The Lost Souls (The Holy Trinity #2.5)(34)

“She was dying!” he yelled.

“You told me you could heal people! You could have healed her!”

“Not her mind!” he roared. “I’m not God! I can’t heal the insane!”

“That’s just it!” Mira screamed. “You’re not God, but you just killed her! You took her life!”

“To save her!”

“You could have helped her!” she cried. “We could have helped her! You didn’t even give her a chance!”

“You’re forgetting,” he yelled, storming past her. “I have abilities you do not! She wouldn’t come back from this, from what she went through! And I didn’t have a choice!”

“You did! There is always a choice! You’ve been making them ever since we found you dying in that van!” he heard her scream. “We chose to save you! Tyler and Rachael chose to save you! We should have left you on the side of the road where we found you. We should have shown you the same kindness you showed us!”

Hockey stopped walking.

All of it—the end of the world; losing his friends and family; losing his way; dealing with his own fears, silently and privately; struggling with his loneliness; and then Mira, struggling with the temptation she’d provided him; dealing with his guilt and his lust—everything just imploded within him and exploded out of him because he couldn’t take it anymore. Turning around, he found Mira standing at the top of stairs, glaring down at him.

“FUCK YOU!” he roared. “I’ve been nothing but grateful! Do you think I would have stuck around for as long as I have if you didn’t save my life? I was paying it forward! And what do I get in return for all my efforts? You throwing yourself at me, trying to get me to f*ck you!”

Tears filled Mira’s eyes, but Hockey didn’t care. He was done caring about these people. They were sick and twisted and selfish and immoral. The storm was over, and Mira was a strong woman. He wasn’t needed, and it was well past time he continued his search for his own people.

Turning away from her, he continued down the stairs.

He was done here.

He was going home.

Come hell or high water, Hockey was going the f*ck home.





Chapter Eighteen


“Fat?,” Shandor said, “tell me about your family.”

Her face covered in blood and gore, Tahyra glanced up from the large wolf she’d caught and killed. Wrinkling up her nose at him, she asked, “Why do you keep asking?”

He shrugged. “Because you’re mine, and I want to know everything about you.”

She grinned at him. “Wrong. You’re mine,” she retorted and promptly returned to tearing through a thigh muscle.

Having already satisfied his hunger, he watched her eat, pleased that she was no longer complaining about the strictly animal diet he had imposed on his pack. Shandor wasn’t nearly as pleased about the progress he’d made in his attempt to humanize them. He’d made a little leeway in forcing them to open up about their lives before…

A few had talked of their families and friends or jobs they’d had, but most of them either couldn’t remember, or they didn’t care to remember. Although their loyalty to one another seemed to be growing in leaps and bounds, he’d made little progress on their emotional development. They wouldn’t kill one another unless they had to, but they couldn’t care less about humans. The paralyzing hunger continued to override all thought processes until the beast inside was satisfied.

Tahyra was the worst. She’d thwarted all his attempts at getting inside her head. He’d tried everything to coax her into talking about her past or anything other than hunting and f*cking and killing.

She did seem to enjoy caring for him, though. She hunted for his meals, she cleaned him, she mediated fights within the pack, and she always satisfied his sexual needs to the point of exhaustion. There was nothing he wanted for, nothing except…

A more human than animal response to how he felt about her. And how he felt about her…

How did he feel about her?

It was more than Shandor had ever felt about any other fat? before. She was beautiful despite usually being covered in filth and smelling just as bad. Her hair was a rat’s nest. Her hands and feet were usually caked with mud. More often than not, she acted like a pig. The man inside him would have balked at some of her behavior, been thoroughly disgusted with her, but the beast inside him appreciated her and was intensely attracted to her alpha female behavior.

Tahyra was strong, she was self-sufficient, she gave as good as she got, and she had a wicked sense of humor. She had a fierceness about her, a fire inside her that none of the other females came close to exhibiting. And when it came to him, she had no problem killing. Every new female addition to their pack always attempted sex with him, and Tahyra immediately put them in their place.

Then there was the softness he sensed. It didn’t come through very often, but when it did, when she fully submitted to him and his needs in the way both man and beast wanted from her, it was a damn beautiful thing.

But he wanted more, so much more. He wanted to be able to tell her how he felt about her and not receive a mere grin in return.

“Tahyra,” he growled, “come here.”

“I’m eating,” she growled back.

“Now!” he bellowed, startling the rest of the pack. Seeing the disturbance was only the two of them arguing, not an uncommon occurrence, the others went back to their respective doings.