My Soul To Take (12 page)

“Gerik—”

“Despite what you think, I didn’t care about the magic, Trinity. I only wanted you. I figured once our soul had joined you would just naturally want to share my gifts with me. When nothing I did worked, I started to lose it. Onyx was the only thing keeping me somewhat sane. I know now that what I was doing to her was wrong, but at the time, I couldn’t think straight. It’s my fault she tried to kill you. I fucked with her head so badly, she snapped.”

“Gerik, wait, I don’t understand—”

Again, he cut me off. “Then Xan saved your life and tricked you into marrying him. How could I tell you then? You were so happy! And you loved him!”

“GERIK!” I screamed. “Would you shut up for two seconds?” Finally, he fell silent.

“Wasn’t what happened in the woods, our soul joining? Isn’t that how I got your power?”

“No.”

No? What? Gods, I was so confused.

“But, I thought—”

“I could have given you the power to access my magic the very first time I touched you. But I waited, Trinity. I waited for you. Even when I was out of time, I still waited. I wanted you to be happy and Xan made you happy, so I left camp. Then camp was attacked and I was forced to call on spirit, and then afterwards…

“It was too late. There was no more waiting. I would have gone mad and eventually I would have died. And I would have. For you. So you could stay with Xan and remain happy. Only it wasn’t that simple; you are inexplicably tied to me and your death was not something I could have consciously allowed.”

My jaw opened, came unhinged, and fell in the water with a big splash. For so long I had thought Gerik had kept pushing me to become intimate with him for the sole reason of giving me his magic and joining our soul. When he had accomplished the transfer without the physical connection I had previously thought necessary, I had automatically assumed it had been the dark magic that had allowed him to do so. Never in a million years had I thought he could have given it to me at any given moment.

But he could have and still he’d held back. He’d wanted me to love him all along. Remembering all the times I had accused him of trying to force me into a life I didn’t want, I felt ashamed. Our natural, mutual pull, our bodies responses to each other, hadn’t been any more his fault than it had been mine. When he’d finally given me his power, it hadn’t only been out of desperation, but because the threat of madness and death had been looming over us both. He’d had no choice. And I’d had no idea.

I had nothing to blame him for. My anger no longer had a recipient.

“The physical connection was for our soul…” I murmured. “That’s what I felt after we had sex, our soul becoming one.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. It wasn’t just the sex, it was you. You let me in.
Finally
.”

A shiver ran through me. Nothing and no one had been what they had seemed. Not Xan. Not Gerik. Of course, it would have helped if they had both told me the truth from day one, but I understood why neither of them had. For Gerik, it was a matter of pride. He had wanted me to want him without the magic. As for Xan, his secret was unfathomable, too terrible for me to think about for any length of time without feeling nauseas, which was undoubtedly why he had not told me.

“Get out of the water, Trinity, you’re shivering.”

I stood and Gerik slipped an oversized hoodie over my head. I put my hands on his biceps as he lifted me out of the tub and set me on the floor. But, I didn’t let go.

“If one of us dies, will the other?”

He pulled me closer. “I’m not exactly sure. But one person cannot hold onto that much power. And you can’t live with half a soul.”

“But you were born seven years before me.”

He gave me an adorable, crooked smile. “I’d known the prophecy, had been told numerous times what was going to happen. Still, nothing can truly prepare a little kid for having half his soul ripped away. I knew the moment you were born, Trinity. I knew I had to find you if I’d ever want to feel whole again.”

I hugged him tightly. “And it took twenty-three years. Gods, Gerik, I’m sorry.”

“No,” he whispered. “I found you long before that.”

I glanced up, confused.

“I was there. The day you were born.”

A chill ran up my spine. “Really?”

“My parents had been killed in a car accident. That’s why I was at the hospital. I found you, but I didn’t know what to do with you. My parents weren’t there to tell me and it took me years to open up to Maisera and Jericho and tell them what I was.”

It made perfect sense. Everything suddenly made perfect sense. The soul had belonged to Gerik all along. I had been made for him. He had given up half his soul to bring me into this world. If Gerik died, if I died, it only made sense that the remaining half would want to follow.

“Why didn’t you tell me all of this before?”

He looked resigned. “Would it have mattered?”

“What!” I shoved him. “Of course it would have mattered!”

A blonde and black eyebrow lifted. “Oh yeah?”

Shove.

“The truth will set you free, right? If you would have told me the truth from the beginning, let me in on the big, scary secret, I would have been a lot more understanding! I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you! But everyone was so Hades-bent on keeping me in the dark!”

“And Xan?”

My racing brain skidded to a stop. “What about him?”

“You tell me?”

I bit my lip and looked away. I would never regret falling in love with Xan. He had opened up a part of me that I had never even known existed. Beside him, I started standing up for myself and making my own decisions rather than following alongside everyone else or mindlessly obeying orders. As Xan would say, “I grew a set.”

However, knowing what I knew now, gods, I didn’t know how to feel about it. Nothing could ever change how I felt about him, but I was not sure I would ever be able to separate what I had seen from the man I thought he was; the man I loved.

“I don’t know,” I told him honestly. “That’s not something I can guess at. But what I do know is how much I love you.”

Silence.

“What?” I threw up my arms, exasperated. “That’s not good enough for you?”

Silence.

I shoved him again.

“Stop pushing me,” he growled.

“No!”

Shove.

“Yes!”

“No!”

Shove.

Then we were kissing; fast and furiously inhaling one another. He lifted me up onto the sink and then dropped to his knees before me. Watching me with wild lust in his eyes, he buried his face in between my legs.

I was frozen in bliss. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t form words or coherent thoughts. I couldn’t even blink. I could only sit there and bear witness to this fever, this incredible need that raged between us, and revel in Gerik’s passion for me, insurmountable and unending.

“Trinity,” he breathed, once again standing. He positioned himself, hard and thick, between my thighs. “Tell me you love me.”

In awe, I stared up at my lover, filled with wonder, and I whispered breathlessly, “I love you.”

His hips punched forward and in one smooth thrust, he entered me. I wrapped my legs around his waist, dug my nails into his back, and threw every part of myself into this joining.

Gratification rippled across my nerves in electrifying shockwaves. I began to shake from head to toe, unable to remain in control of my faculties or my magic.

Our powers came crashing together. They mixed and melded inside one another until it was impossible to tell where mine began and Gerik’s ended. The mishmash of power wrapped around us, drunk with the excitement of our love, of our connection. Our bodies were joined. Our soul was joined. And our power, our
magic, joined. We were one.

“Oh gods,” I whispered as tears streamed down my cheeks. The faster he surged within me, the more savage he became, the more the exquisite sensations increased in their intensity.

“Not a god,” he rasped.

My body clenched tightly and my mind went blank. Gerik was cracking open the deepest, most sacred places inside of me. He was going to shatter me. And make it impossible to put myself back together
without him
.

With a scream, I exploded around him, a million different pieces of me went soaring through the air in a million different directions and then I was falling, falling, falling into the sweetest darkness I had ever known. I’d arrived in paradise, my own personal nirvana, surrounded by ecstasy so sublime I never wanted to leave.

As consciousness began to bloom, Gerik was still moving inside of me, his eyes locked with mine.

“Tell
me
you love
me
,” I breathed.

“I am,” he rasped, just as his body jerked inside mine. He let go then, and I clung to him, refusing to let him go until he had emptied everything he had been, everything he was, and everything he would ever be, and gave it all to me.

Still wrapped around him and trembling from the aftermath of incredible sex, he carried me from the bathroom to our bedroom. We had long ago gotten rid of the bed; Gerik was simply too big for it. We had acquired sheets, comforters, and enough blankets and pillows for a man of Gerik’s size to sleep as comfortably as possible on the floor.

Gently, he laid me down, ready again. Catching sight of his hands, I froze. Instead of human hands, hands he’d had just moments ago, Gerik had claws. Coated in black, overlapping scales, his fingers had thinned and elongated, each tipped with giant, sickle-shaped talons.

Filled with trepidation and shaking from head to toe, I looked up at his face and whimpered in shock. His fangs had grown longer and thicker. His lower canines had also grown, sharpened, and now pushed over his upper lip like miniature tusks. From the look on his face, he was aware of the changes and had probably been aware of them all along.

“Trinity,” he growled. His talons dug into my thighs, their sharp points sliding easily through my skin and drawing blood.

Gasping in pain, I cried out, “Gerik!”

He gripped me tighter and his talons dug deeper.

My emotions, my fear of losing him, my worry for him, my desperation, everything was seeping into him through our bond. Freaking out was only going to make things that much harder on the both of us.

I tried to relax, tried to focus on the bond to get a better understanding of what was going through his head. He was afraid, that I already knew, but not about his transformation.

He was afraid that I feared him. That I couldn’t bear the sight of him. That he would lose me sooner rather than later.

“Never,” I whispered, reaching up to stroke his face. “I’ll never leave you. No matter what happens, I won’t be leaving.”

“I can’t make it stop,” he whispered hoarsely. “I feel it inside of me, growing stronger every day, changing me, stripping away the man I was, stealing my humanity, piece by goddamn piece.”

I nodded through my tears. “It doesn’t matter, Gerik, I’m not going anywhere.”

For a moment we could only stare at one another and drink in the love that the bond between us was proving strong and unbreakable. Nothing, not my love for Xan or Gerik’s impending doom, would ever change that.

“I…Trinity, I...can’t be gentle right now.”

I already knew that. I could feel his fear driving him, making him more aggressive than normal. And I would deny him nothing. Whatever he wanted from me, I would willingly give. He was a fundamental part of me. Gerik’s presence went bone deep. He was my everything. All things. He was my world.

And he had said he wasn’t a god...

CHAPTER TWENTY

Feeling like a pitiless bastard, Xan sat by the fire pit smoking as he stared up at the cloudy gray sky and watched the snow fall.

He’d fucked up big time. He knew it. Becki knew it. Nico knew it. The whole fucking clan knew it. There was no denying that if he’d kept his hands off Nadya, Marko wouldn’t have gone bat-shit crazy and Trinity would be here now, back by his side, where she belonged. Instead, Trinity was “who the hell knows where” and Marko had disappeared immediately after he’d spilled the beans about his meet-and-greet with Trinity. His room in his trailer had been cleaned out and his truck was missing. Frate had gone AWOL and was more than likely going to get good and dead. Not that he cared all that much. They may have been friends once upon a time, but you fuck with a man’s life and shit tends to get dirty.

What a mess. He should have told Nadya to fuck off from day one. Same with Fifi. Same with Onyx. Sleeping with them had just added another couple of notches in his belt of epic mistakes.

As for Onyx, Christ, what they had done together had been wrong on so many levels. The only good thing that came out of that fucking debacle was a better understanding of how Onyx ticked. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been wrong when she had told him that he was just like her.

They both had a pile of sins a mile long, things they could never take back, could never atone for. They were both as hard as steel on the outside and sad and needy on the inside. The only difference between them was fata had tits and he didn’t. No, scratch that. Fata didn’t have any tits. Just puffy nipples.

“You can’t do this!”

Startled out of his pity party he glanced up to find Becki stalking across camp, Nico not far behind her.

“You’re unclaimed and well over the age of thirteen!” Nico bellowed, quickly closing the distance between them. “It’s within my rights to take you whether you want me or not!”

Oh, damn. Nico was pulling old school law out of that chauv
inistic Romani pocket of his.

Hearing that, Becki had stopped dead and spun around to face him. “That only applies to marriage, Nico Čonka!” she sputtered, pointing an accusatory finger. “Not casual sex!”

“What the fuck, Becki! Do you actually think I’d force you to have sex with me? I
am
talking about marriage!
First
you’re going to marry me and
then
I’m going to force you to have sex with me!”

“I…what? No! We can’t get married! I’m pregnant!”

He snorted. Well, duh. Her enormous belly was proof enough of that.

Nico laughed. “Yeah, I’m aware.” He placed his hand on the top of her giant baby bump and smirked. “Very aware. And I don’t care. I’m taking you both.”

“No! You can’t—”

He grabbed her and pulled her up against him. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, he stared down at her. “I can.”

“No!” she cried. “I can’t go through losing another man!”

Shit. Poor Becki. First Tobar knocks her up then stiffs her. Then Hockey forces her into marriage only to go and die on her. Now, Nico was pushing himself on her. No doubt it was much too fast for her, but Nico wasn’t the type to stand idly by and wait for something or someone he wanted.

Frate was a lot like him. If they couldn’t afford it, they stole it. If it didn’t exist, they made it. And once they found the woman they loved, they married her.

“You’re not going to lose me,” he growled. “I’m not gonna go anywhere without you. Not ever. You’re mine, Becki Bálan-Sava, soon to be Bálan-Sava-Čonka, whether you want me or not. You’ve been mine since the first time you let
me inside that beautiful body of yours.”

Man. He should just follow these two around all day. They were way more entertaining than television ever was.

“And what about Mags?” she hissed.

Nico frowned, looking confused. “What about her?”

Screeching in frustration, Becki stomped on Nico’s boot. He let her go, hopping on one foot, cursing loudly.

“God dammit, woman! I’ve already told you a hundred times I’m never touching her again!”

She huffed. “I don’t believe you and, to be honest, I’m not actually sure I even like you. Barring being good at sex, I see no redeeming qualities in you! Therefore, I’m not going to marry you!” She turned away with a huff.

Ooooh, shit. That was not going to go over well. Not with someone as prideful as Nico.

His fury obvious, Nico grabbed her upper arms and yanked her back. Wrapping his arms across her chest, he crushed her against him, her back to his stomach.

“Woman,” he growled. “I’m done with your crazy bullshit. If you liked me enough to fuck me, then you can damn well like
me enough to be my wife. When it comes to you, fată, my cock and I are a packaged deal.”

She twisted in his arms. “They never used to be!”

Tipping her backwards, with one arm under her knees, Nico scooped her up and held her like a baby.

“It’s time to g
et married, Becki. If only because I’ll be allowed to spank you when you talk back to me!”

“Put me down! NOW!”

Ignoring her and seemingly oblivious to her flailing limbs, Nico started walking.

“Xan!” Becki cried out. “Help me!”

Nope. No way in hell he was getting between a man and the woman he loved. And Nico, sure as shit smells, loved Becki. No man would willingly put himself through the sort of bittersweet torture only women knew how to give unless he loved her.

“Sorry
surioară,” He called out. “You know it’s against the law for me to interfere once a fată’s been claimed.”

Nico grinned at him and, unable to contain it because frate just looked so damn happy, he grinned back. He knew that feeling, remembered it well. And
he would give any number of body parts to feel it again. To have Trinity back. Except maybe the parts she had liked best. You know…like his hair…and some choice organs.

Goddamn. To once again be able to look across camp at his beautiful wife, wanting her so damn bad he would have bled just to be inside of her.

“You stupid caveman!” Becki screamed. “You’re all cavemen and I’m not going to marry you!”

Nico burst out laughing. “Baby, it’s not as if I’m giving you a choice. So save those screams of yours for the hot, sweaty sex we’re about to have.”

He choked on his laughter. That was way more information than he had needed.

As the happy couple passed by the Asenov’s trailer, Kizzy, outside shoveling snow away from the tires, smiled at them.

“Congratulations!” she yelled.

“Thanks!” Nico said cheerfully, waving.

“Screw you!” Becki screamed, flipping her off.

Shaking her head and laughing, Kizzy made her way towards him. “Poor Becki,” she giggled. “Carried off kicking and screaming twice now.”

He stared up into her kind eyes, the color of dark maple syrup, framed by thick, black lashes that were identical to Shandor’s.

When he didn’t respond, she put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips. “Xan Daniel, are you sitting here moping?”

He snorted. “Pretty much, mamă Kizzy.”

Kneeling down in front of him, she placed her hands on his knees. “
Băiatul meu, this is not what he would’ve wanted for you. Not Shandor, not Trinity and definitely not your mamă.”

He gave her a sad smile. “You gonna have another copil, mamă Ki
zzy? Another Shandor? I’d be so damn grateful.”

“Ah, dragă. I could have thousands of copii, but without my Mihai none of them would be my dulce Shandor.”

Leaning forward, he gave her a soft kiss on her chapped, winter-reddened lips. “Te iubesc,” he said hoarsely. “And so did they. Fuck. I should have tried harder to save them. If I would have done something different, then maybe—”

Kizzy placed her index finger across his lips.

“Time to let go, Xan Daniel,” she whispered. “Your mamă and my husband and son have gone back to nature. But luckily, we still have our lives and it’s time to start living them again.”

She stood up and wiped away the stray tears that had gotten through the wall she had built around her heart. Then, shocking him, she removed the orange and red diklo he had never once seen her without. Shaking her head, her long, brown and gray hair fanned out around her pretty face and slim shoulders.

She held out her hand to him. “Come, baiatul meu, you help me shovel and I’ll tell you the story of two beloved little troublemakers who were the best of friends and as thick as thieves. And despite the havoc they wreaked on their poor clan, both of those boys grew into two strong, hardworking men that their mamăs proudly cherished and adored.”

Smiling broa
dly and fighting back tears, he placed his hand in hers. “Let’s get to it then.”

******

Six days later Becki’s water broke and Michaela Jaelle Sava-Čonka came kicking and screaming into this world. No doubt, she took after her mother, who always seemed to be kicking and screaming about something.

Despite the child’s innate temper, her birth awoke something inside of the clan members that had been suppressed by the constant threat of violence and death. For the first time in a long time, they had something new to celebrate. And celebrate they did,  with a feast and a fire dance. What the hell were Gypsies who didn’t celebrate, anyway? They were tanned Gajes on an extended camping trip. Which was not cool. Not at all.

On his way to pay the happy family a visit, he bumped into Tobar pacing back and forth outside of Becki and Nico’s trailer. Frate looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.

“You look like shit,” Xan said.

“Yeah,” Tobar muttered, running his hands through his hair. “Thanks.”

“So…are you going in?”

Tobar blanched. “I can't,” he whispered. “She hasn’t spoken to me since the night she married Hockey. She won’t even look at me.”

“Yeah, well, you fucked that one up all on your own. You had the chance to claim her. Hell, you had nine months to claim her and
the copil, but you didn’t. You let Hockey take the blame for knocking her up. Epic fail, frate.”

“I freaked. You know my mamă would have beaten the shit outta me for getting her pregnant! Hell, she would have taken the strap to me just for fucking her! Ju
st as Nadya was promised to Marko, Adriana was promised to me! That’s how it was supposed to be! Combining the two most powerful families in the clan so our children would be even more powerful!”

Eh. He’d never paid attention to clan politics. He’d been born without an active power so the whole shebang was a moot point to him.

“And Nadya…the lucky little bitch, after mamă died, used you to get the fuck outta her marriage! But by then it was already too late with Becki, and now I’m stuck on the sidelines, forced to watch the woman I love suck face with Nico, and now my daughter is going to grow up thinking someone else is her tată!”

He stared at him. Tobar loved Becki?

“Nico!” Tobar exclaimed, “It was bad enough when she married Hockey, but Nico Čonka! He is just as big of an asshole and a whore as you and Shandor! There is no way he’s going to be faithful to her!”

He frowned. “Hey. Don’t talk shit about the dead.”

“Whatever,” Tobar muttered. “Shandor was a whore, treated all the fete like they were shit on a shoe, same as you did. You rocked the entire camp when you married Trinity and then requested a formal ceremony to boot."

He shrugged. “And you should have done the same with Becki. But you pussied out, whereas I would have put a bullet in anyone who tried to stop me. And stop talking shit about Shandor. Unless you want to find a knife in the base of your spine. If that’s the case, then by all means, continue.”

Tobar glared at him. “Fucking mercenary to the core, aren’t you? I’m surprised you’re even capable of love. Speaking of, did you ever tell Trinity what you really did for a living? Or did you
pussy out
?”

Touché. The imposter of a Baró had him there.

“That’s what I thought,” Tobar sneered. “You knew she’d flip. Hell, the whole clan would flip if they knew what you and Shandor were capable of. If they’d known what my tata mare had been capable of.”

Tobar was right. It was one thing to know he had been Jericho’s henchmen, but an entirely different thing to know exactly what Jericho had requested of him. And to know that he had not given a shit what the jobs had entailed as long as he had been paid enough to fund his dirt bike and motorcycle obsessions.

“Tobar, cut the shit and go meet your daughter.”

Before Tobar could pussy out some more, he grabbed frate’s arm, dragged him up the steps, and pushed him through the door. Nic
o’s mamă, Madeleana, Hockey’s mamă, Aishe, Maisera and Becki were all sitting on the couch. Nico was standing in the kitchen shooting the shit with Indiana while he rocked a tiny bundle in his arms.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” Nico demanded, scowling
at Tobar.

Cursing, Tobar tried to pull away but Xan held fast to his arm and shoved him forward. “He’s here to meet his daughter,” he announced none too gently, and gave Becki a pointed look.