The Lost Souls (The Holy Trinity #2.5)(39)

It was a mess. But inside the mess, aside from her personal feelings, she knew Marko was right.

They had to find Trinity.

Slipping her hand inside Marko’s much larger one, Carrie squeezed him tightly.

“I’m afraid,” she whispered, looking up at him.

His beautiful dark eyes took on a misty sheen.

So am I, fat?.

Carrie nodded. Knowing Marko shared her fears comforted her.

“Okay,” she whispered. “I’m ready.”

They stared at each other for several long seconds, just drinking each other in, until Marko’s lips split into a smile, and Carrie couldn’t help but answer him with one of her own.





Chapter Twenty-One


Finished skinning the last of the three squirrels he’d caught and killed, Hockey speared it through the middle with a sharpened stick before dropping all three over the small fire he’d made.

Sitting down, he glanced behind him at where Mira sat on a broken tree bough, looking longingly at the cooking meat.

He rolled his eyes.

For almost a week, ever since he’d left the warehouse, she’d been following him. Despite how stealthy she’d tried to be, he’d known the entire time. For a while, he’d let her think that he didn’t have a clue until he’d come across a car that had actually started up for him, and surprisingly enough, had gas in the tank.

Despite everything—his unsettling attraction to her, her accusations that he had been responsible for Tyler’s and Rachael’s deaths, her stubbornness and insubordinate attitude—he couldn’t leave her out there alone.

The girl, aside from her ability to throw a knife and hit her target every time, had very little actual survival skills. As it was, she’d been eating his leftovers after he’d pretended to fall asleep. Between trying to keep up with him, all while attempting at remaining hidden, it had left her little time for actual survival.

Luckily enough, they hadn’t run into a single Skin. Not one. In fact, no matter how far they had traveled, the world around them was a ghost town.

So, after he’d started the car and thrown his belongings in the backseat, he’d surveyed the area around him, stopping when found her.

“Five minutes!” he’d yelled out. “Then I’m leaving!”

The stubborn female had actually taken seven minutes to come out from her hiding place, and when she had, her arms had been folded across her chest, her eyes averted, refusing to look at him. After yanking open the passenger side door, she’d sat down rather dramatically in the seat beside him and slammed the door shut.

That had been two days ago.

Mira still hadn’t spoken a word to him, and as much as he’d previously hated useless chatter, her silent treatment was beginning to grate on him.

As were other things.

Like the fact that spring had officially sprung. The sun was shining, the weather was warming, and Mira had taken up wearing T-shirts despite the chill accompanying the breeze—a chill that was causing her nipples to harden under the thin material.

“Damn it,” he muttered. Leaning forward, he unnecessarily rearranged the squirrels cooking over the pit while discreetly adjusting his erection.

He was no closer to finding his clan than he had been before winter, but he was a hell of a lot closer to betraying his marriage vows again. He should have left her, he should have ditched her from the get-go, he should have never let her into that car, he should have—

A high-pitched, terror-filled scream sliced through Hockey’s thoughts. Jumping to his feet, his magic flaring to life, he turned in a circle, searching out the danger.

“Hockey!” Mira whispered. She gestured toward the highway with a knife she’d pulled from her boot.

Another scream sounded, two gunshots boomed through the air, and they both took off running toward the tree line. Together, they burst through the final row of trees, and—

Hockey stopped dead. Time ceased to exist. Everything around him faded to nothing, everything except…

Standing before him, in front of a mangled trailer attached to a broken-down truck, surrounded by four dead Skins, was Nico. And beside him, holding a small-caliber handgun, was Becki.

Becki.

“Hockey?” Becki whispered hoarsely. The gun slipped from her hand and landed on the concrete with a loud clatter.

“Are you all right?” Mira yelled, passing by him. “Are you hurt?”

Nico’s wide, surprised eyes shifted toward Mira, and then came immediately back to him.

No one said a word until Becky whispered, “You’re…alive.”

His wife’s big brown eyes filled with tears, her chin began to wobble, and then she was walking quickly toward him. He enfolded her in his arms as she buried her face into his chest and burst into tears.

“Shh,” he whispered, squeezing her hard. “I’m alive.”

“Take your motherf*cking hands off my wife.”

Hockey’s head jerked up and his eyes met Nico’s, burning with magic and brimming with anger.

“Nico,” Becki whispered, pulling away from Hockey. “Stop it.”

Nico’s nostrils flared with rage. “Stop it?” he bit out. “Stop it! Fuck you! I’m not going to stop it!”

“Oh my God,” Mira whispered, staring openmouthed at Nico. “He’s…like you.”