. He was everywhere at once, dealing with everything, and—

“He’s calling in favors, you know.” Markus stopped randomly chatting, changing subjects to the one I was most interested in. “Ryder. Using his contacts to make sure the Sanctum don’t come for you again, finding out who hired them for the job in the first place.”

I shook my head, my arms automatically wrapping around myself as a comfort. “I don’t understand. I know I’m unusual. I know I’m apparently descended directly from an Original, but besides a little levitation one time, I’ve done nothing else. Why would they go to all of this trouble? Three million dollars is a lot of money. It doesn’t make sense. What do they want from me?”

Sam shifted. He was monitoring some security footage, going back through the mercenaries’ initial entrance. His job was to try and figure out how the security was so easily breached, how ten men were killed before the lockdown was initiated. His eyes flicked across to me once or twice, but he didn’t speculate with Markus and me.

The Scottish enforcer rested his massive feet on the desk, leaning back in his favorite position. “I don’t know, lass, but whatever happens, we have your back. Ain’t no one stealing our unicorn on our watch.”

I wanted to punch and hug him at the same time. Our unicorn. They were so arrogant. But they were my family now, and I kind of like that they claimed me as theirs.

“I should check on Jayden,” I mused, unwrapping my arms and placing them on the cool metal desk. “He was still shaken up, and I don’t want him to be alone stressing about how close he came to dying.”

Sam stopped me as I got to my feet; a single hand on my forearm did the trick. “Oliver is with him.”

That was all he said, before releasing me and going back to his footage. I had to shake my head a few times. His intensity was a little disconcerting, but I was starting to see the many layers to the mostly silent enforcer.

A noise in the doorway had all three of us swinging about to find Lucas perched in the entrance, his white trench coat billowing out around him. He looked tired. The last twelve hours had been stressful for everyone in the Hive.

“Can I talk with you, Charlene?” His voice was low, and sort of raspy.

I jumped up, and with a last wink for Markus, took off toward Lucas. I needed to talk with him too. I still hadn’t asked him to step in with Tessa and Blake. I hoped nothing had gone too far with those two yet. I had to save her.

Lucas and I walked side by side through the hall, ending up on the cafeteria level, which was deserted at the moment, hundreds of bench seats spread out, letting us see the true size of the space. It kind of blew my mind to think that every mealtime these tables were all full. The Hive really was too small for the growing number of ash. Each culling, fewer and fewer were going to be allowed to survive. In the next few years, being an ash would pretty much be a death sentence. Not for the vampires though – every single one of those assholes were welcome.

I pushed down my bitterness and focused on Lucas across from me. We were seated near the entrance, the space around us cool and quiet.

“I’m so glad you’re okay.” He reached out and took my hand, his grip comforting. “I was very angry about being locked in with the Quorum, especially when my people and you were out there unprotected. But when a head of a house dies, the entire line is weakened. It happens time to time but not a lot. It is to be avoided at all costs, so they always lock us in the secure chambers during conflict.”

I returned his squeeze. “All good, Lucas. We weren’t even here when the initial infiltration happened.” I told him bits and pieces about our theories – why the Sanctum had been hired, how they’d tried to take out Ryder first. I kept a lot of information secret though. There was a mole somewhere in this Hive. I trusted Lucas mostly, but it never hurt to be a little cautious, even if he had done nothing but keep me alive.