Terra's Victory (Destiny's Trinities Book 7) (6 page)

“I imagine you’re going to tell me to put up with it.”

“No, you idiot!
Enjoy
it! There are all sorts of pleasures and compensations that come with being bonded in a trinity, that your Elizabethan sensibilities should appreciate. All three of you, go talk to the others. Find out for yourselves and stop bitching to me about how hard this is. Go on. Go!”

Alex put his hand on her shoulder and she glanced up at him. She was hopping mad.

Her trinity hesitated, glancing at one another.

“Do I have to move you with a cattle prod?” she demanded. “Go and mingle. Go on.”

The three turned and moved away, only not as a threesome. They scattered, going separate ways.

Alex shook his head. “They still resent the bonding. I don’t know which is stronger, my admiration for their stubbornness, or my desire to bang their heads together.”

Mia turned to him with a sigh. Now he could see the definite bulge of her pregnancy, showing beneath the elegant drape of the dress. He resisted the urge to put his hand on her belly, as he did often when it was just him, Wyatt and Mia. “I still don’t understand why you, out of all of us, got three recalcitrant men.”

“Because I’m more stubborn than all three of them,” Mia said, with a snap in her voice.

True
. Alex held his teeth together to stop himself saying it aloud. Mia wasn’t in the mood to take that truth well.

She was still scowling. “When are you and Wyatt going to stop coddling me, anyway?” she demanded. “I’m only pregnant, not disabled.”

“Any one of them could tear your limbs off without breaking sweat, even as strong as you are. It’s nothing to do with you being pregnant,” he said carefully, wishing Wyatt were here. Wyatt could always ease her back into a better humor.

Mia tilted her head, her eyes narrowing dangerously. “You think I couldn’t take any one of them on?”

Intellectually, he knew she could hold her own, especially if she had a gun in either hand. That didn’t stop his belly from cramping at the idea and made him speak without considering his words. “We don’t coddle you because you can’t take care of yourself, Mia. We do it because it’s the only way we can live with ourselves, because you
are
pregnant and we’re both terrified this war is going to reach out and hurt you and the baby in some way. You have to let us do that, okay? You have to let us fuss and worry, or we won’t get through it.”

The heat in her tightly held expression faded. “You’re right,” she said slowly. “I didn’t think of it that way. God, Alex, I’m sorry….”

He shook his head and drew her into his arms. “Can I go beat your three up for you? Please?”

She laughed, the sound muffled against his chest. “If you really have to, sure,” she said. “I can think of a better way to vent all that frustration, though.”

His body tightened, a thousand barely seen images flickering through his mind of Mia and Wyatt, naked and twined together, or against him, or any of the hundred ways they had made love. He could almost
feel
her breast in his hand, heavy with pregnancy, the tip heated with arousal.

He smothered a groan against her hair. “How in hell am I going to get through this damn meeting, now?”

* * * * *

Beth lifted her hand toward Blake. “Rhys, this is Blake Harvey. He’s with the NYPD. I told you about him a couple of weeks ago. I’m sorry it’s taken this long to get you two together. Blake, Rhys Wisherd. Sheriff of Erie County.”

The two law enforcement officers shook hands, studying each other. Rhys looked ill-used and exhausted. There were dark rings under his eyes and Beth wasn’t certain but she thought there was a bit more gray in his hair than she remembered from the first time she had met him.

He gripped Blake’s hand. “Seaveth says you have all this shit figured out. The war, being human and not letting any of it spill over into the other.”

Blake grimaced. “Then you haven’t heard the latest news.”

Rhys shook his head. “I’ve worked straight through Christmas, ten days straight, so far. This is the first time I’ve been out of the county office for longer than it takes to get four hours’ sleep and go back.”

“I know what that’s like,” Blake assured him. “I had to fight to get time off this year.” He drew Rhys toward the buffet table. “First defense is keeping up your calorie intake with decent food. There’s roast beef over here…”

The two of them moved through the crowd.

Beth turned back to where Cora and Aithan were standing together.

Aithan nodded at her. “Thank you for this,” he said, his voice low.

“We’ve been worried,” Cora added. “He’s been pushing himself too much. No one can keep that pace going for long.”

“I’ve seen Blake do the same thing,” Beth told them. “The law enforcement types like them have the hardest time juggling everything, because even in their human roles, they’re protecting people. It becomes overwhelming.”

Aithan glanced at the two at the buffet table. “Rhys feels responsible. For everyone.”

“Exactly,” Beth said. “Although, if it is any comfort, this war should end soon, if I am right about the prophecies and Mia’s pregnancy being the calendar.”

Cora nodded toward a handful of vampires talking to Lindal. “The elders of the Blackarcher clan say you haven’t got a thing wrong, so far.”

Beth smiled. “PR spin helps smooth out fears and anxieties. I make mistakes just as everyone else does. I just try to make sure the slip ups are over minor matters.” She gave them a small smile. “It’s twelve-thirty. I should call the meeting to order. Please excuse me.”

She stepped around the eddies and flow of people, squeezing past them on the edges. She made her way around to the dais, where the lectern waited. She had put on one of the long green velvet gowns, because when she was wearing them, she felt a lot closer to being Seaveth, instead of merely Beth, former bar waitress and librarian.

As she stepped up onto the dais, she flashed on the night she had first seen vampeen, the night she had finally understood that Lindal and Zack were not human and there was a whole supernatural layer to the world beneath human consciousness, a supernatural world that was on the brink of war.

She had given up every trace of her human life after that, devoting herself to the war effort and to defeating the Grimoré.

As she faced the room over the lectern, everyone shuffled and turned to face her. The room grew silent.

“Four years ago,” she told them, “none of us could have predicted we would be standing here, drawn together and united against a common foe. Look around you and marvel at the power of the trinities. Vampires stand with elves, who were once their mortal enemies. Demons stand among us. Shifters, too. Pixies have revealed themselves, when their very existence was unknown to all of us. The power of the trinities has given a ghost a corporeal existence and saved a human hunter from dark, solitary days filled with hatred for those he hunted. It has brought together old lovers and those who yearned to love. All of us have learned valuable life lessons that will linger long after this war is over.”

She paused. No one reacted. No one was looking bored, either. She had their full attention.

“The ranks are filled,” she continued. “The trinities have all been successfully formed and sealed. The Grimoré have failed to prevent us from growing to our full strength and for the first time, all twelve trinities stand in this room together. They are a symbol of hope and, as the prophecies have promised, the key to victory.”

She paused again. She had to, for somewhere in the middle of the room, someone started to clap. The solo sound lasted for only a heartbeat before
everyone
began to clap and cheer.

The sound was thunderous, washing over her with a power that sent a ripple down her spine.

They were celebrating just being here. She understood that. Every single trinity had faced difficulties and challenges. The clans and the elves had fought endless Grimoré and vampeen incursions, to help give the trinities time to claw their way to life. No one knew for certain the trinities would work. All they had were dusty, endlessly translated prophecies to cling to for hope, while they fought and bled and died.

For right now, though, none of that mattered. Doubts had been put aside and everyone, as they clapped and cheered, was giving voice to the fierce satisfaction in having made it this far.

Beth’s eyes swam with hot tears and she blinked to clear them. It wouldn’t do for Seaveth to break down and blubber, as much as she wanted to. She glanced over to where Lindal and Zack were standing together.

Zack gave her a small smile, while Lindal just glowed.

Then Beth realized that the lectern was trembling under her hands. She looked down at it, puzzled.

The rumbling was coming up through her feet, from the ground itself and it was intensifying.

The clapping checked and faded. Everyone looked around and down. Glasses were rattling on the buffet table, now. One dropped off the edge and shattered.

Zack and Lindal leapt onto the dais and gathered around her. Lindal pulled out his twin knives and Zack his long one. “We’re under attack!” he shouted at her, over the top of the swiftly building rumble.

His voice was picked up by the microphone and relayed to the room at large.

No one screamed. No one panicked. There was a shift in the crowd, like a giant hand swept over it, rearranging everyone. Backs were turned to each other. Weapons were drawn.

Then the world exploded around her, deafening her and stealing her sight.

The blast was so loud that after, Mia couldn’t hear anything except a ringing in her ears. There was smoke and dust swirling over the top and around everyone, making it look as if they were moving through heavy fog.

Distantly, barely seen through the fog, she could see where the side of the room had collapsed inward. The wood paneling that had disguised the subterranean and windowless concrete walls was splintered and rammed inward as though a giant fist had punched in from the other side of the wall.

There was a gaping hole in the concrete behind the paneling. It was the mouth of a tunnel. Through the hole poured vampeen and creatures Mia knew instantly were the hounds everyone had been talking about.

She gripped her guns, her heart leaping with fierce and sudden anger, mixed up with a deep fear. This was unprecedented. This was almost impossible. The Grimoré dared attack them here, in their shielded and supposedly impenetrable bunker?

That was where the fear came from. She had grown lax, assuming that deep down in the bunker, they were completely safe. The shields wouldn’t allow even teleporters to jump inside the keep.

Yet the Grimoré had found a way around it. A very human way.

Alex was drawing her away from the gaping wound in the wall and the flux of enemies pouring out of it.

“No, we have to help!” she shouted and could barely hear herself.

He put his mouth against her ear. “
Everyone
is retreating!”

She looked again. There were three trinities forming a semi-circle around the vampeen and hounds, containing them. Everyone else was stumbling and running for the big doors on the other side, that led deeper into the bunker.

Alex pulled on her arm and she let herself be tugged into escaping, too, although in her heart, she was with the three trinities working to shield them. She suspected it was that way for everyone.

* * * * *

Beth landed heavily, her bruised foot twinging and Zack, who was on that side of her, staggered forward.

“Sorry,” she said automatically. She looked around the apartment. It was good to be home, even if it was for all the wrong reasons. When she eventually had the chance to sleep, which she suspected would not be for a long time yet, she knew she would sleep deeply, in her own bed with its familiar squeaks and softness.

Lindal moved straight over to the windows looking out over the roof balcony. It was snowing again. There was three inches of untouched snow on the balcony and the sight of it was vaguely reassuring. Then she realized that she felt reassured because the perfect snow cover meant no enemies were near.

She shivered.

Zack sighed gustily and looked at her. “I could help your foot heal,” he offered.

She shook her head. “I need the reminder. Besides, there’s too much to do.” She pulled out her cellphone. “Contact your trinities. We need a head count.”

Both Zack and Lindal pulled out their phones.

It was the start of a long three hours. Beth made at least one pot of coffee. Zack made more and perhaps Lindal even unbent enough to make some, because her coffee cup didn’t remain empty for long.

She talked herself hoarse, as she worked over a spreadsheet on the laptop on her knees, accounting for as many as she could. It was hard to establish who had escaped the bunker, because as soon as they had climbed the emergency stairs to the underground parking lot and stumbled up the ramp into the cold day, they had scattered. The trinities would have jumped away and the elves, too. The vampires, shifters and others who were not part of the trinities would have to escape on foot, or by car, if they had brought them.

Later phone calls confirmed that the elves were still feeling kindly enough to have taken some of those on foot with them when they jumped away, although Beth still had to track everyone down by phone and confirm who had escaped the bunker.

While she did that, Lindal scanned the news feeds on his computer, while Zack rolled through the cable channels on TV, hunting for more.

It only took forty minutes for the news to hit the local syndicates. This time it wasn’t just wild speculation that made the reporters resemble the worst sort of tabloid thrill seekers. This time they had images and that changed everything.

Beth froze, her phone in mid-air, as she watched the jerky images from a hand-held camera—possibly it was even a cell phone video taken by a witness and sold to the station. What the shaking camera revealed was undeniable. Smoke and dust poured out of the emergency stairwell and the elevator shaft and through hundreds of cracks in the base of the office building. That wasn’t all.