The Lost Souls (The Holy Trinity #2.5)(28)

She felt…

She felt…

Complete.

Carrie gripped him tighter.

She couldn’t explain it, she didn’t understand it, but whatever had happened to her, to him, while he’d taken her, had changed her.

Marko was inside her. And oddly enough, she wanted him there.

“Shhh,” she whispered, pulling away from him, brushing his long hair away from his face and forcing him to look at her. “Shhh.”

Marko shook his head wildly, and she could feel the inner turmoil inside him.

“I’m f*cked-up,” he sobbed. “Something happened outside, and I didn’t know what I was doing. Jesus, Carrie, I’m—”

Carrie pressed her lips to his, cutting him off. He stiffened, surprise radiating from him into her, but the warmth she felt, the comfort, the need, were seeping into him. Then he was kissing her back, slowly at first, but the more she persisted, the more passionate the kisses grew.

“This is right,” she murmured against his mouth.

Marko’s hands flew to her cheeks, his fingers slid into her hair, and he gently cupped her head.

“This is right,” she repeated.

It was right. Nothing had ever felt more right than this. Carrie knew it because she could feel it with all her heart…and soul.





Chapter Fifteen


From his seat on the couch, Marko followed Carrie’s movements as she walked to and fro, from one end of the trailer to the other. She had two pots of something cooking on the stove. He could smell the scent of his mam?’s recipe for soap wafting from the partially open bathroom door, and as she made her trips back and forth between rooms, she was intermittently cleaning.

She’d been bathing daily as well. Smiling a lot. Constantly trying to touch him, be near him…to be with him.

He refused to touch her. He couldn’t, not after what he’d done. No matter how bad the cravings to be with her were, he continuously shut them down, trying to ignore them and her.

And then there was the goddamn magic problem. She was ridiculously clumsy with her powers, his powers, using them accidentally, lighting things on fire and creating windstorms inside the trailer.

None of it made sense and yet, it did.

The last time anyone had seen Gerik, he had no longer been human but a human/dragon hybrid of sorts. And based on what Marko knew now, having seen it and felt it firsthand, Gerik had become a full-fledged dragon.

Maybe dragons didn’t have souls?

That meant…

Oh God. How could this be happening?

Why him?

He was hardly the most powerful Romani. True, he came from a powerful family line, but he was nowhere near Gerik’s magical caliber. That damn soul, the oldest soul, was only ever given to the most powerful.

Ah, God, why him?

Well, obviously he’d been nature’s next best option. Thanks a lot, nature. Why not another Rom from another clan? Was his clan the only one left? And if so, why not Tobar? They both had sway over three elements…

Marko paused. Was Tobar dead?

And what about Carrie?

Carrie wasn’t Romani. She was a Gaje.

It just didn’t make sense.

But Trinity hadn’t been Romani either.

“Shit,” he muttered.

What the f*ck? He had Gerik and Trinity’s soul? Correction—he and Carrie had Gerik and Trinity’s soul?

That was something he used to ease his guilt, knowing he hadn’t been in his right mind when he’d taken her. In a way, he’d been compelled to be with her, the way Gerik had been with Trinity. Only Marko wasn’t half as strong as Gerik had been.

Still…rape wasn’t the way any man and woman should come together.

What had Maisera always said? Fate wasn’t supposed to make sense. It just was. That destiny, everyone’s, had been written in the stars long before their births, long before…anything.

But even so, he couldn’t help to think, what if the world had never fallen apart? He would have never met Carrie. So, what did that mean? That the world was supposed to succumb to evil? That all of this—the death, the destruction, the near total ruination of mankind—had been the damn plan all along? That Gerik and Trinity were supposed to turn dark? And subsequently lose their soul because of it? That everything horrible that had happened to them all had already been predestined? What kind of f*cked-up god would do something like this? What could be his reasoning?

Ah, God, everything Carrie was feeling, he was feeling too. It wasn’t that he hated it. He actually kind of liked it, but it was just so much, all out of nowhere, and this incredible burning, aching need to touch her and to be with her refused to let up.

Marko?

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he turned toward her. “Yeah?”

God, she was beautiful, sweet and fresh-faced, young and supple.

His gaze traveled down her body and then lower to the V between her legs, to where he wanted to be joined with her, to where he needed to be joined with her.

Marko?

His head snapped up. Fucking Christ.

“Yeah,” he muttered, “for the second time. What?”

Ignoring his temper, something she suddenly seemed quite good at, she smiled.

Dinner is ready.

He stared at her. Just stared. What in the—

Carrie hadn’t spoken. Her lips hadn’t moved, yet he’d heard her clear as day.