The Lost Souls (The Holy Trinity #2.5)(27)

Beneath him, Carrie’s body went taut and her eyelids began to flutter wildly.

“Oh my God,” she cried out. Her fingernails dug deeper into his skin as her back arched off the bed. “Oh…my…God.”

In a cacophony of grunts, groans, and cries, grinding their bodies against each other, they finished together in an explosion of bright white light.



Out of breath, his body still twitching from his release, Marko rolled off her and placed his hand over his heaving chest.

“Shit,” he breathed out, wheezing through his next few breaths. “Shit.”

As his heartbeat began to slow, so did his thought process, allowing him to once again think clearly, his perception no longer muddled with need, desperation, and magic.

What the hell had just happened?

Slowly, he turned his head and looked beside him. Carrie was lying very still, staring at the ceiling above them. Oh, Jesus.

“Carrie?” he whispered.

She didn’t answer him.

“Carrie,” he repeated, pushing himself up into a sitting position. He looked her over, taking in her puffy, tear-streaked face, her pale skin covered with tiny bruises from his hands and mouth, her legs still cocked in the position he’d left them, her—

Oh no.

Her thighs and the mattress beneath her were covered in blood. The euphoric, exhausted feeling that always accompanied an orgasm was instantly replaced with a panicky sort of nausea.

What the f*ck had he just done?

What the f*ck…

What the f*ck…

Marko just kept staring, feeling his gut rising, until he broke out into a cold sweat. Lurching up, rolling over her out of bed, he barely made to his knees before his stomach emptied.

What had he done?

What had happened? What the f*ck had he done? And why had he done it? Jesus, he wasn’t any better than the Skins, taking what didn’t belong to them, only to satisfy an unnatural hunger born from death and despair.

He was a monster.

Pushing himself up off the floor, he got to his feet and staggered across the trailer. He all but fell inside the storage room. Shutting the door behind him, he collapsed to the floor.

How could he face Carrie after what he’d just done?

He deserved to rot.

Choking through a sob, Marko dropped his face in his hands and cried.

? ? ?

Carrie was convinced Marko had lost his mind, much like her brother had. It was a male thing, she decided, an ego thing. The control over their lives had been brutally stripped from them, leaving them helpless to the dangers of the world around them. Both of them had become desperate to regain some form of control, and because of it, they’d both tried to take from her. To take away what little control she had left.

Jason had died before he could do that.

And Marko…had done just that…or had he?

As she lay there listening to him throwing up, she thought that maybe it wasn’t her who’d just lost something. Instead, maybe it was Marko.

And…what had happened with his magic?

One minute she’d been in pain, scared and upset, and the next she’d…

Been seeing things? Other people? Places?

And the feelings that came after…

Oh my God.

Euphoric?

Spiritual?

Transcendent?

Carrie had been able to see things she’d never seen before—every pore in Marko’s skin, the fuzzy dust motes floating all around them. She’d felt the slowing and quickening of the air inside the trailer. She’d heard sounds she couldn’t place, didn’t recognize. She’d felt…

She didn’t know.

It had been so…so…everything.

Bliss. Ecstasy. Elation. A frenzy of intoxicating joy and madness and…

She’d never felt anything so beautiful before. If perfection were a feeling, then she’d experienced perfection at its finest.

And honestly, it was hard to hate someone who’d just given her a glimpse of heaven.

Rolling over, Carrie wiped the last of her tears from her cheeks and, ignoring the horrible burning and heart-pounding ache between her legs, she dressed quickly and climbed out of bed.

“Marko,” she whispered, opening the door to the storage room.

Seated in the middle of the room, he glanced up at her with tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he rasped. “Fat?, I’m sorry. That wasn’t me. I don’t know why…I can’t…I…oh, f*ck.”

Her insides squeezed painfully and her hands flew to her chest. “Oh my God,” she whispered.

She could feel him, everything he was feeling—the guilt, the pain, the complete and utter desolation.

And it crippled her.

Dropping to her knees beside him, Carrie threw her arms around his neck and held tightly to him. She wanted to say something, something that would console him, console her, only she couldn’t think of anything because there wasn’t anything to say…because she wasn’t even upset.

But he was. He was crying, and then suddenly, she was crying. The sound of tears created a panicky feeling inside her, a feeling she recognized as not her own but she could feel as if it were.

Marko’s arms came around her and she gratefully burrowed against his large body, squeezing him hard.

More emotions flooded her and this time, she recognized them as her own.