Zoey Avenger (Incubatti Series Book 2) (41 page)

“What the fuck is going on?” her best friend cried. “I’ve been fucking banging …” She stopped as her eyes feel to the blood and lifeless body. “Lyd set off the charge. We gotta go.” She reached for Zoey, visibly assessing Zoey’s wounds.

Zoey waved her away. “I’m fine. Grant needs help.” She tested her thigh. It hurt badly, but it held. Her gaze went to the body of Olivia. Zoey bent her good leg and snagged the hair on the back of Olivia’s lifeless head.

“You’re taking that?” Vikki asked, frowning. She hauled Grant up into a fireman’s carry.

“Yeah.” Zoey limped into the hallway, holding her midsection. Her leg shook.

“Out the back. Lyd’s blowing the building from the front.”

Zoey glanced at her bare wrist. The floor down one hallway quaked, so she went the opposite direction. Pain blazing and headache growing, she focused on returning the way they’d come. The hallway behind them began to quake and cave, and she ran as fast as her leg would let her, good arm around Vikki to help support Grant.

“Fuck!” Vikki muttered, careening into a wall.

Zoey yanked her in the direction she assumed they needed to go. Her flashlight was gone and she stretched her senses to guide them.

The floor pitched and threw them to the ground. Grant’s motionless body landed half on both of them. Grunting and dizzy, Zoey staggered to her feet and hauled him up. “Vikki!”

“I’m … good. Fuck!”

“We need a window. No way we’re making it out of here.”

Vikki shined her flashlight down the trembling hallway. “There!”

A door was outlined several feet down. Zoey took Grant’s arms while Vikki grabbed his legs. They made their way towards the door. Zoey smashed it open with her hip and looked around. It appeared to be an office. Furniture was covered in white sheeting while the window let in light from the floodlights. Lowering Grant to the ground, she raced to the window. The lock was jammed shut.

Zoey stepped back and drove the steel toe of her boot through the window before kicking several more times to clear out enough space to jump. She leaned out. “Two stories.”

“Better than four,” Vikki grunted. She dragged Grant to the window.

They looked towards the door at the sickening sound of the hallway outside caving in. In the window, they could hear the sounds of explosions and the building collapsing in on itself.

“Hope you can fly, Grant,” Zoey whispered and dragged the body onto the sill. “I can always break the fall.”

Vikki hefted Grant’s legs up. “Chrissy better get laid for this.”

“I’m sure they’ll … work it out.”

“Vacation?”

“Yeah. Where you going?” Zoey balanced herself carefully, not wanting to fling the human out the window or fall before she was ready.

“Liam wants to go to Ireland.”

“Isn’t it cold there?”

“Not during summer.”

“I’d rather go to the Bahamas.” The inane chatter helped distract her from the pain and fatigue of her shaking body.

“Declan will take you wherever you want. Count of three. One.”

The building beneath them collapsed several feet. Zoey’s back foot slipped. “Fuck!” She toppled out of the window, dragging Grant with her. Vikki went flying overhead.

Closing her eyes, Zoey hit the ground hard on her back, bracing Grant’s fall. She lay still, too stunned to move.

The building crumbled and imploded ten feet from her, spewing dust and rubble, along with chunks of concrete as the upper levels toppled.

“Gotcha!” Ginny shouted, snatching her arms.

Zoey watched the building fall as her friend dragged her – with Grant on top – away. Tiff hauled a half-conscious Vikki out of the way before both pushed Grant off her. Ginny checked the human to make sure he was okay before sitting back on her ass, muttering a few curses.

“Way too close,” she groaned.

It took a good minute for Zoey to be able to breathe again, and she sucked in a deep breath. “Oh, fuck,” Zoey rested her head back, content to rest for a moment while the ground shook from the impact of the building falling.

“He’s alive.” Ginny reported.

But is he okay? Zoey said nothing about what Olivia said. She rolled onto her side, realizing her fingers were still wound in Olivia’s hair. Disgusted but victorious, she managed to climb to her knees. Blood flowed down her body to the gravel beneath. Her whole body hurt from the fall, while the fire from wounds caused by Olivia left her nauseated. “I feel like shit.”

“Zoey is that …” Tiff drifted off, staring at what was clenched in Zoey’s hand.

“You gonna stuff and mount it?” Ginny asked, equally baffled.

Zoey managed a hoarse laugh, her body aching. “No. It’s … a gift.”

“You lost it, didn’t you.” Ginny shook her head.

Vikki crawled on her knees over to Zoey and flung her arms around her. Her best friend hauled her against her, smelling of sweat, blood and dust.

Zoey groaned.

“Shut up, Zoey,” Vikki grunted. “We survived another day.”

“But so many others didn’t.” Overwhelmed by the events of the week, Zoey didn’t fight the tears that filled her eyes.

“You see them?” Vikki tugged her around to face the pile of twenty Halflings in various stages of recovery a short distance away. “They’re alive because of you.”

Zoey’s heart ached. She said nothing. Vikki hugged her closer, and she closed her eyes, comforted by her friend. Ginny dropped beside them, followed by Tiff, and the two wrapped their arms around her and Vikki. Their heads met, and the four sat quietly.

“Everyone still think Team Rogue was the best idea ever?” Zoey joked weakly and wiped her eyes.

“Hell yeah,” all three chorused without hesitation.

“I love you guys.”

“And tomorrow we start it all again,” Ginny whispered. “Cambions got off easy today. We’ll have to make sure we fix that.”

Zoey sighed. “Yeah. Business as usual.” Except everything was different this time around. No longer living in the shadow of either society, with her soul-mate at her side, Zoey didn’t think anything was going to prevent her from wiping out the Cambions by the end of the year. “Thank god. No more of this political shit.”

“Hate to break this up, but I think Grant needs a hospital,” Vikki murmured.

“Can you guys walk?” Tiff asked.

“Yeah,” Zoey said.

The four moved apart. Zoey climbed to one knee. Her left leg, right arm and shoulder, and both sides hurt. “I might need a medic,” she said, dizziness making the world even less stable.

“Chrissy or a real medic?” Vikki joked.

Laughter bubbled up within Zoey. Overwhelmed, she waited for some drop of regret to enter her mind but felt only relief that they’d survived.

“Oh, shit, she heard that,” Vikki said and plucked the communications piece from her ear. “Gin, Tiff, let’s drag Grant up the hill.”

Zoey glanced at the Halflings. She lifted her wounded arm enough to signal them to regroup on the hill before giving the compound another look. Olivia’s words haunted her. The genetic experiments had been going on for a hundred years, which meant the program was exactly what Olivia claimed: part of the society and not her grotesque invention.

I won a battle but not the war, she said.

Declan’s response was swift. There’s always tomorrow, kitten.

Drained, Zoey turned away. She led the way away from the compound and up the hill, breathing hard and muscles screaming by the time she reached the top. Lydia met her and flung her arms around her.

“Next time, I get to go!” she whispered.

Zoey laughed and hugged her the best she could. “Have Wes teach you to drive first.”

Lydia grinned and shifted away to greet Vikki.

Chrissy was looking past Zoey

“He needs help,” Zoey said, knowing where the human was looking.

“You just had to blow up the guy I like.”

“Who dropped a grenade on me?”

Chrissy rolled her eyes then offered a warm smile, moving past Zoey.

Zoey glanced at the waiting members of the Incubatti, who kept their distance. The Professor was shaking his head at her bloodied, shredded appearance, while Paul and his Cambions huddled away from the others. Zoey blew them a kiss, a silent promise to kick their asses when she was recovered, before turning her attention to her soul-mate and the man beside him.

She limped to Ethan, shivering as the magic of the incubuses trickled into her system. At once, the headache subsided. Not certain what to say, she held up Olivia’s head and offered it to Ethan.

“I meant to bring us her head in a figurative sense, Zoey,” Declan said softly, emotionless.

“I don’t do figurative!” she shot back.

“Hell, I’ll take it.” Ethan stretched forward to accept the gruesome gift. His gaze was friendly, and he appeared unconcerned about the blood dripping onto his slacks. “Best gift from a daughter-in-law I could ever receive.”

Zoey smiled. The depth of his emotion was clear on his features, a combination of anger and sorrow. He stepped away to give the two of them space. She looked up at her soul-mate, at once caught in his gorgeous eyes.

He cupped one cheek and tugged her closer, resting his forehead against hers. “You’re beautiful, Zoey.”

“I’m a mess.”

“That, too,” he agreed, amusement and relief trickling past his façade.

Warm magic swept through her, easing her pain and igniting a fire at the base of her belly. The energy between them was raw. It shimmered with something new, something raw and consuming, powerful and amazing.

I love this. Zoey basked in the bond, astonished by how different it felt today from before. “Thank you for helping me,” she murmured.

“Anytime.”

“Grant needs a special doctor. Olivia injected him with shit.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Her eyes flickered to his full lips, and she resisted the urge to kiss him, uncertain what he considered civilized behavior in public. “What happens now?”

“My Council will stop hunting you down. The Sucubatti Council will likely do the same, assuming you hunt down Cambions from here on out.”

“I don’t care about that,” she said. “I mean, what happens now, between us?”

“You come home with me, and we fuck until one of us passes out.”

She chuckled. “And in the morning?”

“You do what you do best. As long as you’re in my bed every night, I don’t care.”

“I guess I made that promise.” She pretended to consider.

He lifted his head from hers, eyebrow raised.

“I’ve gotta take care of my team and then maybe I’ll have time for you.” A flare of sex magic in the air made her bite back a moan. He could make her come without touching her, a reminder she didn’t want to think about. She gave a mischievous smile. “Oh, and strike three. You’re forgiven.”

His features softened. “You’re serious.”

Zoey swallowed hard, the energy thrumming with promised passion between them. “Yeah. I am.”

“You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to hear those words.” The intensity of his look, the emotions he rarely shared within his gaze, made her tears well up.

Zoey backpedaled a few steps, not about to break down and cry in public, the way she felt like doing now. She wanted to crawl into his arms forever and heal with him, their bodies, souls and hearts pressed together once more. She wiped at her tears. “Tag, Declan. You’re it.”

“When I catch you this time, I’m not letting go.”

“I know.”

He smiled, desire spiraling through his eyes. “You get an hour head start.” Turning away, he strode back to his car.

Zoey watched him, grinning. With her heart full of hope that she’d soon have the best of both worlds, killing Cambions by day and lying naked with her soul-mate by night, she felt for the first time that she’d found the home and life she’d always hoped existed.

“I love you, Declan,” she whispered.

Tonight is the beginning of a new us. Start running, kitten.

She laughed, thrilled, and obeyed, darting to the van where her friends waited.