Zoe's Blockade (Destiny's Trinities Book 5) (12 page)

“That burning oil smell?” Blake said. “It’s lying in it.”

“Let me get at him,” Declan said firmly. “Let me see.”

The sound of creatures crashing through the trees at a great pace came all around them. Zoe whirled.

“They’re coming!” Diego cried and fired off his pistol. Zoe heard a heavy body land. She was already firing her own pistol, the spare clip in her left hand, ready to slap in.

There were dog-like creatures and more human types that ran on two legs. Both of them had inhuman faces. Their crooked, sharply pointed teeth were bared as they rushed them.

The others pressed in front of Zoe, shielding her.

Declan tugged on her arm. “Help me get him out from among the bushes. I have reach him.”

Zoe stared at him. Even in the heat of battle, he was focused upon helping those in need.

She whirled again as someone cried out. She wasn’t used to her enhanced vision and blinked to make sense of what she was seeing. Zack was on his back, his arms up and his hands around the neck of one of the hound creatures, which was snapping at his face with its vicious teeth.

As she looked, Diego squeezed, growling with the effort. The hound slumped and grew still and he tossed it away.

Shadows pushed into the space that had opened up when Diego had fallen. They raced through the weak spot. Everyone on the perimeter was fighting off more of them.

The big hounds came straight at Cole, who was nearest. They leapt up and he fired the gun into the face of the closest. It was thrown aside by the impact of the bullets.

The second landed on Cole’s chest, knocking him down. More black shapes rushed toward him.

“Declan!” Zoe screamed. She shot the nearest hound, then kicked at it, trying to get the body out of her way. She had to reach Cole.

Declan spun around from the wounded Grimoré, his eyes wide.

Zoe started to kick and hit the creatures around Cole. She fired her last bullet into the nearest head, reloaded and started hauling. She forgot to guard her back. She didn’t care.

There was a high whistling sound as a heavy branch from the nearest tree whipped through the air, almost as if it was sweeping a table clear. The hounds and vampeen trying to get to Cole were slapped away and sent rolling and sprawling, one of them whimpering in pain.

Zoe looked up, startled.

A slender man or woman was standing just beside the trunk of the tree. There was another on the other side of the trunk, hauling back on the limb of the tree with more strength than such a slight creature could be expected to have. They looked directly at her, then let the branch go. It whipped through the air just as the first one had. More of the vampeen were swept away.

The first lithe creature sprang over to where Cole laid and tried to haul on his shoulder. So did Zoe. She picked up his arm and dragged him to the tree the little man had been standing next to.

A vampeen leapt at her with a snarl of teeth and she dropped Cole’s arm and fired calmly, dropping it to the ground.

Declan was staring at her, frozen. Then he straightened with a jerk and pointed. “Behind you!” he yelled.

Then, abruptly, he wasn’t there anymore.

She heard an odd coughing sound behind her and whirled.

Declan was there and there was a vampeen at his feet. As she looked, he reached out and touched the second one on the shoulder as it leapt toward her. It dropped to the ground as though it had been clubbed and lay still.

Declan lifted his hands and looked at them. Horror formed in his face.

“Hurry! Around them!” someone shouted.

The trinities coalesced around them once more, a barrier against the vampeen.

Declan dropped to his knees next to Cole. “Let me see,” he said, trying to pull Cole’s hands away from his stomach.

“Why are they backing off?” Diego cried.

“They know their work is done,” Declan said bitterly.

Cole was breathing in harsh little pants. As the forest grew still around them, the creatures moving back into the shadows, Cole moaned in pain.

Zoe kneeled next to him and looked at Declan. “Help him.”

Declan closed his eyes. “His liver is gone,” he whispered.

Zoe knew what that meant. No one could survive without a liver.

Diego crouched next to them.

So did the red-headed man. “Seal the trinity. Now, before it’s too late,” he said urgently. “You’ve joined in body already, haven’t you?’

Zoe stared at him, just barely putting together his meaning.

“Yes, they have,” Diego said firmly. He picked up Zoe’s wrist and pulled his upper lip back. His fangs descended.

The red-head picked up Declan’s. “I don’t even know if this will work on you,” he said to Declan.

“What are you doing…oh!” Zoe breathed as Diego bit into her wrist. She could feel him tearing the skin back. It didn’t hurt because all she could feel was overwhelming lust. She wanted to fuck him…anyone…
someone
. Her body screamed for physical release.

Distantly, she felt Diego tugging on her wrist.

“Drink,” he said and pressed something against her lips.

She refocused. It was Declan’s wrist he was holding, while the other vampire was pushing her wrist toward Declan. She could see blood dripping from her wrist. Declan’s, though, showed an open wound, with only darkness beyond.

“I don’t know how this works, yet it must,” Diego said. “Put your mouth on it and draw whatever you can into your mouth. Then you must swallow it.”

She tried. Declan’s flesh was still not-hot, not-cold. She put her lips over the small break in his skin and sucked. Her eyes widened. There was nothing in her mouth. She could feel that. Yet at the same time, there was
something
there. She swallowed, even though there was nothing to swallow. She felt it move back into her throat and pass downward.

Diego was watching her closely.

“There
was
something,” she said.

“Now Cole,” he said. “You’ll have to guide him. He must drink from both of you, before he fades.”

Her arousal was diminishing. Pain in her wrist helped her focus.

Declan was drawing her blood into his mouth.

The red-haired vampire was biting into Cole’s wrist. “Sorry,” he murmured to Cole. He brought the bleeding wrist up to Declan. “Cole, too,” he said.

Declan nodded.

“Give your wrist to Cole,” Diego told her. “Make him drink.”

She dropped down lower, so that she was right next to Cole’s head. His panting had dropped to shallow breaths and he was watching her with pain-filled eyes. Zoe touched his cheek, hiding her own despair. “You must drink this. Just a sip, Cole. Then we can take care of you.”

He tried to speak. The only sound that emerged was a formless one of pain.

Zoe blinked back her tears furiously and pressed her wrist against his lips. “Drink,” she whispered. “Two little sips and this will all be over. Even the pain.”

His lips moved weakly against hers.

“I don’t think he has the strength,” she whispered, fear blossoming in her.

“I can fix that, temporarily. Make it fast when he rouses,” the red-haired man said. He picked Cole up and tilted his head to one side, then bit down into his neck.

Cole’s eyes widened and he moaned. It wasn’t a sound of pain, but of a man deep in the throes of passion.

“Quickly,” Diego directed her.

Startled, Zoe pressed her wrist up against Cole’s mouth once more. She felt him drawing in her blood, in a deep sip. “And swallow,” she reminded him.

His throat worked.

“Declan,” Diego said, with a snap in his voice.

Declan put his wrist against Cole’s mouth. “Drink, Cole,” he breathed.

Zoe could see his throat moving as he swallowed whatever essence it was that they had drawn from Declan’s spirit.

“Now you,” Diego said, bringing Cole’s dripping wrist toward her. “Last one, then it’s my turn.”

“Your turn?”

“He’s being euphemistic,” the other vampire said. “Quickly. There’s not much time.”

The urgency in his voice was unmistakable. Zoe sucked, drawing Cole’s blood. She swallowed quickly.

“It’s done?” she asked. “The bond is sealed?”

Howling broke out all around them, along with more inhuman sounds. It seemed as though every dark creature among the trees gave throat to a scream of protest.

Diego grinned. “What do you think?”

“Jump! Jump!” Seaveth cried. “Before they attack again. Take as many as you can!”

“Take the body!” Declan shouted, leaping to his feet. He hurried over to the prone Grimoré and tugged on the feet. “We must take it.”

Around them, the air shivered as many, many more people appeared among the trees and all around them. They wore cloaks, the hoods up. One landed almost right next to Zoe. She saw big eyes, that reminded her of Lindal and Sera.

The man put his arms around her and she felt him strain upwards. The trees and the thick night air vanished and were replaced by a large room with concrete walls and floor and nothing else in it.

There were dozens of the hooded men in the room, each with an arm around one of the people who had been in the forest with them.

Even Cole was in the arms of one of them and now, in this normal, bright light, she could see the great wound that had torn up his torso, almost all the way up to the top of his chest.

Diego grabbed the arm of the one carrying Cole. “This way. Quickly. Hurry up.” He pulled the cloaked man out of the room.

The rest of the cloaked men were vanishing, jumping away again. Zoe turned to look at the one that had brought her here. He was already gone.

“That’s elves for you,” Seaveth said with a smile. “Silent efficiency.”

“Where are they taking Cole?” Zoe demanded.

Declan appeared next to her and looked around. “Woah!” He put his hand out, as if he was trying to balance.

Seaveth looked at him curiously.

“So, there is a limitation to where I can go, after all,” he told her.

“You’re in New York. It’s not a very tight limit,” Seaveth said.

“Zoe is here. So is Cole. That’s my limit,” he said. “As soon as you all disappeared, I was pulled back to the house. Then I could
feel
Zoe, pulling me here….” He looked around. “Where is Cole?”

Seaveth gave them both a warm smile. “You won’t be able to see him for a while. He will be fine, though.”

Zoe pressed her lips together.
My turn next
, Diego had said.

“He just won’t be human any more, will he?” she said.

Seaveth’s smile faded. “No. Cole’s time as a human is at an end.”

Declan sighed. “We saved the trinity?”

“We did,” she agreed. “I don’t know if this will give you any comfort at all. It seems the force that arranges the trinities, that anticipated the coming of the Grimoré, also predicted this would happen, too. There is always at least one vampire in every trinity and I thought yours was the anomaly. I didn’t know how you would seal the bond…yet it seems you have ended up exactly where you should be.”

She waved toward the doors at the end of the room. “Come. We have food, fresh clothing and showers. It’s time to meet the other trinities.”

Zack’s kiss on her cheek caught Beth mid-yawn, disrupting it completely. “Bed time, sleepyhead,” he said, picking up her hand. “You’ve righted the world, saved the trinities and reunited the lovers. The war will still be here when you wake up tomorrow.”

“There’s something bothering you, isn’t there?” Lindal asked. He was standing at the window, watching wet snow slide down the glass and melt.

Beth sighed. It had been a busy night. They had introduced Zoe and Declan to everyone, while Diego had whipped Cole away to an isolated place where he could ease him through the transition to vampire. Zoe had looked pale while they explained to her what they were doing, but as she had been surrounded by vampires at the time and had been in the business once herself, she didn’t raise the sort of objections a human coming in cold might have done.

Declan had merely shrugged. “Cole and Zoe can handle me being what I am. I’m the last one to scream about Cole not being human anymore.”

Wyatt and Alexander had pulled Beth over to a spare table in the dining room not long after that. Wyatt had a map of North America that he spread out on the table in front of her. “I took some time off hunting the bastards and did some hard thinking instead,” Wyatt said and glanced up at Alex, who smiled and rested his hand on Wyatt’s shoulder.

Wyatt leaned over the map. “I talked to the shifter…Gilbert, the bear soul from the north that Diego brought in.”

Beth nodded.

“He’s very old. Older than he looks,” Wyatt added. “He’s got a lot of memories. But it’s the recent stuff he recalls that was interesting.” He spread his hand over the map. “I think the Grimoré are only in North America.”

“That’s something we’ve suspected for a while,” Beth said. “None of the hunters in other countries have reported anything suspicious and after all these years they know what to look for.” She was in endless communication with the worried groups in Europe and Asia and in the south, too.

“I think there’s a reason they haven’t spread too far,” Wyatt said. He tapped the map again. “I talked to Sera and Lindal tonight, too. They told me some interesting things about the bridge between the elven world and ours. Did you know that if you can’t teleport the way elves can do, when you come across the bridge, you land in the same place on Earth every single time?”

“Where?” Alex asked curiously.

“Southern France,” Wyatt said.

“Lucky. It could have been in the middle of the Pacific,” Alex murmured.

“Anyway, as everyone using
that
bridge can teleport, they can emerge from the bridge and jump to wherever they want, so it doesn’t make a lick of difference to the elves.”

“But the Grimoré can’t teleport,” Beth breathed.

Wyatt pointed to her. “Right.” He tapped the map again. “I used an old hunter thing. I tracked sightings and reports, every single incident, and put them on the map.” He took his hand away. “The lighter colors are older sightings. Darker are more recent. Can you see the pattern?”