“You need to learn better control over your power.”
“I’d like to learn a lot of things about my power. If only someone would teach me.” I tapped a finger against my temple. “Hmm, do you know anyone who could do such a thing?”
He ignored me. “So you ran into Marko?” he asked, plucking the memory straight from its source.
“Rude much? I was going to tell you, you didn’t have to steal.”
“But it’s so much more fun.” He said and winked. “So, it was Marko who told you Xan had moved on, yeah?”
I rolled my eyes. “I give up. Let’s never have an actual conversation ever again. We’ll just think things at each other forever.”
“Sorry,” he said, not sounding the least bit sorry. “Go ahead.”
He listened quietly as I relayed the painful events of that horrible day last fall and remained quiet long after I finished talking.
“Gerik?”
He glanced away from me to stare into the hallway. “You still care about Xan," he said.
“UGH!” I slid down under the water, glaring up at him when he peered over the tub.
I can feel your feelings for him. So don’t deny it.
I wasn’t going to. I still care about Xan. See? Happy now?
His fangs lengthened. Ecstatic.
I shot up, sloshing water over the side of the tub.
“What is your deal? Why does this even matter to you anymore?”
“You know, when you and Xan slept together I thought you’d ruined everything. I’d thought our soul had no chance of joining.”
Gerik sounded tired. As if thinking about the past was physically draining for him. Reaching for me, he began rubbing my bottom lip with his thumb. I scooted closer and rested my chin on the edge of the tub.
“I thought I had, too,” I admitted.
His mouth tightened and his hand dropped away.
“Gerik,” I whispered. “Don’t. It’s the past. I’m yours. All yours. And you know it.”
“I know,” he whispered. “But you were mine before Xan. And I’d waited for you for so long.” Gerik’s emotions were so distressing I began to tear up. “At first you were so heartbroken over losing your sister, your family, your home. You were such a mess, I wasn’t even sure you were actually comprehending what was happening around you. Becki was adamant about letting you heal before anything happened between us. Even though I agreed with her, it was hard, but she kept me in check most of the time. Then…I saw the way you acted when Xan was around. You would stare at him with this hungry look in your eyes, the way you should have been looking at me. The way I looked at you. So I started pushing you harder, trying to make you respond to me, but it blew up in my face.”
I was blushing furiously. “I don’t know what hungry looks you’re talking about,” I mumbled, sinking back down into the soapy water.
Only I did know. I had never been attracted to a man before Xan. I knew a good-looking guy when I’d see one. Gerik, for one, had always been disturbingly beautiful to me…and everyone else. But it was Xan who had stirred those first feelings of natural arousal inside of me. Whereas with Gerik it had always been our soul pushing us together.
Gerik lifted his lip and snarled. “Don’t deny it, Trinity. It was disgustingly adolescent watching you eye fuck him. He wasn’t any better, staring at you when you weren’t looking. The two of you were a fucking car crash waiting to happen.”
Big, bad Xan stared at me? Me? I smiled but stopped abruptly when Gerik began to growl at me.
“Xan isn’t the person you think he is, Trinity. He’s not…a good man.”
I glared at him. “Don’t resort to shit talking.”
“I’m not!” he rumbled loudly.
“Didn’t you ever wonder why most of the clan steered clear of him? Why he was able to take on a Skin Eater,” Gerik sneered. “And survive? Without magic!”
“So what? He was strong! But gods, Gerik, you’re stronger! Does that make you a bad guy?”
“No! He isn’t just strong! He’s goddamn lethal! And I might be stronger now, but I wasn’t always. Do you remember the bare-knuckled fights back at camp? Do you remember me fighting Xan? He threw that match, Trinity! Xan could have kicked my ass into next year if he’d wanted to! I have never met anyone who could best him, even using magic. But he’d had to maintain a certain facade with the rest of the clan. He couldn’t have everyone scared shitless of him all the time!”
I scoffed. “What exactly are you trying to say, Gerik? That Xan is some kind of secret superhero?”
Gerik stared at me. And the bond filled with his memories. Of Xan. Of Shandor. Of Jericho.
I gaped at him, horrified by what I had both seen and heard. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered.
“Do you not understand that according to clan law, I couldn’t tell you? Then once I had realized that the two of you had started to care about one another, I couldn’t tell you the truth about him because at that point I knew you wouldn’t have believed me! That left me with only one option. To start pushing you physically, to join our soul.”
“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 ma
ke 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.