My Soul To Take (4 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

I craned my neck, trying to see around a flipped-over minivan blocking the directional road sign. “Hills Creek State Park…6 miles, that-a-way.”

The entrance to Hill’s Creek State Park was a wide gravel road surrounded by thick forestry. I followed the wooden signs pointing me in the direction of the visitor’s office and a small log cabin came into view. The front door was wide open, yet I saw no sign of life. Human or otherwise.

The office held the same remnants of violence as everything else did these days. There was blood splatter but thankfully no human remains to contend with. A few cupboards were open and a map display had been knocked over. Someone had definitely gotten out of here in a hurry, but hadn’t died. At least not here.

I grabbed what I could from the empty office: a map of the park, a map of Pennsylvania, some canned soup and granola bars from underneath the desk, and a six-pack of bottled water I’d found inside a small refrigerator. Then I headed straight for the lake the park boasted. I had not had a chance to bathe in over a week. Yep, a bath definitely trumped sleep.

I stripped off my filthy jeans and even dirtier thermal shirt and slipped into the freezing water, staying near the shore. Teeth chattering, I soaped up quickly and rinsed. As I was tugging on clean clothing, I stared down at my five tattoos that had not been on my body before Gerik had given me his power.

Circling my bellybutton, there were four symbols: a circle with a crescent moon on either side of it, a plain triangle, an upside-down triangle, and three wavy lines.

The fifth lay between my breasts, bigger than the rest. A primitive-looking eye. Just an oval outline and in the center was a circle. It did not take a genius to figure out it was the symbol for spirit.

They were the same black tattoos that covered Gerik's chest and abdomen, only smaller. I'm not sure calling them tattoos is appropriate. Brands, maybe? Markings? Hey, look at me! I’m a prophesized magical soul mate to a dragon!

Either way it was creepy.

Since the sun was setting, making camp was now a necessity. Leaving my Jeep near the lake, I walked into the forest. The park was heavily wooded, the trees were thick and tall, their canopies an autumn rainbow of leaves, leaves that had already begun to fall. Winter was just around the corner. I cursed, thinking of all the time I had wasted searching for the clan, time that I could have spent traveling towards warmer climates.

After I built a small fire of branches and brush, I laid out my sleeping bag and placed five medium-sized rocks in a circle around my camp. I laid my palms on them and called to my power, infusing each one with an individual element, using myself as a conduit. Then I buried them. The result was an invisible net of magic that nothing could pass through. They were not fail-safe; that I had learned at camp in the Catskills. Twice Skin Eaters had breached our wards, and I was still trying to figure out how.

I had once thought the Skin Eaters were mindless beasts focused solely on their prey. At first, they had been, but now they were using patience and strategy, making them even more formidable opponents than any beast in the wild. They were becoming masters of disguise, cleaning themselves, wearing clothing and shoes. I had even seen a few whose eyes were not red until they had readied for an attack. For all intents and purposes, without looking too closely, you would think they were human. They were adapting, evolving, and becoming civilized monsters that were now more lethal than ever.

Thankfully, they would never be able to fool me. With my power came the ability to see aura’s of all things living. It wasn't something I could control no matter how hard I tried. The ability flickered on and off when it felt like it, but had not yet failed me when I needed it. Then, annoyingly, it could take days to go away.

During my travels I'd come across other people who, like me, were pillaging for supplies, trying to survive. I had never made myself known. Most of the groups I had happened upon had been groups of men, or mostly men, and being a female, all alone, I did not want to put anything to chance.

So I had watched them from afar, fascinated by their different colored auras and before long, I had developed my own conclusion to what each color symbolized.

Most of the animals I would come across – dogs, cats, a few cows and horses – had auras that ranged from dark blue to orange. I quickly discovered the blue auras always surrounded the skittish animals, the ones who were aware of the dangers around them. The animals surrounded in orange were approachable, friendly and outgoing. I figured they were either too dumb to realize what had happened to the world or were happily and stupidly accepting their fates.

The people were a little harder.

I’d come across of group of men in upstate New York, searching through a small town for supplies, same as me. They were mean, angry-looking men, who radiated violence. Every single one of their auras was a deep, muddy looking red.

I'd also come across an elderly woman in a house I had broken into. She was all alone, smack dab in the middle of a forgettable suburban neighborhood.

She had paid me no attention when I had kicked in her door. Surrounded in a thick purple haze, she sat motionless in a recliner chair that reeked of urine and fecal matter, staring blindly at a blank television screen. If it had not been for her infrequent blinks, I would have thought she was dead.

I had decided right then and there that purple was the color of crazy…and then left.

Then there were the teenagers. The boy had been the same color of red as the group of men I had seen. However, the girl had been a dark gray. Red and gray are at opposite sides of the color spectrum so, if the boy was angry and hateful, then was the girl…complacent? I didn’t think so. She had had dark circles under her pale eyes, clearly had not been sleeping or eating enough, and she had been noticeably afraid.

Maybe gray was the color of fear. Or stress. Or sickness.

I sighed. It didn't matter what her aura symbolized. She didn’t matter. None of us did. All I needed to know, all I cared about aside from survival, was that Skin Eaters always have a black aura.

Yawning, I stretched out inside of my sleeping bag. Sleep claimed me the moment my head touched the ground.

******

I awoke in the middle of the night to a Skin Eater creeping, a little too loudly, toward my protective circle. His wild eyes were red and glowing as saliva dripped from his mouth full of sharp, jagged teeth.

“I can smell you, bitch,” he sneered.

How did he know I was female? I know they have a heightened sense of smell, but distinguishing genders? That was actually pretty cool.

“I’ll be right with you,” I shouted, untangling myself from my sleeping bag.

He crouched, ready to lunge himself at a person he couldn't even see.

“Not a good idea,” I warned. “That’s really going to hurt.”

Ignoring me, he sprung forward and with a thwack, bounced backwards off my warded camp. The movement caused the elements I'd invoked inside the rocks to ripple through air, creating a transparent wave of molecules.

The Skin Eater landed hard on his back. If he’d been human and ran into a protection circle, the magical equivalent of a brick wall, his bones would have been instantly broken. But he was not human and, in minutes, he was able to stand again looking no worse than before. Well...he looked a tad bit angrier and he was hissing a lot louder.

“I told you not to do it.”

“Go ahead and stay in there,” he growled. “You’ll have to leave eventually and I’ll be waiting for you.”

I stood there, studying him. “Can I ask you a question?”

He snarled at me and I decided to take that as a yes.

“Do you care…about others like you? Or about anything at all?” Gods, I felt silly talking to this…thing, when all he wanted to do was eat me.

“I care that I’m starving, bitch! I haven't eaten in days and it fucking hurts!”

Oh. I could commiserate. Being hungry certainly did suck. But that didn't mean I was going to hand myself over as a midnight snack.

Realizing I wasn't budging, he sighed noisily. “Most of us live in packs,” he growled. “And yes, I gave a shit about my pack.”

“Gave? Did something happen to them?”

“Killed.”

“And this made you sad?”

He cocked his head to the side and bared his teeth. “Fuck. You.”

I guess our pleasant chat had come to an end. “Fuck you, too,” I muttered, and struck.

Willing the power inside of me to surge forward, I called to Air. I felt a slight breeze as I scooped the element from its stasis, willing it to merge with my power and coalesce in my palms. Then I threw it at my intruder. As he blew backwards, I ran through the wards, already summoning Fire. My body heated as the element surged, causing orange, red and black flames to rise from my palms. I tossed the element forward, watching, fascinated, as it wrapped around the Skin Eater, making quick work of him until nothing remained but a pile of steaming bones. I suspected that decades could pass and I would still be in awe of what I was now capable of doing.

“It was nice meeting you,” I told his remains. “Very educational.”

Sliding back into my sleeping bag, I stared up at the sky and wondered if Xan, wherever he was, was looking up at the very same stars.

CHAPTER SIX

Xan kicked open his trailer door and took a seat on the entrance steps. He couldn't sleep. Not lately. Not unless he was good and drunk and, even then, he would not call it sleeping, more of an alcohol-induced coma from which he always woke from feeling less than refreshed.

Staring up at the night sky, he tried to remember one of the many stupid stories
her
had told him.

“Never thought I’d say this,
fată,” he muttered, “But I’m actually missing those ridiculous Greek stories of yours. What was that one you told me the morning after our wedding? The one about Zeus and…what was her name? Hera?”

Flicking open his Zippo he lit up a cigarette, sucked in a
heavy drag of smoke, and blew it towards the heavens.

“So this Zeus frate spots this hot chick and it was love at first sight. He fucked her, kidnapped her and made her his wife. Wham. Bam. Happily ever after.”

Smiling, he shook his head. The story summed up their entire relationship. He had taken one look at her and all rational thought had fled to his groin.

“Heads up, frate. Here comes Gerik's obsession,” Shandor whispered.

He looked up from his soup, just as curious as everyone else was about the fată who, in the past month, had barely left her trailer. She was turned toward Lyuba, who was dishing her up a giant bowl of soup, so all he saw was a whole lot of straight, black hair, hanging three quarters of the way down her back.

When she turned, his
eyebrows popped. She was the last thing he had expected Gerik to be fawning over. Frate had a thing for tall, skinny, breast-less women that had the whole supermodel bitch thing going for them. His long-standing affair with Onyx Vãduva was proof to that and so was almost every other fată Gerik had hooked up with.

Not that this
fată wasn't beautiful, because she damn sure was. But, she was on the short side, and seeing as how she had hips and tits, was also a whole lot curvier than Gerik liked his women.

She was, in fact, the type of
woman he liked underneath him, above him, bent over in front of him, up against a wall, hell, whatever way he could get it. She was in shape but nicely curved, with handfuls of breasts to squeeze and an actual ass he could grab hold of while he pounded into her.

She was undeniably nervous. Her eyes were darting back and forth, scanning over the food tent for a place to sit. Just as it looked like she was about to make a run for it, Becki looped arms with her and, as luck would have it, brought her right to his picnic table.

She took the seat across from him, refusing to meet his eyes. She wasn't at all like the women he was used to. This girl was shy. Reserved. Innocent.

“Trinity, this is Shandor,” Becki said, gesturing. “Our resident idiot.”

Trinity didn't even look up.

When it did not appear as if Becki was going to introduce him, he kicked her under the table and gave her a pointed look. She rolled her eyes.

“And this is Xan.” She had said his name dismissively, as if he were the most insignificant creature on the planet. He managed to give her the stink eye before Trinity turned her gaze towards him.

“Hey,” she said, meekly.

“If I'm an idiot, fată,” Shandor yelled. “What the hell are you? The resident bitch?”

Becki shoved him. “Being a bitch is better than
being a moron!”

Trinity was ignoring their bickering in favor of staring forlornly into her soup.

“The soup is definitely depressing today,” he piped up, trying to get her attention. “Sometimes Lyuba puts a little too much ‘It sucks to be me’ in it.”

Her perfect pink lips melted into a stunning smile. And those eyes of hers, the greenest eyes he had ever seen, sparkled like goddamn gems.

Fuuuuuck… He was instantly hard. He had never seen eyes like hers. He would have remembered eyes like that. He would have dreamt about eyes like that. Dreamt that they were looking up at him while she sucked his—

Shit. Not wanting to attack her during her first excursion out of her trailer, he excused himself. Near the exit, he turned, giving her one last look and their eyes met. She had been watching him walk away and the blush spreading across her delicate features was a telltale sign
fata had liked what she had seen.

He tossed her a lazy grin, deepening her blush. Oh yeah. This one was a babe in the fucking woods. Probab
ly a virgin, to boot. Nice. He hadn't fucked a virgin in a long ass time.

Gerik appeared beside her, frowning at him. He winked and Gerik's eyes went white. Laughing, he turned around and left. Poor Gerik. He would have his little
fată on her back, thighs spread, and hymen broken, before the end of the week, he was sure of it.

He frowned at the stars. “Didn't exactly work out as planned, did it?”

Motherfucking
her
. While he sat here pining, what the fuck was she doing?

He snorted. She was doing Gerik. Frate had finally gotten what he had wanted. No, she had finally gotten what she had really wanted. He had seen the two of them together. Seen how perfect they had looked together. How she had responded to him sexually, despite her innocence. Hell, she had bee
n damn nervous with him, didn’t have a clue about being with a man. But with Gerik, she had been an instant pro. Looking back on it, she had only been fighting the inevitable.

Jericho passed him the jug of Plum Ţuică and he took a healthy swallow before pa
ssing it on to Shandor. Sighing contentedly, he leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and just enjoyed the soft whine of Lajos’s violin. Gerik, Stefan and Mihai were quietly arguing, Jericho was humming, Shandor was rambling on about something, and like usual, Hockey was mostly silent. It was a moment of peace in a life without it.

“Ah lepo dekle na lep večer,” Marcell grunted.

“Boys night?”

His eyes popped open and yep, there she was. The object of his fucking obsession. The reason he had been jerking off, something he hadn't done since the age of twelve.

“Not at all. Please join us.” Jericho motioned to the chair next to his and offered Trinity the Ţuică. He stared as her lips parted and wrapped around the mouth of the jug. She tilted her head back and swallowed and swallowed…and swallowed. Dammit. He was hard again. Just from watching her throat work.

She was smiling when she handed the jug back to Jericho. “Mmmmm. My daddy would have loved this.”

“Your father liked his spirits?” Stefan asked.

She grinned, showing off her dimples. “He was a big fan of Absinthe and Ouzo.”

“Man after my own heart," he said, because he couldn't think of anything else to say and he so desperately wanted her to notice him. And she did. She looked right at him and like a deer caught in the bright gleam of headlights, he just stared at her. Fuck, when had he become such a girl?

“I’m assuming, Trinity, we have you to thank for three fresh batches of jerky?” Jericho smiled at her and she nodded, looking disgusted. Heh. Making beef jerky was not for the weak. He had to hand it to her. She had taken to Gypsy life surprisingly well. Although, she hadn’t had much of a choice.

“Thanks to Becki I’ll probably never get the stink out of me.”

Shandor laughed. “Where is that roommate of yours?”

Her expression sobered and her eyes shot to her feet. Ah, so she knew. Becki had better be careful or her rendezvous’ with Tobar were going to become public knowledge.

“Sleeping,” she mumbled.

“Mmm…hmm.” Shandor drawled, shooting him an amused glance that he answered with a smirk.

Hockey flipped the brim of his hat up and turned toward Shandor, glaring.

“What?” Shandor put his hands up. “Just asking where she was?”

Hockey turned to Trinity. “Trinity? Can I talk to you for a minute?”

For a moment he was simply stunned Hockey had spoken nine whole words, and in the form of sentence no less. Then he realized, as did everyone else, exactly what Hockey had asked of her. Trinity looked just as shocked as the rest of them.

Trinity stood and offered him her hand, further shocking their small gathering. Gerik glared at their retreating forms. Holy shit. Were Hockey and Trinity…? No. No way. He would kill him. And if he didn't, Gerik would. He relaxed back in his chair, but the atmosphere around the campfire was anything but relaxing. Gerik's eyes had gone bright white and he was gripping his kneecaps as if he wanted to tear them straight off and beat Hockey to death with them.

Abruptly, frate jumped up and stalked off in the direction Trinity had gone, muttering curses.

Jericho shook his head. "If th
at boy doesn't claim her soon, nature help us all."

Stefan and Mihai murmured their agreement.

And didn't that just make him want to shred them all to pieces. Why the fuck was everyone so bent on Gerik marrying her? Nearly every unattached frate here, and a few who weren’t, wanted to bang the shit out of her. Yet no one tried. Not one. He didn't get it. Gerik wasn't that scary.

Pissed off, he left, headed in the opposite direction of Gerik. Then, for a reason he wasn’t going to think on at the moment, he circled back around through the living lot and headed to the front lot.

He froze a few yards from the creek and just stared. Trinity was sitting in-between Gerik's legs, her head thrown back, her eyes closed, and her mouth open. Gerik's face was buried in her neck, one hand was gripping her bared breast and the other he’d shoved down the front of her jeans.

Her small cries of pleasure, her breathless panting of Gerik's name, her arm wrapped backwards around his neck holding him tight against her, her own hand joined with his down her jeans…

He'd been wrong. Fata was no virgin. Why had he even thought she was in the first place? It was as if he had been putting her on some kind of pedestal she did not belong on. She was just another fată. Another Gaje slut. There was absolutely nothing special about her that begged attention. Nope. Nothing.

Trinity's orgasm was fucking mind-blowing. And he wished it had been him who had given it to her. Her eyes went saucer-wide, the green caught the
moonlight, giving them an otherworldly glow. Her body bowed high off the ground and Gerik had to fight to keep her in place while he finished her off. She let out a prolonged cry and then fell limp against him. But Gerik wasn't done. He turned her in his arms and took her mouth in his, kissing her hard and fast. Then he was laying her down, climbing on top of her, unzipping his jeans…

He turned away and headed back for camp. No way was he going to watch that asshole do to her what had been consuming his thoughts from the moment he had seen her.

He was done thinking about Trinity. No way was he going sloppy seconds with Gerik.

And he was done with
her
now. So what if Gerik hadn't actually fucked her that night. So fucking what if it had been him to take her virginity. And marry her. And hear her tell the entire camp on a daily basis how much she goddamned loved him.

He had other bullshit to dwell on. The wards kept failing, people kept being killed, the clan had to keep moving, and raids were coming up empty. Winter was just around the corner and they weren’t prepared. Not by a long shot. Shit was rolling downhill faster and faster with each passing week.

Wait. Who was he kidding? He didn't give a fuck about any of that shit.

“Xan?” The screen door squeaked open and Nadya's shadow fell over him. “Are you coming back to bed?”

“No.”

“But it’s late.”

Jesus. How had Marko dealt with her bullshit?

“If I’m keeping you awake,
fată, feel free to go home. I’m done with you for the night anyway.”

The screen door slammed shut and he heard shuffling from inside the trailer. Ten seconds later, she pushed by him, fully dressed.

She huffed. “You are the biggest dick I have ever met.”

“What’s that? I have the biggest dick you’ve ever seen?” He winked at her, grinning around his cigarette.

“You’re disgusting,” she muttered.

“I try.”

Alone again, he went back to staring up at the stars.

“Unless you carry the Gipsy eyes,

That see but seldom weep,

Keep your head from the naked skies,

Or the stars'll trouble your sleep.”

He laughed bitterly. “Musta’ gotten my tată’s eyes, cuz I can’t fuckin’ sleep.”

And wasn't that just like his tată. To fuck everything up.