Zoe's Blockade (Destiny's Trinities Book 5) Read Free Page A

fighters in some supernatural army?”
    “Cole…” Zoe said softly. She was warning him in her gentle way to keep a civil tongue in his head.
    He sighed and tried again. “I don’t believe in monsters, Mr. Savage.”
    “Cole,” Zoe said, more sharply.
    He looked up at her. She was standing at the corner of the counter and she was tense. “I believe him,” she said quietly.
    Cole laughed. “You don’t even like horror movies!”
    “I don’t,” she said calmly, “because I think they’re silly, not because I don’t believe in monsters.”
    Cole stared at her, trying to get his mind around the fact that his wife, who was the calmest and sanest person he had ever met, was professing to believe all this mystical nonsense.
    “Diego,” she said softly. “Perhaps, just once, would you mind showing your fangs?”
    Diego hung his head for a moment. “In the name of saving time, sure.” He lifted his top lip in a snarl.
    Cole stared as two long, pointed teeth descended from the gum line above Diego’s normal teeth. He watched them descend. They weren’t a prosthetic, or fake things worn over the other teeth. They grew , right as he watched them.
    He swallowed.
    The fangs withdrew as smoothly as they had extended and Diego stopped snarling.
    “Vampires don’t like to show their fangs,” Zoe said. “For them, it’s a bit like being naked, all mixed up with sex and procreation.”
    Cole stared at her, amazed that Zoe was speaking these words with the same calm gentleness she used to speak of grocery lists and canning produce for the cold cellar. “How do you know that?” he asked, the question only occurring to him after his amazement faded.
    “Remember I told you I was a bounty hunter when I lived in the States?” she asked.
    He nodded. “Yeah. Bail enforcement agent. You worked with bail bondsmen in California.”
    She shook her head. “I was a hunter, only I didn’t hunt human fugitives.”
    Cole turned to look at the man, the thing, called Diego. It shook its head. “Vampires haven’t been on the hunting lists for centuries,” Diego said shortly. “We’re hunters ourselves, now. It suits our natural talents.”
    “You’re…a monster,” Cole said slowly.
    “The real monsters are out there,” Diego said, nodding toward the windows. “Which is why I need you to move past all your shock and indignation about your wife hiding her real past. Accept that vampires are real. So are lots of other things that go bump in the night and the really nasty ones are all around your house, waiting for nightfall.”
    Cole gripped his coffee mug. “So I could gut you with my hunting knife and you’d live anyway?”
    “I’d get pissed and I would bleed all over your kitchen and it would waste another few minutes. You have to focus, Cole.”
    He blinked. “How am I supposed to believe you?”
    “Drive down to the bridge. Try to drive over it,” Diego said. “Only, take a gun with you.”
    “I don’t have a gun,” Cole said. “What’s out there?”
    “Go and see,” Diego said impatiently. “Go on. I’ll wait. Just…be careful. Don’t get too close. They ripped the sides out of my car.”
    Cole stared at him, weighing it up. He settled, as he usually did, on the side of action first. He got to his feet.
    “Cole, no,” Zoe protested, jumping to her feet. “You don’t know what they’re like. They’ll kill you.”
    “I have to see for myself,” he said.
    Zoe followed him to the front door. Her face was pale. “You don’t understand this world,” she said softly. “They’re more than your average bear.”
    He pulled on his coat and zipped it up over his bare chest and shoved his feet into the open tops of his boots. He didn’t bother with the laces. He wouldn’t be going far.
    He dug the truck keys out of the pocket of his coat and touched Zoe’s cheek. “It’ll be fine,” he told her.
    As he opened the door, righteousness filled him. This was the smart move. This would dispense