The Lost Souls (The Holy Trinity #2.5)(37)

Nico grabbed Tobar as his stumbled, his knees giving out.

Still shaking with anger, seething, fueled by adrenaline, Nico released him to the ground. “You will not touch my wife,” he repeated. “You will not touch my wife.”

Tobar’s eyes, wide and white, brimming with unspent magic, rolled back in his head.

Grabbing hold of his blade, Nico forcefully yanked it from Tobar’s neck.

Now what?

Jesus, now what?

He’d just killed his baró.

His baró.

Dead. At his hands.

The punishment for the murder of a fellow clan member was death.

Death…

Death…

Death.

“No,” he growled. Death was every bit as unacceptable as losing Becki to Tobar. Either way, he still lost her.

Bursting out of the food tent and into the darkness, Nico made his way quickly through the sleeping camp.

Due to the camp being in a constant state of high alert, his trailer was still hitched to his truck. Nico gave the trailer a once-over, checking the locks, closing the windows, then he climbed into his truck and, within seconds, was speeding out of camp, through the wards and into the night.

He would not lose his wife. He would not lose his family.

No one would take what he loved from him, not as long as he was able to fight for it.

And out here, in the eerie darkness of a world gone mad, Nico might very well not have much time left to fight for it, but whatever little time he did have left, he would spend it fighting.





Chapter Twenty


Marko walked another few feet before he realized Carrie was no longer beside him. He turned, feeling a sudden panic that instantly evaporated the moment he saw her.

“You need to use our connection,” she chastised. “You would have known I was fine.”

“You didn’t give me time,” he muttered.

He felt her amusement flitter through him, calming him, making him smile.

Carrie was so different from Nadya, and it wasn’t just because of her youth. She was light, whereas Nadya was dark. She was hopeful, and Nadya was bitter. She was sweet and kind and way too talkative, which was mostly annoying, but sometimes he had to admit he sort of enjoyed it. Then there was the sex. He thought he’d had great sex with Nadya, but he’d been wrong. Very, very wrong.

Maybe it was the soul they shared, or maybe it was Carrie. He didn’t know, and he didn’t care.

Yeah, it was a damn mess, and it was phenomenal. But it was more than that. It was her.

The soul might have made him love her, but Marko could tell the difference between what the soul felt as opposed to what he, himself, and his own soul felt. And what he felt was…

He liked her.

It was an odd thing—loving someone so fiercely he would die to protect her, and at the same time knowing he wasn’t in love yet, but he was on his way there.

Really odd.

“Why’d you stop?” he asked.

Carrie pointed off in the distance to where his truck, trailer, and her grandparents’ farm were growing smaller and smaller with every step they took. “I want to remember it,” she said. “Every detail.”

Marko grimaced. He didn’t want to remember any of it. He’d spent most of his time here thinking he was going to die, and the rest consumed with guilt over what he’d done to Carrie. Throw in him trying to teach her how to use magic in between unending periods of straight sex—because, goddamn, he couldn’t stop touching her—and there you had it. That was it. It sure as hell wasn’t a romance novel.

He wasn’t sure how Trinity had evaded Gerik for as long as she had back in the Catskills, or how Gerik hadn’t gone stark raving mad from her constant refusal of him. Gerik was a better man than he was, that was for certain. Marko had possessed that damn soul for a single second and look what he’d done. But then again, that soul had never been meant for him.

“We need to go,” he said sternly, backtracking to where she was standing. Grabbing her hand, he threaded his fingers through hers. “This is hardly where I want my baby to be born.”

Carrie’s free hand went to rest upon her still flat stomach, and her face fell. Marko could feel her fear, the same fear he shared for her, for the baby, for them all. Their fears were valid ones; he’d known many Roma women who’d died during childbirth, either from internal injuries too extensive for their powers to heal; or from their bodies, too young and not yet mature enough for childbirth. The copil would usually be cut out, and the mam? left to die. New life always preceded old life.

Marko refused to let Carrie share the same fate. He was going to find them transportation and then he was going to take her home to his clan.

So they’d packed up as much food and supplies as they could carry on their backs and this morning, they’d set off.

There was just one thing they had to do first.

Find Trinity.

Before he’d given Trinity’s half of Gerik’s soul to Carrie, Trinity’s entire life had literally flashed before his eyes. He’d seen her alone, living inside in a log cabin, then later with Gerik, and even later, after Gerik’s transformation had completed, alone again.

Marko was determined to find her, soulless or not, to right his wrong and bring her home.

“How far did you say Hills Creek State Park is from here?”