Zoe's Blockade (Destiny's Trinities Book 5) Read Online Free PDF

scar by his thumb, where Cole had slipped with the big screwdriver when they had swapped out the engine in his Chevy….
    Cole was still staring at him, his lips parted and his eyes narrowed with pain. His throat was working.
    Declan looked at the stranger, who seemed to know what was going on. “Why did you do this? Why tease him this way?”
    The stranger shook his head. “This isn’t some cruel trick designed to torment anyone. You’re needed, Declan. You are the last of this trinity and the bond will make you all stronger…strong enough to face the Grimoré and help us win back the world.”
    Declan stared at him, trying to put it together. “What?”
    The man grinned, his features lightening. “I get that reaction a lot. Zoe and Cole can explain it all to you.” He looked at them. “Normally, we’d get the hell out of your life and let you bond in private. I think I’d better stick around, though. I’m going to stay in the hall and keep an eye on the bridge. You really don’t have a gun in the house?”
    Cole didn’t move.
    Zoe shook her head. “Nothing like that.”
    The man sighed and slid the largest knife out of the knife block on the counter. The block was new. That was something Cole had always wanted. The man hefted the knife as if he knew what he was doing with it.
    “Take your time,” he said, talking to all three of them. “Only, don’t take too long, if you can help it.”
    Declan watched him leave, then looked back at the table. “Cole?”
    Cole blinked. “I’m getting a headache,” he breathed and gripped his head with one big hand.
    “More coffee,” Zoe said firmly. “And chocolate chip cookies.”
    “Sugar, yes,” Cole said. He dropped his hand and looked at Declan. “You’d better sit down. Can you? Sit down, I mean?”
    “I don’t know,” Declan said truthfully. He took a step toward the table. His legs worked normally. The floor felt solid beneath him as it always had. He took another step. “I’m really dead?”
    “You don’t remember dying?” Cole asked.
    “What happened?”
    “There was an avalanche on Mt. Revelstoke. The main ski slope. You were helping a man with a busted leg….” Cole stopped, his throat working. His eyes were glittering.
    “The man with the broken leg was dug out,” Zoe said from behind Declan, where she was working on the stove. “They couldn’t get to you in time.” Her voice was even. Almost serene.
    Declan stopped by the chair the other man had been using. It was still pulled out from the table. He wasn’t willing to try touching it.
    Cole’s shoulders were shaking, his head down.
    Zoe walked right around the counter, a big loop over to Cole. She put her arms around him and he turned his face into her torso and closed his eyes.
    Declan stared at them. “You’re…together,” he breathed. He looked at Zoe’s hand, at the ring there. Pain slammed into his chest. “You’re married .”
    Zoe’s face was pinched, tight with hurt. “You died four years ago, Declan.”
    He couldn’t pull it together. It was a confused mess. He could almost remember the ski hill, the exhausting slog up the slope to where the skier had been laying. Only, the memory wouldn’t form into an image. The cold, though…. “I remember the cold.” It had been all around him, pressing in. He took a deep, sharp breath. Then let it out. “I’m breathing,” he said.
    Zoe shook her head. “You just think you are. You’re an image, a representation of your spirit, that’s all, Declan.” She spoke firmly, as someone who was confident they knew what they were talking about. Declan remembered using that tone with his patients.
    He pursed his lips together and whistled, the same off-key sound he had only ever been able to make. “Could I do that, if I’m just an illusion?”
    Cole looked at him. Zoe let Cole go, also staring at Declan. “The bonding….” she said slowly. “Diego said it would change us.”
    “ And you’re sitting,” Cole said