“She’s just playing hard to get, aren’t you?” Shandor released Magdolna’s face for a few seconds to grin at me. Yep. Definitely a hyena.
“Yeah, that’s it,” I muttered. “As I walk home, I am going to be wishing one of you had begged me to stay and partake in… in whatever in Hades this is…Gypsies gone wild?”
Xan’s eyes narrowed.
Fifi balled up her fist and struck a very menacing pose for a 5’3”, 110 pound girl. Xan, smirking, grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back.
“Aw, Trin, you’re selling yourself short. I seem to remember just last night by the creek seeing a very public –”
“XAN!” I shouted over him as realization dawned. “Shut. Up.”
His smile was lazy but his eyes were as sharp as knives, ready to slice straight through any dignity I had.
“Please…” he mocked, his lips curving into a wicked smile. “Please…” All eyes were on me now. “So did he, Trin?” Xan’s tone had gone from mocking to downright acidic. “Did Gerik give you what you needed? Because, from where I was standing, it sure as hell looked like it.”
Shandor and Magdolna exploded in laughter behind me.
“You are such a jerk,” I hissed.
“Aww, Xan…” Fifi turned to face him. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she lifted her chin. “You made the little Gaje slut upset.” Giggling seductively, she went up on her toes, moving in for a kiss.
Using her hair to angle her head the way he wanted it, he kissed her back. Within seconds Fifi was mewling softly, rocking her body against Xan’s.
I was instantly jealous. Not of Fifi’s rendezvous with Xan, but of the freedom she had to do as she pleased. At any time she could pull away from him. He had no supernatural power unwillingly tethering her to him.
I didn’t have that luxury.
Xan glanced up and caught me staring. Whipping around, my face hot with embarrassment, I stalked quickly in the direction of the creek.
“I should ask that Até lover to get me some Xanax instead of Midol,” I sputtered.
“If you didn’t call me a…a whatever the hell you just called me, I just might do it.”
I closed my eyes and blew out a breath. He must have literally thrown Fifi off of him to catch up to me this quickly.
“Why in all the gods are you following me, don’t you have females in need of your expert services?”
He grinned. “You’re a female.”
I nearly choked. “Not when it comes to you.”
“Fată, if I was after that sweet stash of yours, I could have already had it.”
I gaped at him. “You did not just say that to me.”
“It’s true though, isn’t it?” Xan began individually cracking his knuckles as he looked up at the sky, his face a portrait of arrogance. “I’ve seen the way you look at me, like you’re soaking wet and need me to wring you out until you’re good and dry.”
I think I had a mini heart attack just then. “You piece of –”
“Whoa! Trin! Back up the hate truck. I just came over here to apologize. I was way out of line back there, fată. What happens between you and Gerik is none of anyone’s business.” He continued to grin. “But don’t be embarrassed about being caught in the middle of the big ‘O’. You looked damn good all heated up.”
My jaw went lax. “Your idea of apologizing is very odd,” I told him.
He took a very deliberate step toward me. “Want me to try again?” he asked in a low voice.
Feeling like a cornered rabbit, I immediately put my hand up and took a step backwards. “I thought you weren’t after my… uh… whatever you said.”
Xan froze and covered his face with his hands. His shoulders began to shake with laughter.
“What?” I asked him, confused.
With a loud guffaw, he looked up at me and burst into full hysterics. “You’re too goddamn innocent for your own good, you know that?” He continued laughing at me.
Feeling like a complete idiot, I did the only thing left to do, I turned to leave.
“I really hate you,” I told him.
“Wait!” He called after me. “Fată –” A scream sliced through his words, more screams quickly following. I glanced back. Xan’s head was whipping back and forth.
Rushing me, Xan grabbed me from behind. His arms were like bands of steel across my stomach.
“Wh…what?”
“The wards are down!”
My stomach dropped. I looked around, noticing nothing at all different about the camp, but I wouldn’t notice the difference; I had no sense of magic at all. Apparently having a Roma for a mother at least gave you the perception of magic, something Xan obviously had, even if he didn’t have any magic.
A loud growl had my head jerking to the left.
“Xan!” I whispered, as he began herding me towards the circle of vehicles. We slid in between one of the large panel vans and a pickup truck.
“I know!” He hissed. “I heard it!”
We stood there, my back pressed to his stomach, barely breathing, listening to the sounds of shooting and yelling from the living lot. What was actually only minutes began to feel like hours.
“The wards are back up,” Xan breathed against my face, smelling strongly of alcohol. Hearing that, I nearly collapsed in relief.
A sharp peal of laughter from behind us had my stomach, once again, dropping. Xan’s grip on me tightened and his fingers dug painfully into my hipbones, his heart hammering a wild rhythm against my back.
A blur of skin in front of us caught my eye. Then another, this time to the side.
“Fuckers are surrounding us,” Xan whispered. He let go of me long enough to fumble with the leg of his pants. When his arms returned, he was checking the chamber of his gun. A cacophony of throaty masculine laughter echoed around us.
“You think to kill us with that, human?”
“I think I’ll kill you with my bare hands if you take one more step,” Xan shot back. The brave declaration only made them laugh harder.
Freaking out, I clutched Xan tighter.
“Run Trin,” he whispered. “I’m going to distract them. As soon as they make a grab for me, just run.”
“I can’t,” I managed to choke out. I was terrified. There was no way I was going to take off running into what would surely be my death.
The creature in front of us stepped out of the shadows, revealing himself. I couldn’t contain the tremor of terror that rippled through me or the gasp that found its way out of my mouth. Seeing his grin, a mouth full of fangs already dripping blood, caused my terror to skyrocket. Had he fed on someone from camp? Was Becki all right? Little Benyamin? Adi?
Xan tensed, ready for the attack. “I mean it, Trin.” He ground out, "You’d better run.”
“I can’t,” I told him, through chattering teeth.
“Stupid girl,” he spat at me.
The face of the creature in front of us exploded just as he sprang to attack. A mess of blood and bone sprayed wildly upon impact and chaos erupted around us. Gunfire boomed in my ears, followed by garbled howling growls.
Xan turned me roughly in his arms and then hoisted me up and over his shoulder. He ran from the scene, clutching me tightly to him.
Small battles were being waged all around us. The creatures, although few, were much stronger and faster than humans, and healed at the speed of lightening.
But these were no ordinary humans they had decided to try and make an evening snack out of. I had wanted a lesson in Roma magic and I was about to get one, up close and personal.
“Xan!” I screamed, able to only watch as a naked blur of breasts and fangs tore through the trees and launched herself at us. He jerked a hard left toward the living lot but wasn’t fast enough.
My breath left my lungs in one big ‘whoosh’ as we hit the ground hard. Xan quickly pushed me away from him and began struggling valiantly with the creature that had jumped astride him. She slashed wildly at him with talon tipped fingers.
With both hands wrapped around her throat, he was struggling to fend off her fangs. He was going to tire long before she was.
Frozen in fear, I could only watch. He was going to die right in front of me, just as my baby sister had, and I was helpless once again, unable to move.
The screams were deafening. The grinding metal and whirring motors of the carnival rides could no longer be heard above the sounds of human terror.
“Trinity!” Tahyra screamed, trapped behind a wall of people, trampling each other in an attempt to flee. I could only stare as the gruesome mass of blood and limbs surged forward, enveloping her.
“Trinity!” She screamed again, her arms outstretched, reaching for me.
“Trin—“
Tahyra’s screams abruptly cut off as her body whipped backwards and a spray of blood arced through the air in her wake.
“Trinity!” Gerik shoved past me, pushing me out of the way. A bright, orange and white flame suddenly appeared in the palm of his hand. He whipped the burning ball at Xan’s attacker, and the creature was instantly thrown backwards. Xan rolled immediately away as she screamed, writhing in pain while her skin melted from her bones. Her blood boiled and hissed, drying before it could even reach the ground. When she was nothing but bones, her fangs bared for eternity, the flames dissipated.
Gerik shuddered, his hands shook slightly and then the fire in his palms winked out.
“Blestemul vampirului!” I heard Jericho yell, drawing my attention to him. The last remaining creature was suspended in mid-air, snarling and snapping at the several men who’d surrounded it, guns at the ready.
One of the men, I think Nicu, fired. With his mouth twisted in a disgusting smile, the creature fell to the ground unfazed. Again he was shot, this time blown backwards hitting a large oak with a sickening thump of flesh meeting wood. Stefan strode forward and shot him again, ripping a giant hole in his abdomen, exposing intestines. I gagged and covered my mouth.
Gerik was pulling me behind him. “Don’t watch, Trinity. They don’t die easy.”
“Others will come,” the creature hissed, trying to hold his guts inside of him as the wound began to heal. “They will keep coming until—”
The creature’s head rolled away from his body, eyes still wide open, his mouth still moving, while blood spurted from his neck. When his body crumpled to the ground, Marko was waiting with his machete posed and ready. Soon the creature was nothing but bloody bits of gore.
I would have collapsed if Gerik hadn’t been holding me up.
Jericho looked around, his face grim. “Clean up this mess,” he ordered sharply. “Gunnar, make sure Alana and Kizzy have double-checked the wards. Gerik, Nico, burn these bodies in the back lot.”
I watched the camp begin to bustle. Bodies were moved and children were herded into Maisera and Jericho’s RV. I felt oddly detached, as if this were only a scary movie I’d been watching and not actually the life I’d been living for months now.
“Trin?” Xan waved his hand in front of my face. “Trin? Answer me. Are you okay?”
Was I okay? Was he serious? I burst out laughing.
All this magic around us and still they had gotten through. The Romani were no real match for them. If there had been more, if we had been outnumbered…
Others will come, the creature had said. They will keep coming until—
“Until they kill us all,” I murmured. “That’s what he was going to say.”
“Trinity!” Xan yelled. “No one is going to kill you, now snap out of it!”
I studied his face, remembering how he’d protected me, shielded me with his own body even. If it hadn’t been for Xan coming to apologize to me, I would be dead right now.
“You saved my life,” I whispered.
“I did a pretty shitty job of it.” He looked toward where Jericho and Gerik stood talking. “They saved our lives. Their magic saved our lives.”
I shook my head. “I would have died long before they showed up if you hadn’t been here.”
Before he could respond I hugged him, immediately drawing back when he groaned.
“Xan?” I said, looking him over. His t-shirt had been shredded in the attack. Tentatively, I lifted it up. Deep, bloody grooves marred the middle of his chest and arms. Fingernails. He'd been scratched by those obscenely long claws they all had.
I burst into tears, thanking the gods he hadn't been bitten.
A bite was a death sentence; he would have turned into one of those monsters. But the clan would have never let that happen, they would've killed him first and considered it a mercy killing. Because once someone turned, they were dead to us anyway.
I threw my arms around his neck. Xan groaned again.
“Oh gods, am I hurting you?” I looked up at his face.
“No,” he said, grinning. “That feels good, Trin, keep wiggling.”
“Dammit, Xan!” I jumped back and hit a wall of steel that smelled like heaven.
Large hands came down on my bare arms, steadying me. Heat flooded me. My knees began to shake. The voices around me blurred into a soft drumming of sound that swam silkily around me. But my attention was fixated on Gerik’s hands burning slowly through my skin, layer by sweet layer. Then, Gerik released me.
“Trin?” Xan was peering down his nose at me.
I shook my head. “Sorry… what?”
Xan’s eyes darted curiously back and forth between Gerik and me.
“Xan Daniel Deleanu!” Drina screamed as she ran towards us. “What were you doing in harm’s way?”
Xan made a face and Gerik laughed at him. “Better go get fixed up, brother.”
Gerik took the opportunity to drag me off.
“What is up with all the touching?” I demanded when we were alone. “Unsolicited touching, might I add.”
He leveled me with one look. “What were you doing with Xan, yeah? Alone?”
I bit my lip to keep from screaming at him. The entire camp had just been attacked, Xan had saved my life and was severely injured because of it, and Gerik had the nerve to act like a jealous boyfriend? He was behaving irrationally.
“Nothing was going on, Gerik. I swear.” I turned to go.
Benyamin Vãduva stepped in front of me holding little Benyamin Jr. I smiled at the little boy and tickled his bare feet.
“Gerik,” he said. “I was just told Marcell is dead.”
My smiled faded.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I ended up letting Gerik stay the night with me. Loss is never something one should have to face alone and I had never met a group of people who were not all family and as close as this clan was. Closer even than most families were.
We laid awake most of the night facing one another, Gerik on his belly and me on my side, each of us just watching the other. I concentrated on his breathing mostly, watching as his chest would rise and fall with each deep intake and release of air.
Gerik asked softly, “What are you thinking about?”
“You,” I answered truthfully.
He blinked. “How’m I doin’?”
“What’s really going on with you and Onyx, Gerik? I want the truth.”
His chin in his palm, he propped himself up on his elbow. “I told you Trinity, it’s only yo—”
“No.” I stopped him before he could lie to me again. “I know for a fact you’ve been with her since” – I gestured between the two of us—“whatever this is between us had begun. So please, don’t lie to me anymore.”
“What do you mean, you know for a fact? You mean you’ve been listening to the girls around camp, yeah?”
When I didn’t answer him a knowing look crossed his face.
“Onyx and I have been friends forever. I spend a lot of time with her, yeah?” He leaned over me and pressed a quick kiss to my lips. “That’s all it is and whatever you hear is camp gossip.”
I studied him, wondering what to believe.
“Let me hold you, min jente, make me happy, yeah?”
I h
esitated, knowing exactly what would happen the minute we touched.
“Right,” he said, looking away, his expression pained. “You still don’t believe me?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.” What I did know is I wanted him to kiss me again. The warm feel of his lips still remained and being this close to him wasn’t helping.
“I promised you awhile ago that we’d go slow and I meant it. Nothing is going to happen tonight that you’re not ready for, Trinity.”
“Okay,” I said, staring at his lips. “Come over here then, Viking.”
I readied myself for the feel of his skin against my own but nothing can ever truly prepare you for full-bodied satiation. His large body engulfed my own, his sweet scents saturated me, and the sensual power of him filled me to the brim, spilled over, and filled me up again.
As he’d promised, he kept in control and just held me, his face buried deep in my hair, my arms clasped over his. Control was something I was having a hard time holding on to. I wanted more, so much more.
Was this magic? I didn’t know. Whatever it was, Gerik was fighting it simply to hold me. I could feel his muscles straining against his skin, his breath was ragged and hoarse, and still he did nothing but hold me.
Sometime later I awoke to the sound of Frank, the rooster, crowing, his hens clucking madly as they chased him through the living lot. Gerik and I had separated sometime during the night. He had taken all of the blankets and was using up most of the bed as well. I lifted up his arm, inhaling sharply at the contact of our skin, and buried myself in the crook of his arm. The heavy weight of his limb settled nicely over top of me. He stirred at our touching, a smile playing on his beautiful mouth.
To look upon him in the early morning light, to see his pale hair shimmering as the strands caught the first rays of sun, is a truly beautiful gift. He looked peaceful and very young as he blinked away the remnants of sleep. Those pools of blue he tries to pass off as eyes shone more brilliantly than even the clearest of summer skies.
And his body… Oh goddesses, that body… Like a statue of a god, he is a breathtaking work of art who I can't help but admire with all the reverence one of his splendor deserves.
The Holy Trinity Trilogy Page 5