“You’re married to Xan,” he said flatly. “I figured…” he trailed off, staring at me. All around the futon, spirit was seeping through the floorboards, curling upwards in shadowy twists, resembling gnarled, inhuman arms and hands. Whenever I was afraid or angry, or overly emotional, this would happen and I had no idea how to control it. But that was beside the point.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Calm down.”
“Calm down? No! And what exactly are you sorry for, huh?” I snapped. “And where have you been?”
“I’m sorry that I fucked up again.” Running his hands through his hair, he sighed. “I do that a lot when it comes to you.”
“Ha! That’s an understatement!”
When he said nothing else, I began to fume. Was that my apology? Oh, sorry Trinity, I fucked up. But it’s all better now because my big, wonderful self came back to you.
No. I don’t think so.
“What gave you the right to do what you did to me? Who in Hades do you think you are? You threw all this power at me and left me all alone! YOU LEFT ME! ALONE!”
He opened his mouth but before he could speak, I jumped off the futon and cut him off with a scream. An ear-piercing, bone-rattling scream that had both of us cringing.
“You do not get to say anything!” I yelled, stomping my foot. “You get to turn your big, scaly butt around and go back to wherever it is that you came from! I want nothing to do with you! You ruined my life! You ruined everything!”
“But –”
“No! Just go! Gogogogogogogogogogo!” More foot stomping followed.
“Trinity!” he bellowed.
“What?”
“Calm down and put some clothes on!”
I glanced down at my body and frowned. “Why?”
“Because I have zero control right now!” he roared. Smoke billowed out of his nostrils.
“I haven’t seen you in almost six months and you’re standing in front of me completely naked, looking…like that!” He gestured wildly at my body and his eyes turned black. “And you’re bouncing!”
Bouncing?
“This is my place, Gerik, you can’t dictate to me! I can bounce if I want! It’s not as if you haven’t seen me naked before!”
He took a step towards me, then stopped and closed his eyes. “Trinity! I am not the same! I am...I have… Fuck! Just put some clothes on!”
I stared at him, trying to figure out what “not the same” meant. I waited a little too long and he began to growl.
“Stop acting like a gods damn animal,” I scolded.
“I AM A GOD DAMN ANIMAL!”
He was right. I could no longer see the man, only the angry snarling beast he half looked like.
“You need to get away from me,” he rumbled. “Now.”
This time I listened. Turning from him, I ran across the cabin, making a sharp left into my bedroom and slamming the door behind me. There was no lock, not that it would have stopped him. I just needed enough time to figure out what I was going to do if he had actually lost his mind and was going to attack me.
I hadn’t made it very far in the planning process when my door flew off its hinges and smashed into the opposite wall.
Gerik was crowding the doorway, his hands curled around the remnants of the doorframe, squeezing the wood so hard it was cracking.
I scurried into a corner, pulling the air in the room together as I went then flung it at him. He blew backwards down the hallway and into the kitchenette. His wings unfurled around him and he caught himself from falling, leapt several feet in the air and then landed smoothly on his feet.
I quickly summoned Fire. Black streaked flames flared high in my palms.
His chest heaved and thick acrid smoke billowed from his nostrils. “Not funny, Trinity,” he rumbled.
“No, it isn’t,” I agreed. “It never was.”
I threw my Fire.
One strong inhale turned exhale and out of Gerik’s mouth blasted a much larger flame, instantly engulfing the meager ones I had sent his way.
With a nasty grin, he pushed the wall of fire back at me.
I released more spirit and hurled it forward with the intent to stop the fire. The wispy death encircled its prey and the fire evaporated. The remaining ashes floated through air, as the remnants of spirit fell to the floor and disappeared between the cracks.
“Trinity,” Gerik said approvingly as he approached me. “You’ve been teaching yourself quite a few tricks.”
“Yes,” I said, “No thanks to you!” I held my hands out, willing the air in the room to come to me, to pool in my palms. Once I had as much as I could hold, I let it loose in the room with a twist of my hand. The small tornado headed straight for Gerik, growing in size as it went.
Instead of swallowing him up and blasting through the ceiling, Gerik pulled the swirling air to him and caught it one-handed. Slapping his palms together, the entire thing vanished.
Well…damn. I should have known he was more powerful than I was, or at least a lot more knowledgeable.
“Get out,” I hissed.
Gerik paused, cocked his head to the side and studied me. The action was distinctly un-human like, only giving more credence to what he had said. That he was in fact an animal.
“I can’t,” he said in a quiet rumble.
“What do you mean you can’t?!” I waved my hands around wildly. “Yes you can! You just walk out the door and LEAVE!”
“That’s not what you want.”
He was right. I didn’t want him to leave. The thought of spending even one more day alone and secluded, surrounded by snow and empty land, caused my chest to ache terribly. But I would die before I told him that. I wasn’t going to give him the upper hand so he could take advantage. And he would...he was Gerik.
“It is,” I shot back, turning so he couldn’t see the lie. “Go now.”
Several heartbeats passed and then a large, hot hand wrapped around my hip as he rested his chin heavily on the top of my head. Another hand gripped my shoulder.
“I never meant for you to be alone, you need to believe me,” he rasped, moving off my hip to caress my stomach. “Fuck, Trinity, look at your body. Not an ounce of baby fat left.”
“I’ve been working out,” I said lamely.
As he caressed me, he began to growl low in his throat, the sound rattling his ribcage. The low, silky rumbling wrapped around me, slid over me like warm butter, soaking into my skin and seducing my common sense into submission.
“I hate you,” I whispered. And I did. So very much. I hated him for everything he’d put me through, inadvertently or not, but most of all, I hated him for right now, for using my biggest weakness against me. Him, his beautiful face and body, knowing my instinctual response to him is to let him take from me whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it.
His laughter sounded as savage as he looked. “If this is what hate feels like, Trinity, I’ll take a whole lot more.”
Fighting temptation, I jerked out of his grip and spun in his arms, facing him.
“This is not going to happen.”
Sex born from anger and pain would do neither of us any good. And that’s all there was between us now…anger, hurt, and resentment.
Gerik’s entire body tightened as surprise bled into anger. His fangs fully extended, reaching past his bottom lip. They were a fearsome sight, black as midnight and as sharp as blades.
“You need me as badly as I need you,” he bit out. “Don’t do this.”
“I don’t need you.”
“No?” he sneered. “Your body was begging for me just a moment ago. I could smell it.”
Smell it? Gross!
And begging? My last straw broke. I curled my hand into a fist and propelled it forward.
His reflexes were magnificent. In the amount of time it took to blink, he had knocked my fist aside and wrapped a hand around my throat.
“Honeymoon’s already over, yeah?” he mocked.
“What…honeym
oon?” I choked out, barely able to breathe “I’m not...married…to you.”
Roaring, Gerik threw me across the room. I landed hard on my mattress and bounced twice before regaining my bearings.
Eyes black, nostrils flaring, with his wings spread wide behind him, he loomed over me. He looked every inch a demon with the face of an angel. I might have been cowed if he was anyone else, but I wasn’t afraid of Gerik, even in his new, much larger, beastly form. I mean, please. It was still Gerik. I could take him.
I pointed a finger at him. “You can’t just waltz back into my life and expect me to hand over my body to you like I’m some kind of apocalyptic perk! I don’t trust you anymore than I did before, back when you were alternating between me and ONYX!”
I stuck my finger out further and he eyed it distastefully.
“Maybe you should use your magical seduction abilities on HER!”
He lowered his head until we were eye to eye. Several heart-pounding seconds passed.
“Onyx made not having you somewhat livable!” he bellowed. “The minute I found you, I ached for you, burned in a way that wasn’t just painful, it was fucking unbearable! But you –” Growling, he swatted my finger away with such force my entire arm flew backwards. “You weren't affected nearly as much! I watched you going about your life as if I didn’t matter, and I didn’t, did I? You ended up with Xan! You let him TOUCH YOU! Shit, not only did you let him touch you, you let him FUCK YOU and then you MARRIED HIM!” His face twisted in disgust.
I punched him in the chest. “Screw you!” I screamed. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t the perfect, pliable soul mate you wanted me to be! I didn’t even know who I was! I still don’t! Do you know how frustrating that is?”
Punch.
Punch.
Punch.
Punching Gerik was like punching a wall of rock, but I couldn’t stop. I wanted to hurt him. Hurt him, not with magic or words but with my own two hands.
“Sorry I felt it appropriate at this day in age that I get to pick who I am with, who I fall in love with!”
Punch.
Punch.
Punch.
He clamped down on my wrists. “That’s just it!” he roared. “You should never have been able to pick! I wasn’t able to pick and choose! It was always you, ALWAYS! Even before I met you I sensed your presence in this world and it kept me chained to you, unable to love anyone but you!”
“That wasn’t my fault!” I tried to twist my wrists out of his grip. It was a wasted effort.
“No one sent me the latest edition of The Soul Mate Handbook, so fuck you!”
“No,” he yelled back. “Fuck you, Trinity! It was your fault! It was your fault for being so god damn beautiful and innocent and disgustingly sweet. It was your fault for being so easy to fucking love. So fuck you! Fuck you and fuck Xan and fuck ME!”
Pushing me backwards onto my bed, he let go of me and went storming across the room, still fuming,
“I hate you!” I screamed, struggling to sit up. “I can’t believe you’re blaming me! It wasn’t as if I had a choice! You think I asked for this! You think I wanted to put us all through hell!”
With a roar, he turned to face me. Flames illuminated the back of his throat. His tail swished angrily behind him, the six thick spikes at the end, turning my floor into wood chips.
“I never knew what you thought, or felt, did I? You were too busy whoring yourself to Xan, to talk to me!”
I barked out a laugh. “Talk to you? Talk to you! Are you crazy? You never wanted to talk to me! All you wanted was to fuck me! To give me your magic and pat yourself on the back! Mission accomplished, end of story!”
In the blink of an eye, he was in front of me again. “That isn’t true,” he growled.
I tried to move away from him but he grabbed my arms, staying me.
Pissed off, I grunted. “Gerik, do you even know my middle name? My birthday?”
Teeth clenched, he shook me, “I wanted to!”
“Liar!” I yelled. “You’re a selfish bastard and I hate you!”
“And you’re a heartless bitch,” he hissed back. “And I love you!”
He dropped to his knees and let his head fall forward into my lap. His wings dropped neatly against his back, the supple, leathery looking membranes folded over one another like a fan. Silky blonde hair spilled out over my thighs.
I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting back the urge to touch him.
“I’m changing,” he whispered against my bare legs. “Please don’t make me leave.”
I looked down at him and he looked up at me. His mind-blowing beautiful blue eyes bored into mine. “What do you mean, changing?”
But I already knew. He was bigger than before, taller and wider; his horns had grown, as had the amount of scales covering his body. Several hundred heartbeats passed during which I had several heart attacks and maybe a stroke or two.
“There is an animal inside of me,” he said hoarsely. “And it’s growing stronger. I can feel it taking over… Eventually, I’m not going to be me anymore.”
I stared at him, uncomprehending. “Who will you be?” I asked softly.
I watched a lone tear slip from the corner of his eye and leave a trail of wetness as it slid down his cheek, evaporating.
“I don’t know who I’ll be. But I want…I just wish…” His head dropped.
“What? You want what?”
“You,” he whispered, his breath hot against my bare skin. His hands encircled my ankles and slid slowly up my legs as he pulled them apart.
“I want you, Trinity. I’ve always wanted you.”
He kissed his way up my thighs while his hands crept up the sides of my body. Liquid flames followed the path of his lips and fingers as they trailed fire across my bare skin. He stopped near my ribcage and his thumbs brushed softly against the undersides of my breasts.
“I’ve loved you all your life,” he whispered. “Please, Trinity, please love me back.”
It was a desperate plea from a desperate man. But it was real. Oh, gods was it real. I felt the power of those words sink deep inside of me, deep inside the gaping hole in my chest that had been growing wider and colder during these past months. It was warm and soft as it spread; a comforting balm that eased my pain and soothed the anger inside of me.
Gerik had saved my life and brought me to his home.
He had protected me while the world crumbled to dust around us.
And who could ever forget his most selfless act. An act that had saved most of his clan, knowing he was cursing himself. In return, they had banished him.
Now, this selfless, beautiful creature, so full of raw strength and powerful magic, was kneeling before me and asking me to love him.
Asking me…
To love him.
I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. I didn’t want to continue living in the shadows of my memories and wishing for things that I knew would never come to pass.
I had no idea what would come of this, of us, but I suddenly wanted to find out more than I wanted anything else.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Xan wasn’t sure what was making him sicker, the amount of alcohol he had just consumed or Onyx, laying face down, naked, in his bed.
She had done it out of spite; or rather, she had done him out of spite. Or out of revenge. Guess she hadn’t gotten the memo that Gerik and her didn’t give a flying fuck about either of them or who they were fucking.
“Damn, Deleanu, I thought you were made of stronger stuff than this. You look like you’re gonna puke. Or, was I just that bad?” She lifted her head up and grinned.
No. And that was half the problem. She had been exactly what he hadn’t known he’d needed. Instead of the limp, rag doll Nadya was or the selfless, attentive lover Fifi always tried to be, Onyx had torn him up.
Neither of them had held back. He wasn’t even sure if they’d had sex or just spent the morning beating the fucking hell out of each other. It had been the first time in his li
fe he’d ever hit a woman but, surprisingly, he felt no guilt.
“You need to eat something,” he said, staring at her bony body, now scratched and bruised, thanks to him.
She smirked. “You should talk.”
Digging out a bottle of gin from under a pile of dirty clothes, he took an extra long swallow. Ah. Now that was better. Sick feeling was officially receding.
“I’m not a layer of skin away from the grave, fată. You’re looking kinda skeletal.”
She shrugged. “At least I don’t smell like a garbage dump. You might want to dump a bucket of water over yourself once in a while.”
“Coming from the fată with pit hair as long as mine,” he muttered.
Laughing, she sat up and grabbed the bottle from him. “You find me a lady bic and I’ll shave. Until then, I’m sticking with my roots.”
“When was the last time you saw a razor around camp? Use a blade, ya goddamn Gypsy.”
“Like you?” She brushed her hand over his beard and he slapped her away.
“Oh, Xan, tsk tsk. Being nasty is only gonna turn me on and I’m not sure you’re up for another round.”
Jesus, this bitch was a goddamn demon in bed. Between drinking themselves into a stupor and fucking the hell out of each other all damn morning, he was impressed that she even was up for another round. And he was downright shocked that his own body was proving itself just as receptive.
She slipped her hand inside of his boxers and squeezed him.
“Oh yeah,” she muttered. “You want more. I always knew you were just like me.”
God, she was a bitch and a whore. She was everything he hated about women all rolled up in one tiny bag of bones.
“I’m nothing like you,” he lied.
“Oh? So back in the Catskills when you pulled your piece on Gerik, if he hadn’t walked away, you weren’t going to kill him?” He glared at her. Unfazed, she continued to stroke him. “Baby, I got your number. I knew you were going to kill him, Gerik knew it and you knew it. The only person who didn’t know it was little miss perfect. Fucking oblivious bitch.”
She hadn’t been oblivious, she’d been innocent. There was a big difference. Before she had lost her sister and joined their clan the only bad things she’d been exposed to had been on television. But now that he thought about it, he wasn’t even sure if his wife had ever watched television.