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 mamă 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?”
Biting her bottom lip, Carrie tilted her head to one side and hummed. “Umm…about three or four hours if you’re driving.”
He looked off into the distance. If they couldn’t find transportation, that meant they were in for a five- or six-day walk, and that was only if they walked nonstop at a decent pace with little to no breaks. Factor in Skins, and Marko was starting to feel shitty again.
“Hey,” Carrie said, turning to face him. Slipping her arm around his back, she rested her cheek on his chest. “We’ll be fine. We’ll find Trinity, we’ll find your clan, and…we’ll be fine.”
He didn’t need to rely on their connection to know she didn’t wholly believe her own words. He could see it on her face.
She was terrified.
And so was he.
But she was hopeful and that, in turn, made him hopeful.
Taking a deep breath, he squeezed her tightly before releasing her. “Let’s go, fată mea, we’re losing daylight.”
“One more look,” she said, turning back to the farm.
He shook his head. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Why do you want to stand here and stare at my piece-of-shit trailer?”
Slanting her eyes in his direction, Carrie smiled. “Because I spent the happiest days of my life in that piece-of-crap trailer.”
At first, Marko wanted to laugh at her constant refusal to curse, but then as what she’d said actually registered in his brain, he found himself grabbing her and crushing his mouth to hers, feeling a hell of a lot more than just like for her.
“Where the fuck did you come from?” he muttered against her mouth.
“Elderton,” she said simply, pointing to the east. “And I never want to go back.”
• • •
Carrie was pregnant. She was seventeen, sort of married to a twenty-nine-year-old man, and pregnant with his magical Gypsy baby. Strange didn’t even begin to cover it.
She wasn’t going to even try and touch upon the soul mate status. She understood what had happened—at least from Trinity’s point of view. Carrie knew everything the poor woman had gone through, courtesy of the piece of Gerik and Trinity’s soul inside her. But she wasn’t under the illusion that she even remotely understood how magic or nature or anything Gypsy-related worked.
Trinity had magic too, and judging from her memories, she’d hardly understood it either. The women who had possessed the soul before Trinity were nothing but a mass of tangled memories. There were so many, too many to sort through and try to come up with an answer that made any sort of sense.
The only knowledge Carrie could garner from the ones who’d passed before was that magic seemed to be as natural as breathing to every single one of them, except for Trinity, and now…her.
So, for the most part, Carrie kept her distance from the foreign soul inside her with one exception. Marko.
Their connection, although not their own, was a heady thing, and she couldn’t get enough of it.
Of him.
Of them.
It was also a cause for concern. What would happen to them if they lost the soul? Would they no longer feel this way? Now that she was pregnant, the thought of losing what she and Marko shared was terrifying.
And because she scared, she didn’t want to leave their trailer. She didn’t want to search out Trinity. She wanted to stay put where she knew they would be safe and, more importantly, together. And yet at the same time, she wanted…no, she needed to find Trinity. Trinity was inside her, a part of her. She had become Trinity in a way, experiencing everything that Trinity had—the loss, the pain, the fear, none of which Carrie could ignore.
“Fată,” Marko whispered, pulling away from her mouth. “Stop. Regardless of what happens, we have to find her.”
She smiled sadly at him. She knew he’d heard what was really bothering her, not in words but in a much purer form of communication.
She also knew that it hadn’t been Marko who’d answered, not wholly. It had also been Gerik. Gerik had to find Trinity. It wasn’t Carrie’s face or body that Gerik wanted to see or touch. It was Trinity’s. And it wasn’t Marko who Trinity wanted. It was Gerik and…Xan.
Xan was…
For starters, he was hotter than anyone Carrie had ever dreamed up inside her head. He was tall and tanned, and his stature oozed physical strength. With his long black hair, divvied up into tens of thin dreads, his poignant shadowy eyes, and his striking cheekbones, he was darkly beautiful and terrifying in his intensity.
Marko was intense at times, but neither he nor Trinity’s Gerik could match the way Xan had looked at Trinity, had touched her, had made love to her. And Trinity had been so very, very in love with him.
Actually, Trinity was in love with both men, Gerik and Xan. She didn’t love one more than the other. The woman’s feelings for both men were horrifyingly equal. Carrie had never before thought it was possible to love two people with the same intensity, the same desperate wanting, the same…everything. But it was—at least for Trinity.
It was almost too much for Carrie to handle, even though the memories weren’t her own.
Carrie just wanted to be in love with one man—Marko. She didn’t want to be confused by the memories of a lost soul shared with a woman she’d met only briefly.
She didn’t want anyone else’s uncommonly complicated love life inside her. But she didn’t want to lose Marko either.
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, fată.
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 motherfucking 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.”
Hockey didn’t answer her. He was too busy watching Nico, waiting for the man to strike, because he was most definitely ready to strike. He was strung so tightly that his body was trembling. Magic poured out of him in hot and heavy waves.
He’d called Becki his wife.
His. Wife.
Hockey forgot all about watching Nico and turned to face Becki.
“What did he call you?” he said quietly. “His wife?”
Becki’s expression crumpled. “I said no,” she said quickly. “He just took me. He just picked me up and took me, Hockey, the same as you!”
He stared at her, skimming over her dark curls, her pretty face, the tattered clothing.
He looked to Mira, standing off to the side watching him, waiting, and then he looked back to Becki.
What was happening?
He was having trouble breathing, his heart was racing, his skin felt itchy and uncomfortable. Something was happening inside of him, something was forming, something ugly and violent that made him want to scream and cry and hurt…Becki.
She wasn’t his wife.
She had never been his wife.
“Tell him!” Nico demanded. “Tell him that it was you who came to me!”
More tears slid down Becki’s cheek. “Don’t do this, Nico,” she pleaded.
“Fuck you!” Nico yelled. “Tell him, fată!”
“I was lonely!” she screamed. “I’d lost everyone! Everyone! You were there!”
Nico’s already tormented expression turned darker.
“I want to go back!” Becki continued. “Back to camp! Back to our clan! You can’t keep stealing me!”
“I CAN’T GO BACK!” Nico roared. “I stuck a knife through Tobar’s fucking throat. I killed our baró, Becki, and I can’t ever go back there!”
Becki’s mouth fell open. “Wh-what?” she breathed.
Hockey decided he’d heard enough. Whatever Nico had done, whatever reasons he’d had for doing it, was between Nico and the clan…and Becki.
Not him.
His wife, the woman who had cheated on him, who’d gotten pregnant with another man’s baby, the woman he’d married despite it all, had done it again. She’d left him for yet another man. He’d fought so hard to get back to her, to find her, to see her, to be with her, to be a husband and a father, to rejoin his clan.
He was not okay.
He was NOT okay.
“Where’s camp?” Hockey demanded.
Nico’s hostile eyes leveled on him. “You can’t have her,” he whispered.
“Where. Is. Camp?” he repeated, his voice hard.
“East,” Nico bit out. His eyes shot to the sky. “Follow the sun.”
Without another word, Hockey grabbed Mira’s arm and began pulling her back toward the tree line.
“Wait!” Becki screamed. “Don’t leave me here!”
Hockey didn’t turn arou
nd. Instead, he started walking faster.
“Hockey!” Becki continued to scream. “Hockey!”
Anger, pain, regret, self-hatred…all the emotions he’d kept suppressed came flaring to the surface, and he stopped walking and spun around.
Hockey had always done what was right, what was expected of him. He’d adhered to Romani law and the rules of nature. He’d prayed to God, trusted in him, given himself to him. He’d been a husband and would have been a father if given the chance. He’d been bound by both law and God to find his family, to care for them.
He’d never taken his duties lightly. But that was all they were—duties. Duties that Nico had undertaken, duties that weren’t his anymore, and surprisingly, he was fine with that.
He could take Becki back. She was legally his, no matter what bastardized ceremony Nico had performed in his absence. He could have it all back, couldn’t he?
But what would be the point?
Becki had never loved him. She’d settled for him.
And now?
He was free.
Mira…with her big eyes and tiny, delicate elfin features, and her beautiful body.
Mira was his freedom.
He learned something that day.
Hockey learned that life wasn’t always about taking care of the people around him, that taking care of himself was just as important.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nico felt half out of his mind.
It had all happened so fast. One minute he had been driving, and the next, Skins had come running out of the woods, jumping on the truck and trailer and…
Hockey.
Fucking Hockey.
Frate was alive after all. Alive and well.
As for Becki, she was staring off into the forest Hockey and his Gaje friend had disappeared into, her mouth open, her hand covering her throat, shock and pain evident in her expression.
Goddamn her!
Seeing her hurting over Hockey was killing him.
What more could he do? What more could he be?
Why wouldn’t she just love him?
Him—the man who’d loved her, regardless of whose copil had been growing inside her, the man who’d been more than willing to take her, to keep her, to be her faithful husband.
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