Zoe's Blockade (Destiny's Trinities Book 5) (13 page)

Beth studied the map. She put her fingers over New York. “It started right here.”

Wyatt nodded. “I think the Grimoré bridge to Earth is somewhere in New York state.”

Alex blew out his breath. “Hell’s bells, if we could shut down the gate…”

Beth frowned, staring down at the map. “They went north and south and west…they scattered. Look, they’re everywhere.”

“That was something that Gilbert pointed out to me,” Wyatt said. He put both hands around the big cloud of crosses and check marks, right at the top of the map. “The sightings stop here, south of the Arctic circle. Then they start moving south again. That’s why Gilbert was pushing south. He was running ahead of them.” Wyatt sat back. “It’s October. Winter is coming in,” he added.

Beth sat back, too. “They don’t like the cold.”

“No, they don’t like it at all,” Wyatt agreed, smiling. “So now we know why they’ve moving and where they’re heading.”

“South,” Beth said, feeling a surge of deep satisfaction.

That had been the last big revelation in a night filled with them. Beth looked at Zack and Lindal now, feeling the edge of excitement touch her again, despite her tiredness.

“I keep thinking about how precisely this whatever-it-is seems to have anticipated everything that happens,” she told them. “Gilbert’s wisdom. Wyatt’s map. A possible location for the bridge the Grimoré are using to get here. Cole’s death. That he would be turned and would become the vampire of the trinity. That Declan would refuse to fight and we would find our doctor in him.”

Lindal nodded. “Are you going to let him autopsy the Grimoré we found?”

“There’s no harm that can come from it,” Beth said, “and we might just learn something useful. So yes, I will, once we’ve all recovered and put tonight far behind us. I know no one said anything, yet Cole’s death impacted every trinity. I could see it in their faces.”

“I felt it, too,” Zack murmured. “If we had not sealed the trinity first, if we hadn’t been able to turn him, we would have been permanently weakened. It was like having a prop pulled out from under us. We were, for a little while there, all balancing on one leg.”

“Instead, we now have a healer for the Elves—that’s Sera—and a doctor for the humans.” Lindal leaned his shoulder against the window and tried to look superior. “It seems fitting the vampires are left to fend for themselves.”

Zack snorted. “You mean, we aren’t vulnerable like you and humans,” he said shortly.

Lindal just raised his brow. “If you want to comfort yourself with that, go ahead.”

Zack rolled his eyes and looked at Beth. “I see you still don’t have a name for the whatever-it-is.”

“I do. I just feel silly saying it aloud,” Beth admitted.

They both looked at her.

She sighed again. They would pull it out of her if she didn’t ‘fess up now. “I keep thinking about how it’s all encompassing, this thing that arranges the trinities and knew the Grimoré were coming in the first place. It’s never tried to communicate with us, yet it’s using us just the same. It seems to be all over the world. So maybe it
is
the world, battling to preserve itself and everyone on it, any way it can, against the Grimoré invasion.”

“The world?” Zack said, sounding amused.

Lindal shook his head. “No, our world is the same. It has an intelligence, one that arranges things when it needs to. We don’t understand it, yet we know it is there. Earth could be the same, stirred from slumber by a threat only it knows how to deal with.”

“Earth…” Zack said flatly, still sounding skeptical.

“Gaia?” Lindal suggested.

“Or Terra,” Beth added. “Whatever her name, she’s on our side and she knows what she is doing.”

* * * * *

When Zoe opened the door, Brady pushed his hands deep into his pockets. Awkwardness was coming off him in waves. “Zoe,” he said carefully.

“Hi, Brady. Come in.” She stepped aside.

He moved into the house and looked around. “You said to come over at seven,” he said.

“That’s right. Relax, Brady. We’re not going to eat you. Cole is in the living room. Come through.” She led the way.

Cole got to his feet as they came in. He didn’t smile at Brady. “I’m glad you came,” he said sincerely.

“You look great,” Brady said. “Better than that. Zoe said you had been ill.”

“I’ve been off-color for a few weeks,” Cole said. “This week, for the first time, I feel normal again. Almost,” he added, with a little quirk of his mouth.

Zoe smothered her smile. The last few weeks had been stress-filled, as Cole had learned to deal with his new vampire nature and the overwhelming urges and needs that came with it. Zoe’s human presence had not helped. It was Declan’s undead yet semi-corporeal presence that had the most calming effect on Cole and the two of them had spent most of the last few weeks locked up, talking things through and sometimes physically hashing out Cole’s urges.

Slowly, Cole had been able to spend more and more time in Zoe’s company without wanting to eat her. The bonding had been mostly responsible for his fast adaptation to vampire life. The bonding…and his drive to be with them both.

“I can’t stand not having you both with me,” he had declared. “I just got to have the two of you, now I can’t…I’m going crazy.”

None of that hard fought-for victory showed in Cole’s face as he looked at Brady now. “Have a seat,” he told him.

Brady stayed on his feet. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I have to confess…I don’t remember everything that happened last time I was here. I remember some of it, though and that’s enough to make me want to puke.”

“You
did
puke,” Cole said mildly. “All over the antique Persian rug upstairs.”

Brady’s face turned bright red. “I sorta remember…” He sighed. “Send me the cleaning bill.”

“Already have,” Cole replied. “What
do
you remember?”

“I remember…did I take a shot at you? I mean, did I
actually
fire a gun?”

Cole didn’t answer. Neither did Zoe.

Brady let his head roll back. “Shit on a stick,” he said, with a heavy sigh.

“Sit down, Brady. Sit,” Cole said firmly. “Let’s deal with this once and for all.”

“I don’t know that I can sit, all civilized like that,” Brady said honestly. “I feel like a jackass.”

“You
are
a jackass,” Declan said from the doorway.

Zoe held her breath.

Brady spun to look at him, almost wheezing in surprise. His face, still red from his embarrassment, drained of color, turning a sickly gray around the edges. “Declan,” he croaked.

Cole moved. Zoe had never seen him move so fast before yet she had seen other vampires moving at top speed, so she wasn’t alarmed when she couldn’t see him properly. He picked Brady up and dumped him in the armchair. “Told you to sit,” he said shortly and went back to his chair.

Brady gulped air, his fist against his chest. He couldn’t take his eyes off Declan. “You’re alive.”

Declan jumped, reappearing in front of Declan’s chair. “Nope,” he said softly.

Declan gasped again, his eyes bugging. “Oh dear god,” he breathed. “I remember stuff from that day. None of it made sense and I figured I was so drunk I remembered it wrong. Strange stuff….” He sounded on the verge of panic.

“Shh… It’s okay,” Declan said soothingly. He picked up Brady’s hand and held it. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

Brady looked at his hand, where Declan held it. “How can you do that? Aren’t you…a…?”

“Ghost? Because of Cole and Zoe and some other things, I’m more than a ghost, now.”

Brady’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Declan,” he said hoarsely. “It’s so good to see you.”

Declan patted his cheek. “I’d say the same about you, big brother, only you’ve been fucking around with my friends.” He moved over to the sofa, where Cole and Zoe sat and sank onto the cushions between them. He picked up Zoe’s hand. “I want you to stop contesting my will.”

Brady swallowed. “This house belongs to the family.
Your
family.”

“Cole and Zoe are my family. My extended family is much bigger than that. You, Brady, Carol and Jess and our cousins and uncles and aunts…you can be part of that, or not. It’s going to be up to you.”

“If I give up the house,” Brady guessed, his voice bitter.

“Hear me, Brady,” Declan said, his voice low. “If you insist on taking the house and fighting Cole and Zoe for it, you’ll never see me again. If you win and get the house, then toss Cole out, you’ll be forcing me to leave, too. Not because I’m that much of an asshole, but because where Cole and Zoe go, I have to go with them. If you send them away, you’ll be sending me away, too.”

Brady stared at him. He was pulling himself together, thinking things through. “The three of you are together,” he said flatly.

“Forever,” Cole said shortly. “We’re bound in ways you can’t understand.”

“Try me,” Brady shot back.

Declan shook his head. “Not yet. Brady, you’ve spent your life preserving the family and this town. What if I said that they’re both being threatened right now, by forces you can’t even imagine?”

Brady stared at him, thinking hard. “The white-faced man. That was real, wasn’t it?” he breathed.

Declan nodded.

Brady swore. “He twisted my thoughts up.
Deliberately
. He had me so ready to kill you, Cole….” He shook his head. “That’s the threat?” he said shortly.

“A fragment of the threat,” Declan said. “Cole and Zoe and I…we’re part of the defense against that threat. Work with us, Brady. You know everyone of influence in this town. We can work quietly, arranging things so that no one is alarmed, so life can go on, yet still protect everyone here.”

Brady let out a long slow breath. “How?”

* * * * *

When Brady had gone, Declan came back to the living room where Zoe and Cole waited. He was smiling. “I told you he’d be able to handle it.”

“You realize he’s going to have your mother and every cousin and aunt and uncle here over the next few weeks, to see you?” Cole pointed out.

Declan shrugged. “If it helps convince them the Grimoré are real and the vampeen are coming, I can live with that.” He grinned. “So to speak.” He picked up Zoe’s hand and lifted her to her feet. “You’ve been very quiet, my love.”

She stared at him, her heart beating. “What did you say?”

“You’ve been very quiet.”

She thumped his shoulder, then smoothed her hand over it. It still floored her that she could touch him in that way, that he was solid and real…
almost
real.

“Of course I love you,” Declan said roughly. “I have loved you for as long as I can remember. Only now I can say it. At last.”

Cole got to his feet and Declan pulled him roughly into the circle of his arms, too.

“You had to die to say it. Ironic, isn’t it?” Cole said.

“So did you, you fanged jock,” Declan pointed out.

“Do you mind, Cole?” Zoe asked diffidently. It had been weighing on her mind for a while now. “No one stopped to ask you anywhere in the panic if you wanted to be turned.”

“I would have said yes, anyway.” Cole shrugged. “Death, or a life undead with the two of you in it? It wasn’t even a question for me.”

Declan kissed him, then Zoe. “Nor me. I don’t know what I did to deserve ending up with both of you. I do know I will spend the rest of my time working off the debt and I’ll do it with pure gratitude.”

This is not Octavia’s war.
In the deserts of northern Mexico, Octavia has been fighting her own sneaky war against the cartels, while ignoring her growing feelings for
Ángel,
the son of the cartel’s leader.
Ángel
Garcia hates his family and the family business with a passion. Until he can find a way out of the life he hides how he feels about anything or anyone.
When Bear Dawson, an American businessman, is executed by
Ángel’s
crazy brother,
Ángel
and Octavia are forced to run for their lives into the desert, where they are found by a man called Remmy, who has lived for two hundred years. Remmy tells them of the Grimoré who make Octavia’s war seem puny.
The bonding has begun….
This is the sixth book in Tracy Cooper-Posey’s explosive urban fantasy series that reviewers have called s
exy, dramatic and dangerous. Grab your copy today!
Warning: This short MMF vampire romance features two super-hot alpha heroes, multiple sex scenes, including anal sex, MM sexual play, and MMF sex. Do not read this book if frank sexual language and sex scenes offend you.
No non-humans were harmed except for large numbers of Grimoré, who died with satisfactory squeals…
This book is part of the Destiny’s Trinities series:
Book 1.0: Beth’s Acceptance
Book 2.0: Mia’s Return
Book 3.0: Sera’s Gift
Book 3.5: The First Trinity – Novellas 1-3
Book 4.0: Cora’s Secret
Book 5.0: Zoe’s Blockade
Book 6.0: Octavia’s War
Book 6.5: The Second Trinity – Novellas 4-6
Book 7.0: Terra's Victory
A Vampire Ménage Urban Fantasy Romance
___
Readers’ praise for the Destiny’s Trinities series
:
I literally stayed up until the early morning hours to finish the book because I couldn't put it down.
You can’t help but get caught up in the forces pulling at these three people and drawing them together.
Tracy does a great job of making us fall in love with the characters in a short amount of time.
I dare you to read just one [in this series].
You will enjoy the chemistry, mystery, things that go bump in the night, and chemistry – yeah, I listed chemistry first AND last – for a reason.

Get your copy of
Octavia’s War
now:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KSP53MQ

Tracy Cooper-Posey is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author. She writes romantic suspense, paranormal, urban fantasy, futuristic and science fiction romances. She has published over 65 novels since 1999, been nominated for five CAPAs including Favourite Author, and won the Emma Darcy Award.
She turned to indie publishing in 2011. Her indie titles have been nominated four times for Book Of The Year and
Byzantine Heartbreak
was a 2012 winner.
Faring Soul
won a SFR Galaxy Award in 2016 for “Most Intriguing Philosophical/Social Science Questions in Galaxybuilding” She has been a national magazine editor and for a decade she taught romance writing at MacEwan University.
She is addicted to Irish Breakfast tea and chocolate, sometimes taken together. In her spare time she enjoys history, Sherlock Holmes, science fiction and ignoring her treadmill. An Australian, she lives in Edmonton, Canada with her husband, a former professional wrestler, where she moved in 1996 after meeting him on-line.