The Lost Souls (9 page)

He ignored her in favor of his burning body. The throbbing in his chest worsened, he felt
he was near exploding and knew he had to, he absolutely had to be inside of her.

He had to, he had to, he fucking had to…

“I’m scared, Marko,” she cried out. “Please don’t. Please…ahhh…owww…”

Her body gave way and allowed him several inches inside.

Yes, oh fucking God, yes.

He needed this.

Marko’s cock pulsed excitedly, desperate to sink full hilt. Digging his fingertips into her skin, he pushed harder. “
Da
,” he breathed. “
Fată…
bună
…”

He pushed again.

Ahhh
…a little more than halfway now.

“Please stop, Marko,” she sobbed. “Please…it hurts.”

Lifting his hips ever so slightly, he tensed and readied, then thrust his hips forward, sinking deep inside her. Crying out, Carrie’s hands flew to his shoulders.

She was tight, so damn tight he could feel everything, even her heartbeat.

And wet…Jesus, she was wet, sloppy wet even, and still viselike tight.

Marko
took her, fucked her as hard as he wanted, even harder, and when she cried harder, he fucked her faster. He closed his eyes and just fucked her, relishing the tight clamp of her pussy, how hard, and how large, heavy, and full he felt inside her, the slap of his balls against her, the sweaty slickness of their bodies rubbing against each other, her hiccupping breathy gasps with every thrust of his cock.

And he was almost there. He was so close, and he needed this. He needed it bad.

Gritting his teeth, he slammed into her. Her pained cries and pleading whimpers as she clung to him, her nails digging deep into the skin on his shoulders, only spurred him on toward…something.

He didn’t know, and he didn’t care. All he knew was he had to get there. He had to get there.

His body stiffened, and he came hard. As he spilled himself inside her, it felt less like coming and more like he was releasing...his goddamn soul.

Magic poured from
Marko’s palms, bright white light, until his hands were cocooned inside it. The air in the trailer grew thick with power; they were both breathing it in, and it was sinking inside their skin. Carrie’s blue eyes had turned white, and her pale skin was glossy, glittering with magic.

The aching fullness in his chest began to recede and scents exploded around them
: sweet-smelling flowers, ripe pine, and sun-kissed grass—nature in its purest form.

Beneath him
, Carrie’s body went taut and her eyelids began to flutter wildly.

“Oh my
God,” she cried out. Her fingernails dug deeper into his skin as her back arched off the bed. “Oh…my…God.”

In a cacophony of grunts, groans
, and cries, grinding their bodies against each other, they finished together in an explosion of bright white light.

Out of breath, his body still twitching from his release, Marko rolled off her and placed his hand over his heaving chest.

“Shit,” he breathed
out, wheezing through his next few breaths. “Shit.”

As his heartbeat began to slow, so did his thought process, allowing him to once again think clearly, his perception no longer muddled with need, desperation
, and magic.

What the hell had just happened?

Slowly, he turned his head and looked beside him. Carrie was lying very still, staring at the ceiling above them. Oh, Jesus.

“Carrie?”
he whispered.

She didn’t answer him.

“Carrie,” he repeated, pushing himself up into a sitting position. He looked her over, taking in her puffy, tear-streaked face, her pale skin covered with tiny bruises from his hands and mouth, her legs still cocked in the position he’d left them, her—

Oh no.

Her thighs and the mattress beneath her were covered in blood. The euphoric, exhausted feeling that always accompanied an orgasm was instantly replaced with a panicky sort of nausea.

What the fuck had he just done?

What the fuck…

What the fuck…

Marko just kept staring, feeling his gut rising, until he broke out into a cold sweat. Lurching up, rolling over her out of bed, he barely made to his knees before his stomach emptied.

What had he done?

What had happened? What the fuck had he done? And why had he done it? Jesus, he wasn’t any better than the Skins, taking what didn’t belong to them, only to satisfy an unnatural hunger born from death and despair.

He was a monster.

Pushing himself up off the floor, he got to his feet and staggered across the trailer. He all but fell inside the storage room. Shutting the door behind him, he collapsed to the floor.

How could he face
Carrie after what he’d just done?

He deserved to rot
.

Choking through a sob, Marko dropped his face in his hands and cried.

• • •

Carrie was convinced Marko had lost his mind, much like her brother had. It was a male thing, she decided, an ego thing. The control over their lives had been brutally stripped from them,
leaving them helpless to the dangers of the world around them. Both of them had become desperate to regain some form of control, and because of it, they’d both tried to take from her. To take away what little control she had left.

Jason had died before he could do that.

And Marko…had done just that…or had he?

As she lay there listening to him throwing up, she thought that maybe it wasn’t her who’d just lost something. Instead, maybe it was Marko.

And…what had happened with his magic?

One minute she’d been in pain, scared and upset, and the next she’d…

Been seeing things? Other people? Places?

And the feelings that came after…

Oh my God.

Euphoric?

Spiritual?

Transcendent?

Carrie had been able to see things she’d never seen before—every pore in Marko’s skin, the fuzzy dust motes floating all around them. She’d felt the slowing and quickening of the air inside the trailer. She’d heard sounds she couldn’t place, didn’t recognize. She’d felt…

She didn’t know.

It had been so…so…everything.

Bliss. Ecstasy. Elation. A frenzy of intoxicating joy and madness and…

She’d never felt anything so beautiful before. If perfection were a feeling, then she’d experienced perfection at its finest.

And honestly, it was hard to hate someone who’d just given her a glimpse of heaven.

Rolling over, Carrie wiped the last of her tears from her cheeks and, ignoring the horrible burning and heart-pounding ache between her legs, she dressed quickly and climbed out of bed.

“Marko,” she whispered, opening the door to the storage room.

Seated in the middle of the room, he glanced up at her with tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he rasped. “Fată, I’m sorry. That wasn’t me. I don’t know why…I can’t…I…oh, fuck.”

Her insides squeezed painfully and her hands flew to her chest. “Oh my God,” she whispered.

She could feel him, everything he was feeling—the guilt, the pain, the complete and utter desolation.

And it crippled her.

Dropping to her knees beside him, Carrie threw her arms around his neck and held tightly to him. She wanted to say something, something that would console him, console her, only she couldn’t think of anything because there wasn’t anything to say…because she wasn’t even upset.

But he was. He was crying, and then suddenly, she was crying. The sound of tears created a panicky feeling inside her, a feeling she recognized as not her own but
she could feel as if it were.

Marko’s arms came around her and she gratefully burrowed
against his large body, squeezing him hard.

More emotions flooded her and this time, she recognized them as her own.

She felt…

She felt…

Complete.

Carrie gripped him tighter.

She couldn’t explain it, she didn’t understand it, but whatever had happened to her, to him, while he’d taken her, had changed her.

Marko was inside her. And oddly enough, she wanted him there.

“Shhh,” she whispered, pulling away from him, brushing his long hair away from his face and forcing him to look at her. “Shhh.”

Marko shook his head wildly, and she could feel the inner turmoil inside him.

“I’m fucked-up,” he sobbed. “Something happened outside, and I didn’t know what I was doing. Jesus, Carrie, I’m—”

Carrie pressed her lips to his, cutting him off.
He stiffened, surprise radiating from him into her, but the warmth she felt, the comfort, the need, were seeping into him. Then he was kissing her back, slowly at first, but the more she persisted, the more passionate the kisses grew.

“This is right,” she murmured against his mouth.

Marko’s hands flew to her cheeks, his fingers slid into her hair, and he gently cupped her head.

“This is right
,” she repeated.

It was right. Nothing had ever felt more right than this.
Carrie knew it because she could feel it with all her heart…and soul.

From his seat on the couch, Marko followed Carrie’s movements as she walked to and
fro, from one end of the trailer to the other. She had two pots of something cooking on the stove. He could smell the scent of his mamă’s recipe for soap wafting from the partially open bathroom door, and as she made her trips back and forth between rooms, she was intermittently cleaning.

She’d been bathing daily as well. Smiling a lot. Constantly trying to touch him, be near him…to be with him
.

He refused to touch her. He couldn’t, not after what he’d done. No matter how bad the cravings to be with her were
, he continuously shut them down, trying to ignore them and her.

And then there was the goddamn magic problem. She was ridiculously clumsy with her powers, his powers, using them accidentally, lighting things on fire and creating windstorms inside the trailer.

None of it made sense and yet, it did.

The last time anyone had seen Gerik, he had no longer been human but a human/dragon hybrid of sorts. And based
on what Marko knew now, having seen it and felt it firsthand, Gerik had become a full-fledged dragon.

Maybe dragons didn’t have souls?

That meant…

Oh God. How could this be happening?

Why him?

He was hardly the most powerful Romani. True, he came from a powerful family line, but he was nowhere near Gerik’s magical caliber. That damn soul, the oldest soul, was only ever given to the most powerful.

Ah, God, why him?

Well, obviously he’d been nature’s next best option. Thanks a lot, nature. Why not another Rom from another clan? Was his clan the only one left? And if so, why not Tobar? They both had sway over three elements…

Marko paused. Was Tobar dead?

And what about Carrie?

Carrie wasn’t Romani. She was a Gaje.

It just didn’t make sense.

But Trinity hadn’t been Romani either.

“Shit,” he muttered.

What the fuck? He had Gerik and Trinity’s soul? Correction—he and Carrie had Gerik and Trinity’s soul?

That was something he used to ease his guilt
, knowing he hadn’t been in his right mind when he’d taken her. In a way, he’d been compelled to be with her, the way Gerik had been with Trinity. Only Marko wasn’t half as strong as Gerik had been.

Still…
rape wasn’t the way any man and woman should come together.

What had Maisera always said? Fate wasn’t supposed to make sense. It just was. That destiny, everyone’s, had been written in the stars long before their births, long before…anything.

But even so, he couldn’t help to think, what if the world had never fallen apart? He would have never met Carrie. So, what did that mean? That the world was supposed to succumb to evil? That all of this—the death, the destruction, the near total ruination of mankind—had been the damn plan all along? That Gerik and Trinity were supposed to turn dark? And subsequently lose their soul because of it? That everything horrible that had happened to them all had already been predestined? What kind of fucked-up god would do something like this? What could be his reasoning?

Ah, God, everything Carrie was feeling, he was feeling too. It wasn’t that he hated it. He actually kind of liked it, but it was just so much, all out of nowhere, and this incredible burning, aching need to touch her and to be with her refused to let up.

Marko?

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he turned toward her. “Yeah?”

God, she was beautiful, sweet and fresh-faced, young and supple.

His gaze traveled down her body and then lower to the
V
between her legs, to where he wanted to be joined with her, to where he needed to be joined with her.

Marko?

His head snapped up. Fucking Christ.

“Yeah,” he muttered, “for the second time. What?”

Ignoring his temper, something she suddenly seemed quite good at, she smiled.

Dinner is ready.

He stared at her. Just stared. What in the—

Carrie
hadn’t spoken. Her lips hadn’t moved, yet he’d heard her clear as day.

I’ve been listening to you all day
, she said, her mouth still closed, her lips curled into a sly smile.
I tried to give you privacy, but you’re practically shouting your thoughts at me.

Marko jumped to his feet. No. No. No. No. No.

This wasn’t part of it. He’d never heard of this part—mind speak and thought reading.

“So, you know,” he said bitterly, “everything I’ve been thinking?”

She shrugged. “Not everything. Just a lot of feelings, and bits and pieces of your thoughts. I’ve been trying for days to get you to hear what I’ve been saying in my head, but you haven’t heard me, not until now.”

He closed his eyes. “So, you know what we are then?”

“Yes…I think.”

He opened his eyes and glared at her. “And what exactly do you think you know?”

Carrie’s big blue eyes infinitely softened, much like the way she would look at him when she wanted more than just conversation. He wanted more too. Everything about him wanted her, craved her.

“I know that I’m yours,” she said softly. “I know that we’re soul mates, and I know how confused you are.”

“Confused?” he yelled. “That’s a damn understatement, fată! There is no possible way that I’ve been given the most precious gift a Rom can inherit. I wield only three of the elements. Three! I don’t even have the ability to call upon dark magic. And you! You cannot be the soul mate. There already is one. Trinity! Remember her? She was the chosen gift, not you!”

Carrie’s features twisted with confusion. “But…you said it…or thought it yourself.
Garret turned into something…and maybe he lost his soul because of that?”

“Gerik,” Marko corrected. “And I don’t know
. I just…don’t know. It’s all there inside my head but it’s a mess and I can’t decipher everything!”

Looking sympathetic, Carrie took a step toward him and licked her lips. “I can help you sort through it,” she said. “It’s all there inside my head too.”

Marko knew she was talking but he’d stopped listening. His eyes dropped to her mouth, watching intently as she sucked on her bottom lip. He found himself gravitating toward her, wanting to touch her, wanting to be inside her.

Both body and mind.

She knew it the moment he thought it, and he knew that she knew. It was incredibly odd, utterly indescribable, the sensation like nothing he’d ever felt before. Almost as if he were four people all at once. He was himelf, feeling his own feelings, and yet he was him, feeling her feelings. But then he was also feeling her, feeling her own feelings, and he was also her, feeling his feelings.

But none of it was off
-putting. It was the opposite. It was…incredible.

He opened up further, wanting to feel more, suddenly wanting to know more about her, feel more of her.

They collided, grabbing at each other and tearing at their clothes, their mouths seeking bare skin.

“It’s not enough,” she panted breathlessly, clawing at him. “I need more…I need more
.”

Magic
poured from both of them, brightening the dimly lit trailer to a near blinding level. And Carrie…her skin was luminous, nearly transparent, and utterly beautiful.

“God, it’s perfect,” she cried. “Do you feel it? Do you feel how perfect we feel?”

He did. He could feel everything, everything this girl held inside her—her thoughts, her dreams, her wants and needs, her secrets, her pain and sorrow, her grief.

Her forgiveness.

Her devotion.

Her love.

Marko felt it all. He felt connected to Carrie on every level, on every plane, surpassing earth and space. They had become something different entirely, not man and woman, not in love and devoted to each other.

They’d become one. They existed as one
.

And it felt perfect.

• • •

Carrie’s head lolled back against the trailer wall while Marko’s hips met hers in slow, deep, leisurely thrusts.

This was everything she’d always imagined sex to be—needy yet slow, desperate but patient, too little and too much, gasps and moans, and…

A connection so strong that, deep within herself, she knew it could never be broken.

There was no pain this time. She felt only pleasure, only need, and an all-consuming burn to keep this man with her, inside her, to be forever his and only his, for always.

She was truly his. The were so completely, so intricately intertwined, wrapped, curled, and woven throughout
each other. And still it was more than that. It was only with each other that they would ever know true satisfaction, comfort, love, and peace. It was only with each other that they would ever be truly whole. The knowledge of what they were left her speechless. She’d been given a gift so profound. It was nothing any imagination could have ever dreamed up.

“You’re mine,” Marko whispered, his voice thick with emotion she could both feel and see.
They was so palpable, his feelings, that they was physically caressing her, inside and out.

It was ludicrous really—how different they were, how far apart in age, in upbringing, but most of all, how their feelings for
each other had suddenly shifted from indifference and dependency to…

“I love you,” she whispered and kissed him softly on the mouth.

And then Carrie heard it—a sentiment consisting of three gruff words—not spoken, not thought, but simply resonating from deep within him.

I love you.