Page 64 of Camriel
“Mine won’t have to work too hard,” Grace joked.“I’m ready to succumb to the bond now if it’ll make me stronger and increase my pitiful powers.”
Zoe gave her a distracted smile, being careful not to meet the kid’s eyes.“Your talents will increase, just like the rest of us,” she promised.
“Does this mean your rage is stronger now?”Grace asked.
Zoe flinched at that thought.“I hope not,” she said with a shudder, remembering a vision she’d had of being bound to her sire rather than to Amaros.She’d become a deadly monster beneath her father’s control.
“She’s coming!”Camriel shouted from the north wing.“Victoria will be here soon!”
“Sheesh, I’m pretty sure they heard him all the way in town,” Grace joked.
Zoe rolled her eyes at the warrior’s overreaction.“I’ll put the coffee on,” she said.They’d had lunch and were killing time in the great room, waiting for their guest to arrive.
“I’ll go and greet Vic,” Grace decided.She ran into Camriel at the back entrance.“I’ve got this,” she said, nudging the huge warrior in the side.“Stop hovering, or you’ll scare her away!”
Cam gave the teen an annoyed look, then obeyed her and slunk back to the north wing to assist Amaros.
“Hey, kiddo,” Victoria said in greeting as she strode into sight.“I brought my bow,” she said, holding up an expensive looking compound bow.A quiver was slung over her shoulder and the reaping hook was tied to her belt loop.“I thought you and Zoe might like some lessons,” she added.
“We’d love that!”Grace said, gesturing for the wrestler to enter.“Zoe’s just making some coffee,” she explained.“We can take it with us while we do some target practice.”
Zoe was glad to see Victoria looked better rested today.“Why do you look so smug?”she asked suspiciously when she noticed Vic’s smirk.
“You’ll never guess what I found when I went to clean my bathroom,” Victoria said.
“A giant spider?”Grace said with a shiver of dread.
“Nope,” Victoria said, shaking her head.“The previous owner attached a big plastic container to the wall just above the shower.The showerhead is attached to it through a short hose.”
Zoe figured out the implications immediately.“You can heat water up and have a hot shower!”
“Fudge yes,” Vic gloated.“I’ll be washing my hair with hot water tonight!I got the water tank to work, so I have some indoor plumbing as well.”
“I hate you so much right now,” Grace said enviously.Her natural blonde roots were already showing.She hadn’t bothered to dye it green, pink and blue again, since dye would soon become obsolete.There didn’t seem to be much point anymore anyway.
“I’m sure the guys could rig something up in the room that has a hole in the floor,” Victoria said in commiseration.“You just have to hope the water won’t ruin the foundation.”
“It has to be an old bathroom,” Zoe figured.“I just wish it had an actual pipe leading outside instead of just a hole in the floor.”She finished making their coffee, then grabbed some targets and they all headed outside.
“I saw a clearing a short distance away from the lake,” Vic said and led the girls to it.They were still within sight of the water, but were far enough away from their base that they could chat in privacy.She’d be able to sense it if Camriel came to investigate them.
“This is nice and secluded,” Zoe said shrewdly, figuring their new friend wanted to talk without being overheard.
“I have questions,” Victoria said.
“About Cam?”Grace asked.
“About all of you,” she replied.“I want to hear your stories.What happened to you after the Rapture?How did you all end up together?”
So far, they’d just skimmed over the details and hadn’t told her much.Zoe had been expecting to be grilled, so she wasn’t surprised.“My mother was ultra-religious,” she began.She relayed witnessing the Rapture take her mom and the other parishioners while Vic taught them how to shoot the compound bow.
Victoria was silent when Zoe finished her tale.She now knew everything, including about Zoe’s temper and her talent to glimpse the future.“I feel really inferior now,” she joked.“All I can do is freeze my dreams and examine them in detail.”
“You’re also a skilled warrior who knows what your opponents are going to do before they attack you,” Grace reminded her.“The guys are already planning to add you to their team.I’mthe one who’s inferior here.All I can do is steal stuff and become practically invisible when I don’t want to be seen.”
“You still haven’t shown us that talent yet,” Zoe pointed out.She glanced at Victoria, then looked back at her friend.“Grace?”she said, brow furrowing when she couldn’t see the teen.
“I’m over here,” Grace said smugly as she leaned against a tree behind the pair.
