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

It was the seventeenth time in eight weeks Zoey awoke some place she wasn’t supposed to be with no memory of how she got there – or why she’d decided to kill someone. Because that’s how it always happened. She woke up next to a dead body.

With some dread, she sat up and looked around. Her lucky knife was in one hand, covered with blood too gummy to be fresh.

Shoving it into a sheath, she gripped her head at the massive ache in her temples and tried to orient herself. The pain was fading, and her mind cleared quickly once the blackout released her from its grip. Alarm replaced her grogginess, and she shot up, anxious to find out what she’d done this time.

“One body,” she observed and then craned her head back to look up at the white obelisk a few dozen yards behind her. “Washington Monument.” The landmark in the heart of Washington, DC, was illuminated. The grassy park around it was dark, aside from the well-lit walkways traversed by tourists during daylight.

Relieved she at least knew where she was, Zoey’s attention went to the man on his belly ten feet away. His back rose and fell steadily, a sign she hadn’t killed him. She usually woke up next to a dead Cambion, known in her world as a half-incubus, but this man didn’t radiate the erratic sex magic of one.

She knelt, unsettled to see the damage she’d done and his size. Blood pooled around him and ran down his back from the wounds she’d put there.

He wasn’t the only one bleeding at the moment. With some unease, she evaluated her condition. There was a puncture wound in her shoulder, one in her side, and blood flowed down the back of one thigh from a wound she couldn’t see. The pain was distant, and she understood why.

Declan was helping her again.

She hated it when he did. It was a constant reminder that the powerful incubus, her soul-mate, was still connected to her through the rite they’d performed, before he went off and betrayed her. Even after two months, the memory and the pain were fresh enough to make her hurt whenever she thought of him.

She shook her head to clear her mind of him and focused on the body. There was something familiar about the man on the ground before her, an unfettered flow of sex magic that marked him as belonging to the Incubatti society.

He had to be an incubus, if he survived a knife fight with her and somehow managed to knock her on her ass. Zoey hesitated to roll him over, not wanting to know who she’d tangled with for fear it was someone associated with Declan. While she had no intention of ever speaking to him again, she didn’t want to give him a reason to hunt her down. He’d kept his distance, and she needed the space.

She pushed the incubus onto his back. He had the features of Declan’s family – chiseled, high cheekbones, square jaw and fair hair. He was clearly one of the nine brothers that ran the Incubatti Enforcers and were integrated into the upper echelons of their society. She’d met five of them, but didn’t recognize this one.

She pulled out her cell and hit the first number saved on speed dial.

A groggy voice at the other end answered. “Yeah?”

“Vikki, I need a ride. And bring the van. I’m, uh, not alone.”

“Where are you?” Some awareness crept into the voice of her best friend. “Did you go out without me?”

“Not on purpose.”

“Shit, Zoey. Again?”

“Just come get me.” Zoey rose. “I’m at -”

“Washington Memorial.”

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

“Chrissy made me a watch that tracks your location.”

This shouldn’t keep happening. Zoey wasn’t sure whether to be grateful her friend was stalking her or freaked out. She was in charge of every detail of Team Rogue, a vigilante group whose mission was to save women from the sadistic supernatural creatures called Cambions, and yet she couldn’t control her own actions. What happened if she one day didn’t come out of the mindless zombie mode she went into whenever she blacked out?

Zoey suppressed her rising panic. It was no time for a meltdown.

“Another body?” Vikki asked with a grunt that indicated she was getting ready as she spoke.

“Yeah. Not dead. Looks way too much like one the Enforcer boys.”

“Oh, God, Zoey. I’m on my way.” Vikki hung up.

Even if they’d declared war on the men they were mated with, the five core members of Team Rogue didn’t want anything bad happening to the Enforcers. Zoey tucked her phone away, hating the fact that she, too, didn’t want to hurt any family member of the man who crushed her heart. Shouldn’t she hate anyone associated with him? Shouldn’t she want him to hurt the way she did?

“Hey.” The man on the ground mumbled.

She faced him. “You shouldn’t be alive.”

“Neither should … you.” He seemed to find that funny, if his wheezy chuckle was any indication. “Did I tag you at least?”

“Three times.” She squatted near him while maintaining enough distance between them to react if he decided to attack her. “What’re you doing out here?”

“Me?” he asked. He cracked open his eyes, revealing the familiar whiskey hue possessed by Declan as well as several of his brothers. “I followed you here. What’re … you doing out here?”

“You followed me?” she asked, trying hard to recall anything after lying down to sleep in her own bed. A glance at her watch told her she had about five hours missing this time. “Shit. Okay, what was I doing here?”

“Damned if I know.” He struggled to sit.

“You should lay still,” she advised. “I got you good.”

“I noticed.” He sat up anyway, the amber eyes settling on her. “I’m not dead.”

“You’re lucky.”

“I had help.”

“Help?” Disturbed by the gaze that was nearly identical to Declan’s, she shifted away.

He gave a pain-filled grimace. “Yeah. Help. Someone who knocked your ass out.”

“Who?” She observed their surroundings. She wasn’t the only member of Team Rogue to notice a stranger observing their recent operations, the figure of a man who kept to the shadows and seemed content to watch. Her senses were still scrambled, an aftereffect of the blackout, rendering her unable to locate anyone but the man before her. “I don’t see anyone. Did I kill him?”

“No. The man in a mask got away.” Another wheezy chuckle made her frown.

“Man in a mask? You’re fucking with me,” she grumbled. Zoey assumed Declan was sending someone to spy on her and the team, but a mask? It sounded downright silly.

“He’s the only reason I’m not dead.”

“Not true. You’re not dead because you’re as stubborn as the rest of the men in your family,” she snapped.

“You know who I am.”

“No. But I assume you’re related to the Enforcer set of incubuses.”

“Funny. You had no idea who I was a couple of hours ago when you went ape-shit crazy on me.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be following me!”

“Maybe it’s right what the Enforcer Council said.”

She crossed her arms, waiting.

“About how you’re being manipulated by the Sucubatti.”

“What else?” she asked, wanting to hear that Declan had said something awful about her so she could try harder to despise him.

He shrugged. “That’s pretty much it.”

“Who are you?”

“Aiden. Number seven of nine, the family jokester.” He gave a choked laugh. “Been surveilling you for a week now.”

“Declan sent you to spy on me.”

“Or to keep you safe. Kinda what a soul-mate does.”

“You have no idea what a soul-mate does,” she muttered. “He rips your heart out and tosses it away.” Her gaze swept over him. The super-incubuses of Declan’s family didn’t stay down long. They had the ability to heal with otherworldly speed in addition to super agility and strength that made them all but impossible to beat in a fight.

Aiden would be on his feet again within about twelve hours, and for a moment, she debated leaving him and fleeing with Vikki. Where Declan was lean with fair skin and eyes, Aiden was more like Vikki’s soul-mate, Liam, the eighth of nine sons, who had olive coloring and dark, dark hair. Aiden was in no current shape to follow. It’d be easy to walk away, except …

We need leverage. It was almost a mantra, as many times as the phrase had come up in discussions within Team Rogue. To get the weapons and supplies required to run their independent vigilante operations, they needed either a boatload of cash they didn’t have or the leverage to blackmail the leaders of the Sucubatti and Incubatti societies for cash and supplies. Money was running low again, which impeded her ability to kill Cambions.

Reluctantly, she was forced to admit that Aiden was free money, a winning lottery ticket she found by accident. “I bet Declan would pay a lot to get you back,” she mused aloud.

“Yeah, and he’d probably require you to hand deliver me.”

“Why would I care? I hate the man.”

“My brothers said you were a terrible liar. Looks like they were right.”

She quelled the urge to walk away. “Son of a bitch!”

Aiden chuckled again. “You kicked my ass good. I’m gonna need a doctor.”

“Even if that were true and you couldn’t heal, we have one on staff.” More or less, she added silently. “You’ll be fine.”

“A doctor?” He sounded impressed.

“We’re not idiots, Aiden. We’ve been running ops long enough to know how it’s done.”

“Declan said you’re smarter than you act.”

She eyed him, suspecting he was messing with her. He appeared genuine. Or at least, he didn’t seem like he was in any condition to put effort into lying. He was pale and resting on one elbow, clearly taxed from their confrontation.

A moment later, she heard the sound of Vikki’s van from the direction of the street running between the Washington Memorial and the National Mall. The black van’s headlights were off, and her best friend guided the vehicle across the grass to Zoey.

The passenger door opened to reveal Vikki leaning over from the driver’s seat. “C’mon!” she said.

Zoey slid open the side door of the van to reveal bench seats along the far wall and storage lockers with weapons and gear above the seats. The slender form of Chrissy, the human genius that worked for Team Rogue, sat in the middle of the benches, clutching a first aid kit in her lap.

“Can you walk, Aiden?” Zoey asked.

“You’re seriously gonna take me prisoner?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“No,” Vikki said simultaneously. “The last thing we need is one of them in our midst!”

“He won’t be there long,” Zoey said. “Just until we send a ransom note.”

“This will piss off the Enforcers and their father on the Council.”

“I’m not really in any shape to walk,” Aiden interjected.

Zoey ignored her friend’s warning and motioned to the human. “Chrissy, can you help me?”

Vikki got out of the van and circled it while Zoey went to Aiden. He didn’t resist when she wrapped an arm around him to lift him to his feet. He leaned into her, and she barely caught her balance. Chrissy took his other arm. Vikki stood by the van, hands on hips.

“You sure about this?” she ventured.

“Chrissy needs the funding,” Zoey replied. “He is our funding.”

“You’re the doctor?” Aiden asked, struggling to focus on Chrissy.

“I’m a scientist,” Chrissy said with a sigh. “Zoey doesn’t know the difference.”

“I do, too! I just don’t care,” Zoey shot back. “You’re a genius with a photographic memory. If you can build all the shit you do, then you can learn overnight how to slap some bandages on this guy. It’s not like he needs brain surgery.”

“I’m not getting a warm fuzzy about this,” Aiden grunted.

Zoey was quiet, moving step by step with him to get him in the van. At last, he was seated on a bench, propped up on one side by Chrissy.

“Will you behave or do I need handcuffs?” Zoey asked Aiden.

“An incubus never turns down handcuffs.”

She rolled her eyes and leapt out of the van, slamming the door shut.

“This might work,” Vikki said. “But you realize taking him with us means he’ll see stuff he shouldn’t.”

“Vikki, I think they already know where we are. He said he followed me here. Which means …”

“… we need to move again.” Vikki frowned, gaze straying towards the van. “We caught one of the Sucubatti intel officers sniffing around the neighborhood this morning, too. No one should have found us this fast.”

Zoey exchanged a look with her. In the two months since Team Rogue went independent of either supernatural society, word had spread about what the succubae did to the Halflings who turned twenty two. The result was a swelling of Team Rogue’s ranks to nearly fifty as more Halflings defected so they weren’t put down like dogs by the full-blooded succubae. It meant Zoey had to find food, weapons, a home, medical supplies and more to maintain them.

Neither of them wanted to voice the possibility that one of their own had turned on them or that there was a plant sent by Olivia, the chief of the Internal Affairs Bureau for the Sucubatti. They’d opened their doors to other women like them, never suspecting one of the Halflings would betray them to the succubus who wanted them dead.