The Lost Souls (The Holy Trinity #2.5)(25)

He left the supply room and glanced toward Carrie. She was still sleeping, the blankets pulled up to her nose, still snoring. Blowing out a frustrated breath, Marko turned away and resumed pacing. This time, something stopped him dead in his tracks.

It started off small, just a tickle of a feeling beneath his skin, but as he stood there it continued to grow and grow until his entire body was humming with sensation.

“Magic,” he breathed.

Excitement flooded his belly and he spun around, jogging for the door. After thrusting it open, he jumped down the two steps and into the pouring rain, his bare feet sinking instantly into the flooded muddy ground. He turned his head wildly—left, right, and left again—looking for the source of the power he’d sensed.

Shielding his eyes from the rain, his clothing and body already drenched, he squinted, trying to find whatever was causing the pull inside him. But there was nothing. The farmhouse, the acres of land surrounding it, the forest beyond—

His eyes wide, Marko fell to his knees in the muddy water. It looked like the sun. No, it was more beautiful than the sun. Bright white light was shimmering and radiating, crystallizing the air around it, as it hurtled from the sky at record speed, heading straight for him.

He tried to move, tried to twist his legs, tried to reach for the trailer in hopes of grabbing hold of something to pull himself up off the ground, but it was as if he’d been cemented to the earth.

As the ball of power hurtled closer, Marko turned his head away and squeezed his eyes shut. He was just about to begin listing off his sins and begging for forgiveness when—

His breath left him in a painful whoosh and he was screaming, clawing at his chest, ripping open his shirt, certain his skin was melting off his bones. But when he looked, there was just a slight glow from beneath the surface of his skin. Then suddenly, the pain began to ease until only a slight burn from the bloody scratches over his heart remained, along with a dull ache in his chest.

Marko took a deep breath and tried to calm his quivering body when, out of nowhere, his vision tunneled and everything around him—the trailer, the farmhouse, and the forest beyond—turned a shade of white so bright it blinded him. His vision exploded in a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes, the colors blended, expanded, and slowly dissolved, revealing…

Faces and places unknown to him overtook his sight. Lifetime after lifetime bombarded him—memories, thoughts, feelings, anger and pain, births and deaths, happiness and love.

The visions continued to change, more people and more places, over and over again, he felt life and love and death until the timeline soon became one he recognized and—

Flash. He was watching Trinity from across the camp. He was aching for her, his entire body felt afire as the need to be inside her grew to unbearable levels. If he didn’t touch her soon, if he didn’t make her his, he was sure he would die an agonizing death.

Flash. “You are not his anymore, Trin,” Xan said, his voice rough as his body retreated and then returned. Marko gasped as foreign sensations of pleasure burst forth and exploded within him.

“Do you know what this means?” Xan asked, his tone and body language fiercely possessive. “You’re mine, Trinity. Mine.”

“Oh God,” Marko groaned, still clutching his head. He fell onto his side in the mud.

He was turning into a monster. His skin was literally ripping apart, he could feel his organs shifting, growing, as he watched in horror as scales erupted over his body. He felt the god-awful pain from his skull splitting and reforming as horns pushed their way through his head and fangs dropped from his gums.

The pain was suddenly gone, and he was…

Jesus, he was inside Trinity again, watching her writhing beneath him with pure ecstasy on her face, magic radiating from within them, surrounding them, making them one. He’d never felt fuller, stronger, more complete than he did in that moment. It was everything, she was everything.

And then his heart was breaking as the dragon took flight. He was alone again and his chest ached with the loss. Desolate, heartbroken, sick with misery, he lay down on his bed and prayed to the gods that he would never wake up again.

Then Marko’s thoughts grew even more jumbled, more confused and indecipherable. He was hungry, he was tired, and he wanted to fly, but he hurt. Why did he hurt? His insides were burning, and his massive body was heaving as an icy cold ripped through his scales, through his skin, plunging deep inside of him.

Flash. His small feminine hands flew to his chest. “Gerik!” he cried. “Gerik!” But Gerik was gone, everyone was gone, they’d all left him and he’d never felt more empty than he did in that moment.

Then the visions stopped and Marko blinked through the rain at his familiar surroundings. The trailer, the farmhouse, everything was exactly the same.

Everything was exactly as he’d left it.

Everything except for him.

He’d seen it all, every last person who’d shared that damn soul throughout the centuries, going all the way back to the very beginning of time. He’d lived a thousand lives within a matter of minutes—the happiness, the sadness, all of it, every last emotion that made a person human.

Jesus f*cking Christ.

How had this happened?

How had he become the ungrateful recipient of Gerik and Trinity’s soul?

And now, his body was on f*cking fire. His chest felt like bursting, not from pain but from a feeling that could only be described as full.