The Lost Souls (The Holy Trinity #2.5)(43)

Someone, it seemed, had humanized them to some extent.

“Tahyra!” The female in front of him squealed excitedly. “We found you a pretty one!”

Hockey watched as a naked female Skin, her hair matted and dirty, sauntered up to him. Stopping in front of him, she sniffed the air and growled low.

“Was he alone?” she asked, looking him over as if he were…dinner.

“Yes,” the male holding him answered.

“Good,” she purred.

“What about Shandor?” the other female whispered.

Hockey’s thoughts snapped to attention. Shandor?

The dirty female, the one called Tahyra, split her lips into a fang-filled grin. “We’ll bring home an animal or two for him. He never has to know about this.”

Hockey’s brain spun as he tried to quickly figure out what was happening here and how he might use this information to his advantage, but before he could wrap his mind around any sort of scenario that made sense to him, Tahyra had buried her face in his neck. Her cold tongue shot out, licking along his jugular, chilling him to the bone.

“My boyfriend,” she whispered throatily, “wants me to be a vegetarian.”

Hockey shuddered as her teeth sank easily through the skin on his neck. Tahyra’s hands flew to his hips, gripping him tightly, and she moaned as his blood began to fill her mouth. As she fed, he felt himself quickly weaken. His vision blurred, his muscles began to ache, and a chill settled heavily in his gut.

Only moments later, she pulled away from him and licked her blood-coated lips.

“And I love him,” she said breathlessly. “I want to make him happy, but…I’m so…hungry.”

“He’ll forgive you, fat?,” he rasped weakly, doing his best Shandor impression. “If my frate loves you, he’ll forgive you. Us Romani, we are weak when it comes…to…our…women.”

Tahyra’s red eyes grew wide with surprise. Grabbing his neck, she squeezed him painfully. “What did you say?” she hissed and Hockey could hear the fear in her words.

Hockey tried to smile but the effort was futile. He was far too weak at this point.

“What did you say?” she screamed.

When he didn’t answer, she screamed again, out of frustration this time.

“Finish him off!” she hissed and released him. They were on him before he hit the floor. Pain scoured his body as talons and teeth dug into every limb, but he didn’t scream or cry. This life might be over, but this death was merely a stepping-stone to another life.

And he’d lived a good life, a full life.

Did he want more? Of course.

Hockey wanted to see his family again, to hug his mam? tightly, to dance with his little sor?, to go hunting with tat? and his frate, to sit around the bonfire and listen to Maisera tell the old stories of their people, to hear the violins.

He wanted to kiss Mira one more time.

Ah, now that was pain. Real pain. The kind that made him want to cry and scream from the unfairness of it all.

But by then, there was nothing left of him to cry or scream.

And then…

Then there was nothing at all.

Hockey was in God’s hands now.





Sneak peek: My Heart & Soul





(The Holy Trinity Series Book Three)


Summer

Xan Deleanu looked at the familiar faces around the fire pit. Nadya Popa sat beside Pesha Moldoveanu, their heads bent together as they talked among themselves. Next to Pesha was Simionce Asenov with his arm slung over Onyx V?duva’s shoulders. Next to Onyx sat Nico ?onka and beside him, a Gaje named Mira. Sleeping in between them was Michaela, Becki Bálan and Tobar Popa’s daughter.

Only weeks after his own arrival in Trinity’s camp, Xan had been out hunting when he’d come across Nico, Mira, and Michaela holed up in Nico’s trailer. Neither Nico nor Mira did much speaking. They still had yet to tell anyone what had actually happened to them—or Becki and Hockey, for that matter—but anyone could guess. The two of them wore the grief from their losses as plain as day.

Next to Mira was Adriana Siwak, and beside her was Fifi Horváth. Pausing, Xan studied Fifi. Back at camp, she’d been beaten and raped by a clan member they’d all considered a friend, someone they’d all loved. At first, Fifi couldn’t stand to have anyone touch her, but that wasn’t the case anymore. She was doing incredibly well, and he was damn proud of her.

Actually, Xan was proud of all of them. After what they’d all been through, everyone was doing remarkably well. Everyone except Trinity. His wife.

When he’d first found her, warded inside this park, living comfortably away from the Skin Eaters who had quickly terrorized and taken over the world, he’d been beyond thankful. Skins were essentially high-octane humans with an appetite for raw flesh and blood. Once bitten by one, a human was transformed into a deadly fast, hard-to-kill, clawed, fanged freak, who ate first and thought later. Or so they’d thought. It appeared that Skins were quickly mastering the ability to control themselves.

The only reason his clan had survived the initial outbreak was inborn magic, gifted to everyone in his clan except himself, a half Rom and half Gaje, thanks to his Native American f*ck-and-run tat?.

Trinity hadn’t had magic either—at least not until she’d been gifted hers from Gerik. Her soul mate. Her lover. The man she was grieving for and the reason she was wasting away inside her cabin.