Annihilate (Hive Trilogy #3)(12)

Oh man, maybe Sam hadn’t tossed in the sheets with this one; she was two seconds away from being a nun. I officially made a pledge right then to take her under my wing. She’d be cussing and screwing Sam’s brains out in no time.



As we neared the common room, I could hear dance music blasting out of the speakers. There was laughter and I recognized one of the laughs as my man. It was good to hear him laugh again; this was a good idea. Tomorrow would probably start operation kill or cure every vampire alive, but tonight we would have one last night of lighthearted fun.

When we reached the doorway, Jayden made us pause for dramatic effect. We waited as slowly all of the guys turned in our direction. Ryder gave me a heated stare that made me think of our passionate display in the lab. Jayden’s smile was pure happiness when Oliver strode across to him and pulled him into this arms.

And Sam … oh boy. His eyes were practically bugging out of his head. His breathing was labored and I was pretty sure he was very, very happy to see Becca. Even Markus and Kyle were checking Becca out. Jayden and I exchanged grins. Mission accomplished.

Becca stood there awkwardly while I moved into Ryder’s arms, our kiss just short of being indecent. I did notice, though, that Kyle was heading in Becca’s direction, but Sam put a hand on his chest to stop him. There it was. In the subtlest of ways, Sam had just claimed Becca as his to all his friends and she didn’t even notice. Kyle simply nodded and stepped back, busying himself with setting up the pool table. Guy code. These enforcers never messed with it.

And I was sure of one thing: Sam was totally in love with Becca.

Sam picked up two glasses of blood wine that had been poured and were waiting on the table and brought one over to her.

“Drink with me,” he said, and I raised my eyebrow at Ryder. We were totally all listening in and I didn’t care, no shame. There wasn’t a lot of entertainment out here, so this would be my soap opera.

She took it and looked unsure. “I don’t know. Remember that one time in the hot tub?” She smiled and it was a gorgeous white-toothed genuine smile.

Sam actually chuckled out loud and it scared me. I legit just realized I’d never heard Sam laugh. Becca was like the Sam whisperer. She had him acting all out of character.

“I promise you’ll not encounter any dead rats tonight,” he told her, clinking the rim of her glass. She laughed this time, still looking nervous.

Jayden changed the song to some Britney Spears. Oh hell yeah. Brits was just what we needed to forget for a few hours about all the problems in our lives. Then Jayden flipped his queen switch and transformed into one of Britney Spear’s backup dancers. Hands and legs were flying everywhere in perfect rhythm to the song and Oliver was watching him with a sexy grin. Boy had some moves.

Jared put a hand on Ryder’s shoulder; his gun was tucked into the back of his pants. “I’ll take first watch. You have some fun,” the Australian enforcer said.

“You sure, bro? I don’t mind joining you,” Ryder replied.

Jared looked at me and smiled. “You’re one of the few guys here in a relationship. Have some fun. I got this. Sam has all the gear here already, so I’ll suit up and see you in a few hours.”

I smiled at Jared. “Thank you!” I called out after him and settled into Ryder’s arm, wiggling my butt to the music.

Over the next hour we danced and played pool and gave Kyle shit for how bad he was at the game. There were only a couple of bottles of blood wine, so no one really got wasted, just took the edge off. Sam and Becca were in the corner of the room laughing and talking all night. They had barely left that space and I was about to call them over to play pool with us when Jared’s voice came over the walkie-talkie. It was muffled and the music was loud. Ryder immediately called for someone to shut off the sound system.

“Repeat?” Ryder said, his voice a harsh whip of command.

“There’s a female approaching the facility on skis,” was the low reply. “She looks about twelve or thirteen years, ethnic and crying.”

Becca jumped to her feet, and by the time I got a good look at her she was as white as a ghost.

“Lupita!” she said as she took off, heading toward the door which led to the outside.

The rest of us followed, only stopping long enough to grab coats before we reached the main exit. I was halfway out the door when Ryder put a hand on my shoulder. “No, Charlie, this could be a trap. You can’t be seen.”

I literally growled, so close to a dog growl it was kind of impressive. “Ryder…”

No more words were needed, the lead enforcer just clenched his jaw and continued with me out of the house. I’d rather die than be kept prisoner and hide.

We made our way outside, and I could see that in the distance an orange fire was blazing. It looked too big to be a bonfire. Smoke was billowing into the sky.

Becca was up ahead; she’d ran to meet up with the young female, who was crying and out of breath.

By the time we reached her side, I could hear her asking, “What is it? What happened, Lupita?” She had already taken the girl into her arms.

“The barn is on fire! Mama and the others are in town late, cleaning a house. Papa’s still in there. He’s too heavy for me to lift.” She trailed off as her tears overwhelmed her.

That was it. The one sentence was all it took and Ryder and I were sprinting toward the flames. The other enforcers had fanned off around us earlier, checking the perimeter, so I wasn’t sure if any of them followed.