She got to her feet, grabbed Murphy by the front of his sweater and hauled him around until he was looking at her. “You, shut up.” She shoved him into the chair behind him.
She pointed at Noemi. “Retract your fangs. You look like a moody teenager, showing them in that way.”
Noemi’s fangs retracted with a snap and she blinked.
Beth looked at Dane. “I get that werewolves are the enemy. I get that you’ve hunted them since you were a kid. Things have changed.”
“Shifters are half-demon,” Noemi said sullenly.
“Quarter demon,” Murphy said. “It’s not as if we like it, either.”
“I’m not kissing anything with demon blood,” Dane said firmly. “It’s just not happening.”
“Because he’s a werewolf, or because he’s a man?” Beth said.
Dane’s mouth opened.
“Listen, all of you. You think you’ve got the rough end of the stick here? You think this isn’t happening to everyone in the supernatural world? We’re all having our lives rearranged for us in ways we didn’t ask for, that we have absolutely no control over. Zack is one of my trinity and he’s a vampire. The other is Lindal and he’s elvish. They were mortal enemies and they got thrown together and had to make it work. Neither of them had ever kissed a man before and outside the trinity, they wouldn’t consider it. There’s a trinity up in Pennsylvania that has an incubus. Those three love each other in a way that makes it almost hard to watch.” She thought of Lindal and Zack as she had last seen them, sitting at opposite ends of the sofa, their feet tangling, laughing at each other as they fought for foot space. “Zack and Lindal love each other, too. I don’t think either of them ever expected that to happen.”
Dane and Noemi and Murphy were watching her now.
Beth smiled at them. “The bonding wrenches your life around, yet it also changes you in ways you can’t anticipate. There are compensations that make it worthwhile. No, more than that. You’ll end up wondering how you lived without each other.”
“You’re talking about love,” Dane said quietly.
“Of course I’m talking about love,” Beth said hotly. “If you three just give the bonding a chance to make itself felt, you’ll understand what I mean.”
Something shifted in Noemi’s face. A shadow.
“Don’t let love scare you,” Beth said, her voice softer. “It makes up for everything the bonding asks of you.”
“This is how we will defeat the Grimoré?” Dane asked.
Beth sighed. “With love? No. Love will make us stronger, though.” She looked around at all three of them. “Okay? Can I leave you alone now?”
It took a moment. Finally, all three of them nodded. They were looking at each other speculatively.
Beth sighed and thought of the office in New York and jumped there.
Zack looked up from the computer he was working on as she landed. “Still trying to kill each other?” he asked.
“I think a truce has been reached,” she said tiredly.
“What cudgel did you use to get that?”
Beth grinned. “I told them about you two enemies playing footsies.”
Zack rolled his eyes. “He’s still a bastard Son of Morning, even if he does make good food.”
“I heard that,” Lindal said from behind her. His lips pressed against her neck. “Green tea and a sandwich,” he added.
“Oh, I love you,” Beth said and turned to face him. The tea was sitting on her desk, steaming gently. Lindal held out the plate with the sandwich.
“I’m on with Aithan and Rhys and Cora,” Zack said.
She took the plate and suppressed her sigh. “On speaker?”
“Hi, Seaveth,” Cora said, her voice clear over the speaker. “I bet my bread is better than Lindal’s, though.”
“No contest,” Lindal said quickly. “The smell of yeast upsets me for a week.”
“Is there a problem, Cora?” Beth asked. Lindal led her firmly to her chair and pushed her into it and put the sandwich in front of her.
“Rhys is talking about resigning as sheriff,” Zack said.
“Rhys?” Beth asked.
“Here,” Rhys said, his voice strained. “I don’t know how much longer I can go on with this double life. Cora has given up her day job and spends all her time, day and night, hunting the bastards down. Aithan didn’t have a human life to give up in the first place. I spend my nights hunting vampeen then have to spend all day being sheriff. I can’t do both equal justice and sheriff is not exactly a job you can sleep on.”
“I realize it’s hard,” Beth said. “I really need you in that authority position, Rhys. You can do so much more there to help protect humans than we can do just hunting down vampeen when we find them. You can affect real change.”
“I’ve already put a nighttime curfew in place,” Rhys said.
“There, that’s exactly what I mean,” Beth said. “It’s not something we could have done without you.” She thought quickly. “One of the trinities has a New York police lieutenant, Blake. Would it help if you talked to him? He’s got a handle on how to juggle it all, although it took him a while.”
“That would help, yes,” Rhys said, with obvious relief in his voice.
“I’ll get back to you with details. Cora, would you mind bringing Rhys to New York when I have that arranged?”
“Of course not,” Cora said quickly.
“Good. Now, I must eat. I’ve been nursemaiding a werewolf, a vampire and a hunter, all three of them more stubborn than Zach. I’m starving.”
Cora laughed, even as Zack snorted. Beth heard the phone line click and fall dead.
“Tell me about Diego’s three,” she said to Zack.
“Not until you take at least one bite of the sandwich,” Zack said.
She took the bite, then crammed another into her mouth. She really was starving.
“Blake and Rhys aren’t the only ones who have to learn how to juggle,” Lindal said from his big chair in the corner. He refused to sit at a desk. He said it barricaded him in.
Beth waved him away and looked at Zack, chewing hard.
“They found the third,” Zack said and she could tell from the little tug on the corner of his mouth that he was holding back something.
She waited him out.
“It’s a ghost.”
Beth stared at him. “Is that even possible? How do they seal the bond?”
“No vampire, either,” Lindal said. “Every trinity so far has had at least one vampire. It’s as if your lot are holding the baseline together,” he said to Zack.
Zack threw a paper clip at him. “The vampires are how the bond is sealed.” He looked back at Beth. “The ghost is an aberration. Only, we thought Aithan was an aberration until Murphy came along.”
“So this might be all part of the major plan,” Lindal said.
Beth nodded and swallowed. “We wait,” she said firmly. “The whatever-it-is seems to know what it is doing. We have to trust it and wait.”
“You know, you’re going to have to come up with a better name for the whatever-it-is,” Zack said.
“Why is it up to me?” Beth demanded.
“You’re our great and wonderful leader,” Zack reminded her.
“Who has mayonnaise on her chin,” Lindal added.
Chapter Five
Zoe only sat at the table between the two of them because Cole insisted. She could barely stay in her chair. She had sat between them in this way many times in the past. Only, in those times she had not been Cole’s wife. Declan had not died and she still believed she’d put the hunting world behind her for good.
It was a reminder of far more simpler times, even though in those times she had sometimes gone home with her body in a stew of unrelieved wanting. Declan’s dark Irish good looks and Cole’s blond, macho perfection had equal effects upon her. She had never tried to sort out in her mind which of them she wanted more because ever having either of them was completely out of the question.
Except now, if she understood Diego properly, she could have both of them.
It was all she could think about. It was throbbing in her mind, making her body pulse and her nerves sizzle. She was far more wound up than she had ever been when Cole and Declan had been married…
Her breath squeezed out of her. Cole and Declan had been married. She was the interloper.
She looked from one to the other of them, dismay building. Declan had been Cole’s great love and his death had just about destroyed him. She had always known Cole had reached for her to prop himself up. It hadn’t mattered. She was one of the few people who had known the two were even lovers, let alone married, so she had understood Cole’s grief.
The depth of her own grief had shocked her. She hadn’t been aware of how deeply Declan had worked his way into her heart, until he had died.
Now he was sitting next to her once more, looking exactly as he had always looked. Slightly scruffy, sinfully sexy, his eyes hooded and brooding as he considered Cole, who had finally finished explaining about the Grimoré, the vampire-led defense against them and the trinities.
Declan turned his gaze upon Zoe. “You’re a hunter, then? I mean, you know this world? You knew it before.”
She nodded. “I thought I’d left it behind,” she added.
“It’s a long way from being my medical assistant,” he agreed.
“That was the point. It was the complete polar opposite.”
“You killed things.”
“Evil things,” she replied.
“So, with this bonding, that is what I will become? A fighter in this war?”
Zoe’s heart squeezed. “I suppose…yes,” she said carefully.
Declan looked at Cole. “You’re the professional soldier. Zoe, too, I guess. I’m not a fighter, Cole. Not even now. I will not kill another…not even a creature that isn’t human.”
Cole shook his head. “You haven’t seen them.”
“Neither have you!” Declan declared. “I’m a doctor! I heal people. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do and now you’re telling me some supernatural force that even the vampires don’t understand properly has decided I must pick up a knife or a gun and kill these things I have never seen?”
Zoe realized her hand had lifted toward him. She had been reaching for him. Only, she couldn’t do that. Neither could Cole. Neither of them could touch him or comfort him.
Yet her whole body yearned to do exactly that.
She put her hand back in her lap. “None of us knows how this will work out,” she said. “Every trinity is different in some way.”
Declan blew out his breath and shoved his hands through his hair. The same thick lock curved over his forehead once more. “If I have to fight, then I don’t want to be here,” he said flatly, looking at Cole.
Cole just looked at him. “Okay,” he said at last. “I don’t think I could bear to see you fighting, either. If it comes to that, we’ll figure it out. Only, for right now, just for a moment, can we…can I enjoy just being able to talk to you again?”
“I mean it, Cole,” Declan said heavily. “I’ll do whatever ghosts do when they want to be gone. I will not fight.”
“I hear you,” Cole said quietly. Firmly.
It was the same iron-cored tone he always used when he meant what he said. Cole never promised, yet if he said he’d take care of something in that tone of voice, Zoe had learned he would move mountains to make it happen. He was a man of his word.
She looked from one to the other of them, her heart thudding. It wasn’t the low-grade arousal this time. It was unhappy recognition. They had forgotten she was in the room. It was just the two of them, communing on a level forever barred to her because they didn’t love her the way they loved each other.
Now Declan was back, even in this limited way, could she really insert herself between them the way Diego was implying would happen?
Before she realized she had even made the decision, she was on her feet and moving through to the hallway and the front door.
“Zoe!” Declan called, startled.
She kept going.
“Zoe, come back.” Cole sounded just as surprised.
Diego was sitting on the bench beneath the coat rack, his back against Cole’s long formal overcoat, the cell phone to his ear. He looked startled as she headed for the door.
“I’ll call back,” he said shortly into the phone and put it away. “Where are you going?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said woodenly and dug in Cole’s casual coat for the truck keys.
“You can’t leave,” Diego said urgently. “They won’t let you. They’ll tear you to pieces. You’re one of the trinity and you’ll be offering yourself up to them.”
“Don’t care,” she replied and opened the front door. Her first step onto the verandah and the cold wooden planking reminded her she only wore socks and no coat. She shrugged and kept going, down the steps and across the gravel that dug into her feet with painfully sharp points.
“Zoe!” It was Declan, again.
She didn’t look up from opening the truck door. The lock had frozen last winter and now it was always stiff to open and took all her strength. Cole made it look easy, as if there was nothing wrong with it. Cole….
Her eyes pricked with scalding tears.
“Zoe,” Declan said and this time he was much closer.
She looked up, blinking rapidly to clear her tears.
He was standing next to the truck. Next to her. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, his voice low and soft.
“You don’t need me,” she said. “Neither of you.”
Cole was standing on the verandah, leaning on the railings. Even though he was half naked and barefoot he didn’t seem to notice the cold. He was watching them with peculiar intensity.
Diego was standing in the doorway, watching just as intensely.
“Why are you talking to me?” Zoe asked Declan. “Why not Cole?”
Declan didn’t look at Cole. “If Cole asks you to stay, you’ll believe him, yet you will still doubt me. Only, I don’t want you to leave, either. So I’m asking.”
“Why?” she asked, anger stirring. She was being pulled apart here. Couldn’t he see that? “You’ve suddenly discovered in the last sixty seconds that you love me, after all?”
“It has been much, much longer than sixty seconds.” His voice was low.
Zoe stared at him. He looked back, his expression calm, his eyes the same black as always.
Over his shoulder, she saw Cole’s head bend. His eyes were closed.
“Cole needs you more.” Her voice was hoarse with unshed tears. She finally got the door open.
“No,” Declan said swiftly. He put his hand against the door and shoved it back. It slammed closed.
Zoe gasped and stepped back, looking from the door to Declan. Her heart was thundering again. “You moved it.”
Declan looked at his hand in wonder. “The bonding,” he said softly. “It’s really working.”
Zoe swallowed.
Declan held his hand out to her, for her to take it. “Come back inside. Please.”
Zoe looked at Cole once more. He was gripping the support post. When her gaze met his, he nodded. It was a tiny movement, yet it was enough for her to take Declan’s hand.
His hand was cool, but so was hers, out here.
Declan looked down at her hand. “So small,” he murmured.
“My wedding ring fits through Cole’s,” she said. It was something she had said dozens of times, to her co-workers at the clinic and to friends. Even she and Cole had laughed about it.
Declan didn’t smile. “Mine didn’t.” The tug on her hand was slight, yet it was there. “Please, Zoe. Let’s talk. Let’s really talk.”
She let him draw her back inside.
* * * * *
When Zoe reached the verandah level, she tried to slip her hand free from Declan’s. His grip tightened. She could barely look at Cole, although
from the corner of her eye she watched him straighten and head back inside. Even Cole could not withstand the cold for too long, despite physically challenging himself in small ways like this.
Diego, though, was standing just inside the front door. He hadn’t moved and he was staring at the door sill, frowning.
“Something wrong?” Zoe asked him. She had known a few vampires in the past and had learned to rely on their instincts, which were driven by far more powerful senses than humans could aspire to.
Diego pushed the toe of his shoe up against the sill itself. “Recognize that?” he asked quietly.
She peered at the tile and grout where it met the wood sill. There was dried mud there, tracked in by snowy boots, that she had not swept up properly. Among the grit, though, was a pale yellow sand. The particles were very fine and stirred in the air moved by Diego’s shoe. So, not sand. Something lighter.
“Pixie dust,” Diego said, his voice still soft. He looked up and around the hallway.
“Here?” Zoe breathed. “I thought they distrusted humans.”
“They hate them more,” Diego said, nodding toward the bridge. “You can’t speak their name in front of them. It freaks them out.” He moved back to the bench under the coats. “They might emerge, now the bonding has started and has marked you all. Or they might not.”
“You know, you could sit in the lounge room and be comfortable, if you really must stay here,” she told him.
Cole and Declan had already moved back into the kitchen, although Declan hovered by the door, waiting for her.
“You might want to use the room,” Diego pointed out. “I’m fine here. I have a lot to do.” He sat on the bench.
“Like what?” Zoe asked, puzzled.
“Oh, hello.” It was a woman’s voice. A strange one.
Zoe turned, startled.
A tall woman with masses of long golden blonde hair and very large blue eyes was standing in the middle of the hallway. Zoe had a hard time pulling her gaze away from her face. Her skin seemed to glow. She wore perfectly normal jeans and a sweater.
“You’re elvish,” Zoe said. She could feel her cheeks burning. “I mean…I’m sorry. You’re my first elf.”
Zoe's Blockade (Destiny's Trinities Book 5) Page 4
