Terra's Victory (Destiny's Trinities Book 7) (27 page)

“He wants me to take over the city police,” Rhys said. He still felt unreal, as if he was watching himself speak. The mayor’s offer had been
that
unexpected.

Then he stirred and shook off the shock. “I told him I’d think about it. That’s just for form’s sake, to be polite. I’ll phone him back tomorrow and tell him I’ll pass.”

“Why would you do that?” Aithan asked, his voice sharp.

Rhys hesitated. “Because we’re heading to Quebec. Fresh start and everything.”

Aithan looked at Cora. “Is that what you really want to do?”

“I figured…it would be a change,” she said slowly.

“What do you really, really want to do?” Aithan pressed.

Cora pressed her lips together and glanced at Rhys. “If I could do anything at all?”

“Sky’s the limit,” Aithan said.

“I’d buy one of those old houses on the shorefront in Erie and do them up, all by myself. Turn it into the county’s best bed and breakfast. Make my own bread. Host visitors from all over the world, some of them coming back year after year.”

Rhys stared at her. “You said you wanted to leave everything behind.”

“Because I thought
you
did!” Cora shot back. She flung her blonde locks over her shoulder. “You got tossed out of Erie. Out of the
county
. I figured you’d never want to see the place again.”

Rhys swiveled his head to look at Aithan. It felt as though his neck was full of ball bearings, some of them rusty. “You, too?” he asked.

Aithan sat back and crossed his arms. “Murphy and Dane in Chicago are going into business, building identities for vampires. High end stuff, that can pass muster anywhere. They say they will set me up with a kit,
gratis
.”

“So long as you tell everyone else about their services?”

Aithan’s smile was wise. “I’ve got to know a
lot
of supernaturals over the last century. All of them would find such a service convenient.”

“What would you do with your new legitimate identity?” Cora asked curiously.

“I was thinking…the Penn State campus in Erie is looking for a professor to teach philosophy and metaphysics.”

Cora smiled and it lit up the room. “That would be
so
perfect for you!” She turned to Rhys. “Please, please, please…take the job!”

Rhys blew out his breath. “Well, I—”

“No, wait!” Aithan cried and lurched to his feet.

Rhys looked at him, alarmed.

Aithan looked at Cora. “He’s reluctant to say yes.”

Rhys blinked. He had been on the verge of saying yes, for heaven’s sake….

“We’re going to have to use every power of persuasion we’ve got to make him agree to this.”

Cora licked her lips, a hungry look in her eyes. “It’s a good thing we know every sensitive spot on him.”

Rhys’ body tightened. He crossed his arms, trying to scowl. “There is no way you can talk me into this,” he lied. “Try all you like.”

As Aithan and Cora threw him on the bed and tackled him, he found himself laughing for sheer joy.

* * * * *

Cole found Gilbert on the verandah, staring at the peaks in the north. He handed him the bowl of spaghetti and a fork. “Enjoy,” he said.

“Thank you. This is most welcome. You are an excellent cook,” Gilbert said, lifting the bowl in acknowledgement. He ate a big mouthful. “Are you not eating with your family?”

Cole sighed. “Zoe and Declan are in the barn, still. It sometimes feels as if they’ll be there forever, only Declan says the numbers of vampeen being sent to them are gradually slowing.”

Gilbert glanced toward the north again.

Cole followed the direction of his gaze. The snow line on the peaks was shifting back to summer norms. “Summer is coming,” Cole said. “I guess that means you’ll be heading out soon.”

Gilbert sighed.

“The bears will all be stirring soon, too,” Cole added carefully. “Do you…get along with them?”

“Bears are loners,” Gilbert said sadly. “They don’t stand for others in their territory.”

“You don’t have a territory, do you?”

“No.”

“So, everywhere you go, you’re pissing a bear off?”

Gilbert grimaced, then remembered the bowl in his hands and ate another huge mouthful.

Cole examined him more carefully, a thought occurring to him. “You know, with Declan and Zoe and Sera all sweating over turning vampeen back into people, I’m going to be short-handed on the ranch this summer.”

Gilbert lowered his fork, looking at Cole directly for the first time since Cole had stepped outside. The hope flaring in his eyes was almost pitiable.

“I could use a good hand around here,” Cole said.

Gilbert swallowed hastily. “I’m strong,” he said quickly.

“I bet you are.”

He smiled. “You won’t have any trouble with bears. Not while I’m around. Cats, either.”

“The thought had occurred to me.” Cole brushed invisible lint from his jeans. “Are you any good at breaking horses? There’ll be a handful of them this summer.”

Gilbert’s face fell. “I’ve never been near one. They bolt when I try.” He sighed again. “If you want a breaker, then I know a wolf shifter…he can scare a horse into obedience just by looking at it. They don’t bolt for him.”

Cole nodded. “You’d better reach out to your shifter friend. I wouldn’t want him to find work for the summer with someone else. It’ll be your responsibility to make sure he and any of the others we hire behave themselves and blend into the community and look human. If they have to take off time because of shifting phases, it’ll be up to you to make sure their work is covered. Deal?”

Gilbert looked stunned. “You want me to work here anyway?”

“Someone has to keep the supernaturals in line for me. Eat up, Gilbert. You look a bit pasty there.”

Gilbert picked up his fork again and slowly began to eat, a thoughtful expression on his face and a warm, happy glow in his eyes.

* * * * *

Remmy found Octavia and Ángel in the little garden that still flourished around their small house. The land beyond the garden’s border was already starting to generate the heat and dust of summer. Step across the border, though, and the soil was lush and the plants cool. They scented the air with a subtle perfume.

Octavia had been spending most of her spare time in the garden, cooing over new discoveries. Yesterday, Remmy had found her standing on one of the paths, dripping wet and laughing.

“Look,” she said and raised her gaze to the sky. “Rain!”

Abruptly, it started to rain, in warm, gentle fat drops.

“Stop!” she called out.

It stopped just as fast, leaving rivulets and dripping plants.

Ángel was out with her today, bending over green plants and sniffing.

“A new discovery?” Remmy asked.

“Herbs,” Octavia said. “Some of them very rare. Sera says she doesn’t know of anywhere else they grow.” She held up her phone. “I’ve been sending her photos. She wants to harvest some of them, to use for her brand of medicine.”

Ángel wrinkled his nose. “They stink,” he declared.

“How did your phone calls go?” Octavia asked Remmy.

“When you know as many people as I do,” Remmy told her, “catching up can take a while. I just had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine in the DEA.” He looked at them both. “How would you both like to work for the DEA as consultants? He knows who you are and what you were doing in Chihuahua. That’s priceless insider knowledge he could use.”

Octavia shaded her eyes, considering him. “Go back to the old game?” she asked. There was a note of doubt in her voice.

“You don’t want to?” Remmy asked, surprised. “I thought both of you would break your necks getting back there. You both have very big axes to grind.”

Octavia’s face tightened. “The animals down there are worse than the vampeen, who didn’t have a choice. I would spend all my days working to wipe the world of them, no problems. It’s just that, Remmy, we’re still strong, all of us. Nothing has faded. I can feel it. Ángel feels it. If we were to work with the DEA or any human agency, we’d have to throttle that strength and follow their channels and it would be horrible. I think of everything we did, fighting the Grimoré. It was amazing. It was
so
good being able to help people the way we did. If we go back to the DEA and surveillance and wire taps and all that tiresome red tape, it would be like spitting in the ocean, when we could
part
the ocean to get at what we want.”

She stopped, breathing heavily.

“I had no idea you felt this way,” he said.

“Yeah, well, I do,” she said flatly.

“So do I,” Remmy admitted. “Only, for a long, long time now, those human agencies have been the only way to fight the real evil in the world.”

Ángel shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be the only way. Not anymore. You’re both used to thinking inside the rules. I grew up learning how to break them.” He smiled. Ángel had been doing a lot more smiling lately, Remmy realized. The anger that had once burned in him was gone.

Ángel wasn’t finished though. “Don’t use the human channels,” he said. “Why should we? Octavia can go where she wants and she can take us with her. Besides, she would never leave her garden for long, now, either.”

Octavia shook her head and crossed her arms.

“So, let’s
not
leave here,” Ángel said. “Except to jump to where the bad guys are. With our speed and strength, we could do more to hurt the cartels inside a month than the DEA could do in a year. Between Octavia and me, we know exactly where and how to hit them, too.”

Remmy let out a breath. Weak relief was trickling through him, along with a growing excitement. “Work
outside
the channels…. Well, it will be a change of pace for me. I’ve been an official lawman for my entire life.”

“You’re going to have to stay one, too,” Octavia said. “Someone has to pay the bills and later on, we’ll need DEA intelligence to track down the assholes, too.”

“I’m going to have to find a new identity,” Remmy said slowly, thinking it through. “Bear Newman died in Mexico.”

“What’s wrong with Remmy Dalton?” Ángel asked.

“Nothing. It’s a fine name,” Octavia said firmly.

“Be myself?” Remmy asked, startled again. “I’m not sure I know how to do that anymore.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Ángel told him. “Just as we’ll figure out how to be our real selves, too.”

McGinty’s on any day of the week was a busy place, usually filled with students with their infinite capacity for alcohol and a need to wind down from studies.

Beth ordered a glass of red wine and grabbed the last booth along the back acre and sat quietly nursing the wine while listening to the noise of a bar in full swing. It sounded so alien now, yet this had been her workplace and she had found the sound of people drinking and having a good time energizing.

Yet even Jerry, the manager, wasn’t on duty tonight. The shift manager was a stranger to Beth, as were most of the staff. Jenny, whom Beth vaguely remembered, had looked at her with zero recognition and Beth chose not to remind her who she was. There were some familiar faces among the bar patrons, although they didn’t recognize her, either.

She was left alone in the booth, too old for the very young crowd to be interested in her, her nervousness building by the minute.

She smoothed the short skirt she was wearing and tugged the waistcoat back into place. She was starting to feel foolish for wearing the combination, now. She glanced at the old-fashioned clock on the wall over the bar. Twenty-five past eight. The date had been for eight o’clock. Was she being stood up?

She didn’t like that possibility. It fed into too many nightmares and the paranoia that had been building in her heart and thoughts for the last week.

A glass of champagne slid onto the table in front of her. “Buy you a drink, sweetheart?”

Beth recognized the strong wrist and the voice. She gasped and looked up at Zack. “Oh my god, you’re here,” she breathed.

His black eyes narrowed. “You really thought I wouldn’t show?”

“I didn’t know what to think.” She got quickly to her feet and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding on tightly. “I haven’t been able to feel Lindal all week. You’ve been gone, too. Everyone else is off, having their own lives and that left just me and I don’t know what I am anymore.”

“Shh…shh…” He pulled her arms from around his neck and held onto her hands. “Damn, you’re trembling.” He looked at her more closely. “Please don’t start crying, huh?”

He looked so frightened at the idea that she would shed tears that Beth found herself laughing, instead. It was a shaky laugh.

“Is there room at the table for a third?”

It was Lindal’s voice.

Beth spun to look at him. He caught her as she almost tripped over her own feet and pulled her up into his arms.

“I can
feel
you again,” she breathed and kissed him.

His hand settled on her thigh just below the hem of the skirt. His fingers moved softly. “So can I.” His voice was warm with promise, making her heart give a little squeeze and hurry on.

“I meant…you know.”

Lindal pulled her away from him and looked at her much as Zack had done. Zack was standing with his arms crossed, a smile on his face.

“You couldn’t feel me because I wasn’t here,” Lindal said. “I just got back, a moment ago. Outside in the alley, is where I jumped to, actually.”

“Oh….” She bit her lip. “When you said you had things to take care of I didn’t realize they were back on your world.”

Lindal eased her back onto her seat and nudged her along so he could sit next to her. Zack sat on the opposite side.

“I didn’t tell you it was there because I didn’t want to worry either of you. And it’s not my world anymore.” He picked up her hand. “
This
is my world.”

“So, you’re a Terran now?” Zack asked teasingly.

“No,
this
is my world,” Lindal said, not rising to the bait. “You and Beth, Zachariah. You are my world and always will be. Nothing can threaten us anymore. I won’t let it.”

Zack’s expression grew warmer. “If we were not in public, I would kiss you for that.”

Lindal shot him a glance that was heated. “Watch this, then.” He kissed Beth, taking his time, making it thorough, until her body was aching with the need to have them both,
now.