Zoey Avenger (Incubatti Series Book 2) (31 page)

The phone buzzed in her hand, and she glanced down.

Chrissy safe. Sending location. Come immediately. Ginny had typed.

“We need to go … west. Towards Reston,” Zoey said, tapping the location Ginny sent. “Hmm. Looks like one of the old training sites we used to use.”

“I know that area,” Vikki said. “We’re twenty minutes out.”

Zoey tapped her thigh nervously. “Got any food?”

“Backpack.” Vikki tossed her thumb over her shoulder to the backseat.

Zoey stretched to grab her small emergency pack and dug through it for protein bars and water. She downed three of the bars and a liter of water before they reached the darkened area Ginny indicated. The old training area had been closed down three years before due to the new building of extensive suburbs. The conservative Sucubatti viewed the area as too risky for Hunter training and shifted it elsewhere.

Five black vans and two cars were already waiting, with Ginny’s shape outlined against the fog lights of the vehicle she leaned against. Tiff and Chrissy got out of the other car, along with Grant. The rest of the Halflings were in small groups, and Zoey thought she heard several crying through the open window.

Assuming they heard about the missing fifteen and assume the worst, Zoey’s eyes slid to Grant. “What’s he doing here?”

“You notice how he’s never around when something good happens? It’s always bad?” Vikki asked uneasily.

“It’s kind of his job.”

“He’s like a doom-fairy.”

Zoey smiled tightly and opened the door, getting out.

“Zoey, I am so sorry!” Chrissy exclaimed, approaching first. Her eyes were wide, and she appeared exhausted.

“It’s okay, Chrissy,” Zoey said. “I’ve never been blown up before. It was interesting.”

Standing behind her, Ginny didn’t so much as crack a smile. Her features were haunted, tight, her eyes unfocused.

“Not sure which is weirder,” Zoey said, looking from Ginny to Grant. “What’s up, Gin?”

“Follow me.” Emotionally unresponsive, the Hunter pushed away from the car and began walking fast towards their former firing range.

Zoey trailed, eyeing Grant. “Chrissy,” she pulled the human abreast of her. “What’s he doing here?”

“Not sure. Ginny said to bring him.”

The early summer night was warm, and Zoey glanced around, senses alert for any sort of trap. Residual succubus magic tickled the back of her neck, as if several dozen succubae had walked this way within the past few hours. None remained, though she began to pick up the traces of more Halflings straight ahead.

Hundreds of them. Yet she heard nothing.

“Ginny, what’s going on?” Zoey asked, alarm building within her. “I can sense them but …” She strained, assuming her senses were too tired for her to pick up anything more than the sex energy.

“It’s just us now,” Ginny replied.

“It doesn’t seem like it.” The forest was quiet aside from their movement down a familiar trail lined with bricks. The path opened to the backside of the firing range ahead, and within five minutes, the shelters over firing pits were visible.

Zoey’s alarm grew. She pushed past the others to the front, her instincts screaming for reasons her fatigued mind couldn’t grasp.

“Zoey, wait!” Ginny said, grabbing at her arm.

She yanked free and ran towards the magic emanating off the Halflings she neither saw, heard, nor picked up on any other sense. An instinct tried to warn her, but she pushed it away, unable to believe Olivia capable of what her senses were trying to tell her.

Urgency at a wail, she sprinted through the props, old targets and other junk left behind when the range was abandoned, following her gut onto the field. Halfway across before a berm that stretched the width of the range, she slid to a halt, barely catching her balance before toppling into a gaping hole that took up the second half of the field.

“Careful!” she cried over her shoulder.

She glanced into the yawning hole and then back, every muscle in her body freezing in place.

The sex magic came from the hole whose depths were impossible to measure, if not for the moonlight glancing off arms, legs and bodies. Zoey took in what was before her with a detachment that signaled a looming meltdown, her eyes running the length and width of the mass grave. It was filled as far as she could see with the shapes of Halflings, whose deaths were recent enough for their magic to linger.

“Oh, god.” Chrissy’s soft gasp brought her attention back to those who joined her.

“From what I can tell, it’s all of them, except for those with me,” Ginny said in a hollow voice. “Not just ours. Every Halfling. There are too many to be anything else.”

Zoey crouched next to the grave, unable to piece two thoughts together let alone process what was in front of her. Her eyes traveled over the bodies she was able to see, judging the size of the grave, and finally decided Ginny was right.

There were hundreds of Halflings in the grave before her. With less than a thousand total in the Sucubatti society, it was either all of them or almost all. The meltdown she expected didn’t come. Instead, she experienced the warmth of her connection to Declan, the comfort and her exhaustion balancing out her normally violent emotional reaction. She released the wall she’d kept mentally between her and Declan, allowing more of his magic into her body.

Chrissy and several other Halflings were sobbing while the core members of Team Rogue remained utterly silent and still.

“They deserve better than this,” Zoey whispered at last. She felt coldly calm rather than enraged, a sensation foreign to her. She imagined that this was what it was like to be Declan: controlled, calculating, capable of thinking no matter what awful truth she faced.

Vikki knelt beside her, stunned into silence.

“Vikki …” Zoey trailed off, unable to summon the words to express what was in her mind. Her initial thought that all this was her fault was replaced by a new one.

If not for Team Rogue, no Halflings would’ve survived at all.

They sat together, gazing into the mass grave that marked a new era in their fight against Olivia.

“Zoey, as inappropriate as the timing is, I need to talk to you about your options,” Grant’s low voice was soft.

She blinked out of her disbelief and rose. “Options?”

He cleared his throat, nodding towards the mass grave. “How do you want them buried?”

Zoey’s jaw went lax. She’d never in her life considered her mortality let alone how she’d bury the Halflings she served with.

His eyes were warm, his expression softening. “The Incubatti burn their dead while the Sucubatti bury them, some in marked graves, others hidden. Whatever you decide, I’ll make it happen.”

It’s too soon. Zoey grappled with the panic and sorrow beginning to bubble forth. The Halflings were dead, but she didn’t feel able to let them go yet. Burying them felt like defeat, and she didn’t quite understand how to juggle the emotions.

Are you okay? Declan’s sultry whisper came across their soul connection. It moved through her, softening her fear and warming her.

“There are so many,” she said, overwhelmed. “I think … bury them.”

Without waiting for more, Grant pulled out his cell and trotted to the top of the berm, disappearing down the other side.

“If Olivia’s smart, she planted scouts,” Vikki said.

“We aren’t splitting up again,” Zoey said. “At least, not before the core Rogue members talk. No Halfling will go anywhere without one of us from here on out.”

Vikki nodded and turned away. Tears glimmered in her eyes, but she swiped them away and signaled the remaining members of Team Rogue to follow her.

Left in silence with her thoughts, Zoey crouched once more. “I’m not okay,” she replied to Declan in a quiet voice. “I think you should see this.”

There was a brief silence, followed by, Give me an hour.

Zoey released her breath, unable to summon her anger and afraid that when she did, she’d go on a suicide mission to slaughter every last Sucubatti member there was without any semblance of a plan.

Uncertain exactly what she expected Declan to do, she hoped this was enough for him to find a way to sever the alliance between Olivia and Paul, to give her a shot at cleaning out the Sucubatti and finishing one battle before taking on the Cambions.

Zoey sat with her legs hanging over the edge of the mass grave, sensing the magic of the dead Halflings as it began to disperse and then permanently fade. Closing her eyes, she let the last wisps of their life forces weave in and out of her, dancing with her magic, the only real farewell she knew how to give them.

Declan’s magic reached her a moment before Vikki’s footfalls fell behind her.

“Uh, Z, you expecting visitors?” Vikki called.

“I’m expecting one.”

“He brought a couple of friends.”

“Shit. Who?” Ready to be angry with him again, Zoey climbed to her feet and joined Vikki at the top of the berm.

The Halflings grew silent and made way for Declan, who didn’t spare them a single look. Showing no sign of being electrocuted hours before, he walked with confidence and strength that made her stomach flutter, his stoic features chiseled from golden marble and hazel eyes glowing in the light of car headlights. Infatuated by him, it took Zoey a moment to realize who was with him. Three of his brothers had accompanied him: Aiden, Tommy, the gentle giant and Ginny’s soul-mate, and Liam. Even if restrained, the four radiated sex energy that would suffocate her in an enclosed space and made every one of the Halflings take on dreamy looks.

Normally, Zoey would offer some smart ass comment about Declan needing the cavalry.

No part of her was able to summon a snarky remark. Before he reached her, she stepped aside and returned down the berm to the edge, gazing once more into its depths.

Declan joined her, his heat making her want to inch closer until her skin was pressed to his. She welcomed the intrusion of his magic this night, needing him to calm her. Sensing the thought, he lifted his palm to hers and interlaced their fingers. The current of his magic moved through her, familiar and comforting yet torture in the way it uprooted her determination to get to know him instead of toppling with him into bed, the way she had during their rite.

I want to trust him. Zoey glanced at their clasped hands with some uncertainty then up at his features, afraid at letting down her guard with the man who caused more pain than she’d ever experienced in her life. The lingering agony of what she’d been through couldn’t stop the flutter of her heart or the nervous anticipation, the combination of desire and yearning, she felt whenever she was near him.

His focus was on the trench. He’d gone from cool to cold, emotionless and tense.

Zoey pulled her mind from her body’s reaction to Declan. “Olivia,” she said. “We think we’re the only survivors, which means over eight hundred of them are here.”

“Why?” Aiden’s question was tight. “What sense does it make to kill off the Halflings?”

“And I pissed her off,” Zoey added.

“This isn’t your fault, Zoey or that of anyone on Team Rogue.” Declan’s response was sharp. “This is politics. Olivia’s been keeping her cards close. This overt act is the sign of her plan shifting and unfortunately confirms what we figured out earlier.”

Zoey listened, comforted by the way his sultry voice slid through her.

“Olivia is working on creating a utopia of sorts, one filled by succubae and the Cambions they need to reproduce. There’s no room for Halflings or incubuses or anyone else that might oppose her.”

That’s insane. “It doesn’t matter what she’s doing. I’m going to kill her and the rest of the Sucubatti Council.”

Declan shifted and caught the attention of his brothers. He tossed his head towards the parking area. They left, trailed by Vikki.

“You won’t talk me out of it,” she told him before he could object.

“I have no intention of talking you out of taking out Olivia,” Declan replied. “You make things right. It’s what you do.” He paused, indecision on his features. “It’s also what the Incubatti Council wants, but they’re unwilling to openly state so.”

“I fucking hate politics.”

“I know.” His energy buffered her from the horrors of the trench nearby, but the lingering magic of Halflings compelled to the edge.

Speechless once more, Zoey stared into the dark hole, at a loss as to how it would ever be possible to right this wrong.

“Zoey, it’s not your fault.” Declan was quieter.

“I was so fixated on Cambions, I didn’t see this coming,” she whispered. “The idea she would hurt loyal Halflings never once crossed my mind.”

He squeezed her hand and stood with her in silence. Zoey grappled with the reality of the mess she was in, of how depraved her real enemy was. Olivia made the Cambions look like domesticated house pets instead of the monsters they were.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Declan, I can’t understand how anyone could do this.”

“We are both stepping into something that’s been going on for at least a hundred years. I don’t think The War ended anything. I think the struggle simply went underground.”