The Lost Souls (The Holy Trinity #2.5)(35)

Tossing aside her meal, Tahyra dropped down on all fours and hissed like a rattlesnake about to attack. With blood dripping from her mouth, her breasts swaying back and forth, she crawled over the remains of the wolf, heading in his direction.

Jesus, she was beautiful and crazy. She was a feral goddess, an abomination of nature and God, yet she was everything he wanted.

No, she was more than just what he wanted.

To think, if he’d never been changed, he would have never met her, never known her. And worse, if he had met her as a man, he would have killed her instantly and not given it a second thought.

The thought of her gone, the thought of her dead at his hands…

Shandor stared at her, feeling the man and the beast inside him coming together. She was the one thing they agreed upon. She was their perfect mate, their perfect female. They would protect her at all costs. No man or beast would get close enough to take her. She was theirs, and they were hers.

“I love you,” he rasped, caught up in his feelings, not even realizing he was verbalizing them. “Fat?, I f*cking love you.”

In midcrawl, Tahyra froze, and then just as quickly she leaped into the air and sent her foot straight into his face, effectively breaking his nose and sending him skidding across the ground.

In a flash, she was on him again and he was sent flying up through the air, his body cracking through several large tree branches before plummeting to the ground, the fall severing his spine.

In a self-protective maneuver, his body called to his magic, and orange, red, and black flames erupted from his hands to create a circle of fire around him. Over the crackling and hissing of the flames, he could hear Tahyra screaming at the top of her lungs. And he was grinning.

The second he was fully healed, Shandor was on his feet, sweeping away the flames with a wave of his hand.

“What is wrong with you?” she screamed. “Why can’t you just be like the rest of us?”

This time when she lunged, he was ready for her. Wrapping his arms around her, he muscled her to the ground.

“What’s the matter, fat??” he yelled. “Why can’t I tell you how I feel about you? Why can’t I tell you that I love you?”

“Shut up!” she screeched.

Tahyra flailed wildly, thrashing in his arms, trying to head-butt him, trying to bite him, trying to inflict pain on him in any way. Wrapping his hand around her neck, he slammed her head into the ground, hard, but not hard enough to crack her skull, and straddled her.

“You had a family once,” he growled, baring his fangs at her, allowing his eyes to go red. “They loved you, fat?, didn’t they? And you loved them, too, didn’t you?”

“Shut up,” she whispered hoarsely, turning away from him.

“No!” he roared. Still gripping her neck, he lifted her, bringing them nose to nose. “Fucking accept it, Tahyra. Fucking accept that I love you!”

Her black aura wavered, and to Shandor’s shock, a sheen of purple began to peek along the edges. Excitement bubbled up from his gut. It was working. It was goddamn working.

“Who were you?” he yelled. “Tell me who you were! I want to know everything! You, your family, what you wanted out of life! I want to know everything!”

Purple replaced the black, and a deep pink began to appear. Then yellow and light blue and before he knew it, she was a veritable rainbow of colors.

“TELL ME WHO YOU FUCKING ARE!”

The dam burst inside her. He watched it happen, and the scream that followed was hardly a scream at all. It was more of a howl—an ear-piercing, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, shrieking wail—filled with so much pain and sorrow, both physical and emotional, that Shandor knew her soul had broken through the dark magic, flooding her with memories and feelings, and worst of all…

Guilt.

“I tried to save her!” she said, gasping. “I tried to save my sister! But I couldn’t.”

His heart pounding with joy, he crushed her to him. “It wasn’t your fault,” he soothed, holding her close, cradled in his lap. “None of this was your fault.”

“I wasn’t fast enough,” she sobbed, tears now streaming down her cheeks. “I wasn’t fast enough. I couldn’t reach her. I couldn’t save my sister.”

“Not your fault,” he murmured, rocking her. “Not your fault, fat?.”

Tahyra continued to cry, finally able to mourn the loss of her family, of her world, and while he comforted her, he secretly rejoiced in this new revelation.

There was still hope…for all of them. Magic had caused the transformation, had hidden their souls, locked them away, but they were still there. Deep down inside, they were still human.

With time and a lot of effort, he might be able to get through to his entire pack but…

That wouldn’t be nearly enough.

What he needed to do was break the curse, and breaking the curse meant he needed to find Mullo—and kill him.

Yeah, he needed to find a thousand-year-old vampire, who not only wielded all five elements but could be anywhere in the world, and kill him.

Well, he never claimed it would be easy.

“Shandor?” Hooking a hand behind his neck, Tahyra pulled his head down and nuzzled his cheek with her own. “I love you, too,” she whispered.

Still holding her, he rolled himself onto his back and allowed her to take what she wanted. Tahyra was everywhere now—pushing, rubbing, burrowing into him, and covering him in her scent, her blood, her body. She was marking him the way she always had, but it was different somehow, less possessive and more…