The Lost Souls (The Holy Trinity #2.5)(15)

Nadya.

Beautiful, sweet, and loving, yet kind of annoying when she would talk his ear off. Maybe she couldn’t cook very well and…well, who was he kidding? She was a f*cking whore. He was in love with a whore who had apparently never loved him back. The word fool came to mind. All those damn years…how many? Fuck, it had been fifteen years since their betrothal. For fifteen years, he’d only had eyes for her. He had never been with anyone but her, had never wanted anyone but her.

And she’d f*cked Xan Deleanu. She’d chosen Xan over him. Xan was a goddamn man-whore with a jacked-up attitude and a drinking problem. He preferred fighting to talking, and his solution to working through his emotions consisted of jacking his cock off inside another man’s property. He was a guy who didn’t so much as blink at the thought of killing another human being. He was coldhearted and single-minded and just an all-around *.

Marko’s fists clenched as old anger boiled up anew inside him.

“Are you okay?”

He glanced up and found Carrie staring at him.

No, she wasn’t staring at him. She was gaping at…his glowing fists.

Shit.

Marko had never learned how to control his powers when he was angry or aroused. That was probably because when he got angry, he was all in. There was no in-between, and the same could be said for his libido. But that was neither here nor there. Here was the teenage Gaje girl gaping at him because his hands were glowing with internal fire and his eyes were undoubtedly a solid glowing white. Taking a calming deep breath, he tamped down his power and shoved it back into stasis.

“I don’t wanna get into it,” he said gruffly. “But seeing as how there is a goddamn snowstorm outside, I don’t have any gas, and we’re both f*cking stuck her…then you might as well know that I have magic.”

Pursing her lips, her expression thoughtful, she nodded.

She just nodded.

What the hell? No freak-out? No questions? Was this the calm before the next emotional storm? And more importantly, would he be able to sleep through what was going to come?

Marko shuddered at the thought of how much more hysterical she could get.

“Do you think I’m the only human left?” she asked.

His eyebrows shot up. “Say what?”

“Well, those things out there,” she said, making an all-encompassing gesture, “are definitely not human anymore, and the only two people I have seen since this whole crazy mess began is you, and before you, a woman who was definitely not human, but she wasn’t like those things either. She was more like you except she had black eyes and black stuff coming out of her hands.”

Marko’s heart thundered in his chest. It couldn’t be a coincidence. “Black eyes?” he repeated and Carrie nodded.

“Long black hair? Olive skin?”

She gave him another nod and his heartbeat triple-timed it.

Trinity. It had to be her.

“Where?” he demanded. Oh crap. “And when?”

“Um, it was fall, October or maybe November, at a house in town. We, um…my brother had me hold her at gunpoint. He, uh, wanted the keys to her car, and then she…she killed him.”

Killed him, huh? Well, what had he expected? He’d seen what she’d done to that hospital where he’d found her. She’d decimated the entire structure by accident. She probably hadn’t meant to kill the girl’s brother either. But the woman was a force of nature beyond anyone’s comprehension.

Gerik Hjems?ter was the most powerful Rom of their time. He was, according to the prophecy, “The One” and Trinity was his soul mate. Together they shared a soul, shared powers, and shared what-the-f*ck-ever else. Add dark magic into the mix, and the final outcome was going to be a big magical mess just waiting to blow up in your face.

Whatever. He still needed to find her.

Only…

He glanced out the window at the snow, and thought about his lack of gasoline.

“Is she evil or something?” Carrie asked.

With a disappointed sigh, he turned away from her. Slowly, he crossed the trailer and sat down heavily on the small sofa.

“Evil,” he repeated, staring across the small space at nothing in particular. “Nah. Or at least, I doubt it. Trinity’s just…” Letting his head drop to the back of the couch, he sighed again. “She’s just one damn unlucky fat?.”

“Fat??”

“Girl,” he said absentmindedly. “It means girl.”

“So, she’s human?”

Marko let out a humorless laugh. “Yeah.”

“And you’re human?”

He lifted his head. He was accustomed to chatty females, but this particular one was getting annoying.

“Do I look like an alien?” he snarled.

His temper didn’t seem to faze her in the least. Damn.

“Are you from another country?”

What the f*ck? Did he sound French? “No,” he bit out. “I’m Romani. I’m not from any country. I’m from everywhere…and nowhere.”

“What’s a Romani?”

“A Gypsy,” he growled.

“Wow,” she breathed. “Did you travel in a caravan and stuff?”

Okay, so the rapt expression on Carrie’s face was kind of funny. She was romanticizing everything he was saying. As if living off the land, making everything from scratch, bathing in lakes was, like, totally the best thing, like, ever.