The Soul Mate (21 page)

“Dammit!” He yelled. Jumping up, he stomped
away, leaving me staring after him.

“Maybe it’s some sort of test,” Becki said,
walking up behind me. “They force us to marry them and then they
run away.”

I laughed bitterly. “Yeah, and they have
spies watching us to see what we do while they’re gone.”

“We should go on a raid,” She suggested. “See
how they feel about that.”

“Oh Gods no!” I said, “I do not want to be
tied up again!”

We both laughed. “Me either,” She agreed.
“I’m still making him pay for that.”

I raised an eyebrow in question and she
blushed furiously. “You don’t want to know.”

Both eyebrows went up. Yep, I did.

Grinning, I patted the ground next to me.
“Story time.”

Three days later I could only stand there and
watch helplessly as two pickup trucks and an empty supply van were
removed from their parking spaces and loaded down with the
necessary weapons and supplies needed for the raiding party.

“Fată.”

I laughed, while choking back a sob when I
saw Xan. A bullet proof vest was fastened over his thick clothing,
and he was armed to the teeth. His hair was pulled back tightly
making his sharp features even more predominant.

I shook my head. “Please don’t. Don’t say
anything stupid right now. I don’t think I could handle it.” My
stomach hurt, my chest hurt, and I was doing everything I could not
to lose it.

Instead of speaking, he tugged me forward and
kissed my forehead.

“I’m coming back,” He said, slipping
something cool and hard into the back of my jeans. “I’ll always
come back.”

“Hey Romeo! Let’s go!” Half of Shandor’s body
was hanging out of the passenger window of one of the trucks.

Xan gave me one last look. I’m sure he meant
to convey reassurance but all I could see was the excitement he was
failing to hide from me.

Running, in order catch up to the already
moving vehicles, Xan grabbed on to the side of a truck bed and
swung his body up and over. When I could no longer see him, I
pulled out the gun he’d slipped in my waistband and stared at
it.

Trinity, Fata Mea.

“He had me engrave it for you.” Stefan put
his arm around me, nodding at the gun.

“Said something about if it hadn’t been for
guns...” Stefan winked at me.

Fata Mea. My girl.

I rested my head on Stefan and smiled. I
could never stay mad at Xan for very long. Even when he was running
through towns crawling with blood sucking, flesh eating monsters,
trying to steal enough supplies for an entire community of
people.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Hungary, 1078 A.C.E

Treime hated her husband’s mamă. She was
going to kill the woman if she clicked her tongue at her one more
time. Living with the Baró and his wife was a punishment worse than
death, she’d decided.

This baby could not come soon enough, she
thought, rubbing her belly. Feeling a small kick in response, she
grinned. Her baby apparently agreed. No one liked Violca and
really, who could blame them?

Treime couldn’t do anything right, according
to that woman. She couldn’t peel vegetables correctly, she couldn’t
mend Emilian’s tunics’ or hose correctly and she couldn’t even grow
her own child correctly!

“
You’re too skinny for a woman with
child!” Violca would scold. “You must eat more, rest more!”

And the absolute worst, “Relations between a
man and woman is not good for the babe inside you,” Violca would
tell her. “And don’t try to deny it! I can hear the two of you!
Daily!”

How Treime would have loved to have told her
that it was her son that had the insatiable appetite. That he
couldn’t keep his hands off of her, big round belly or not, but she
knew it would only further upset the infuriating woman.

Complaining to Emilian was out of the
question. He was busy building their own wagon and gathering the
supplies they would need to sustain themselves in their new home
once the baby was born.

Treime couldn’t bring herself to bother him
with her trivial nonsense, so she kept quiet, played the dutiful
wife, satisfying Emilian’s hunger for her and working hard to keep
from killing his mamă.

But this morning Treime needed some time
alone. Grabbing some raw carrots, she headed outside hoping to
remain unseen until she could slip into the woods and head toward
the warm springs. She nearly ran into Violca but managed to scurry
quickly behind the neighbors horses, only to almost let loose her
breakfast at the fresh horse dung she’d stepped in.

Waiting for a few pounding heartbeats before
peaking out behind the twitching tails, Treime glanced around.
Nothing. But knowing Violca, Treime didn’t want to leave anything
to chance.

Feeling like the only way to break loose was
to make a run for it, Treime took a large breath, stepped out from
behind the horses and ran directly into the giant belly of the clan
blacksmith, Yanoro.

“
Treime! Where are you off to
girl?”

“
I need to go for a walk!” She hissed.
“Alone!”

Yanoro laughed. The sound echoed across camp,
making the horses whinny nervously. Yanora might be loud and
imposing but he was sweeter than honey.

He patted Treime’s belly. “You take care of
that babe Treime. I’ll take care of that woman for a minute or two
so you can have some peace.”

Giving the blacksmith a grateful smile, she
took off running.

“
Violca!” She heard him yell. “I need some
onions! For a… onion emergency!”

“
Who lit a fire in your pants Yanny?”
Violca yelled back.

Treime giggled.

Finding a nice spot by the springs where the
flowers grew colorful and in plenty, she immediately pulled of her
diklo and happily stretched out under the sun. It wasn’t long
before she drifted off to sleep, lulled by the small waterfall
nearby.

She awoke later to soft kisses on her cheeks,
nose and forehead. Giggling, she pushed Emilian off of her.

“
You have ladybugs all over you, love.” He
picked up one of tiny red and black bugs before it could fly
away.

“
Its good luck you know,” She told,
smiling. “What are you doing out here?”

“
Walther and I are going hunting without
the rest of the men.” He gestured to his little brother who was
standing near the water and lowered his voice. “They tease him
because he doesn’t like to harm the animals.”

Treime’s heart swelled at the sweet admission
and she smiled. “An admirable trait.”

Emilian grunted. “I’ll back tonight
wife.”

Then, once more, he kissed both her cheeks,
lingered on her lips and lastly placed several more on her swollen
belly.

Walther made a face at them.

Emilian helped Treime get to her feet and she
tugged on Walther’s dark hair, thinking how similar to Emilian he
looked. He wore his hair long like his brother and his eyes were
the same dark brown. He would break hearts too, Treime thought,
already sad for the girls who wouldn’t get to keep the beautiful
boy.

“
Someday Walther you will be in love and
you will understand,” She told him.

“
Never”, He swore it with such ferocity
that both Emilian and Treime burst out laughing and Walther’s scowl
grew.

Treime watched them leave, feeling happy and
lighthearted. She dallied near the springs, picking wildflowers and
soaking her feet. On her way back to camp she heard a strange
noise, something that sounded like drums, far off in the
distance.

The closer she came to camp, the more
recognizable the sound became, and it hadn’t been drums at all, but
horses. Horse hooves, beating down upon the earth at a fast and
furious pace. They sounded close.

Treime felt her stomach summersault. She knew
who was coming.

The Gaje Man.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The sound of breaking glass and screaming
woke me.

Hands trembling, I grabbed my gun from under
my pillow and peeked out of my small window. At first I thought
we’d been invaded by other humans who wanted to steal our supplies.
The attackers were wearing clothing and not just a pair of torn,
dirty pants. No. These Skin Eaters were fully dressed, much better
than anyone at camp was considering most of them had shoes on when
we ourselves barely bothered.

And worse… they seemed almost… normal.

They weren’t constantly shifting like the
other’s I’d seen who seemed unable to stand still for too long.
Their movements weren’t jerky or nervous or overly predatory. They
were laughing and talking with one another instead of fighting.

I fell backwards across my bed as red eyes
met mine through glass.

“There’s another one in here!”

I never even had time to scream. They might
have looked less like animals, but they still moved like their wild
counterparts. My doors were torn off the hinges and I was grabbed
and drug outside my trailer before a scream had time to form.

“It’s fabulous!” Someone yelled. “All this
meat and blood! In one place no less!”

I was tossed onto the ground, face first in
the dirt. Hands grabbed at me and my scream finally surfaced.

“No! Shh! Trinity it’s me! It’s Becki!”

I scrambled up and wrapped my arms around
her, just in time to see Lala’s shredded body thrown out of her
trailer. Pitti rushed toward his mother’s lifeless form. Two bodies
blurred into existence beside him and took him down. I could hear
his bones cracking from where we were huddled.

Gunshots and terrified screams continued to
sound all around us.

“Oh Gods. Oh Gods. Oh Gods,” I ranted,
beginning to hyperventilate.

“Shhh. Trinity. You can’t freak out right
now.” Becki cradled my head against her chest.

Freaking out would have been an
understatement. They were stockpiling us. Eating some of us now and
saving some of us for later.

“I want to fuck as I feast!” A male voice
declared.

“You’re a pig,” A female answered.

“He’s a pig?” Another voice said. “And what
do you call eating six children in one sitting?”

Six children? The faces of Simza, of little
Pali and Mala and tiny Benyamin flashed before me and then I was
screaming, not out of fear but pure fury.

“No!” Becki cried out as I got to my feet.
“They’ll kill you!”

“They’re going to kill me anyway,” I told
her.

I pulled the gun from my waist band and ran
at the female, shooting as I did. Three shots hit her in the chest
and two in the head before I was taken down in a blur of speed. It
didn’t matter. I’d killed her. There was one injury those monsters
never survived; wounds to the brain.

I wondered if there really was a utopia in
the sky where my family would be waiting for me. I wondered if I’d
see Xan there someday. Gods, I hoped so.

“Ahh fetita, you’re perfect for what I had in
mind.” A cold hand ran down my side and over my buttocks, squeezing
hard.

Grasping my arm he flipped me over, pinning
me beneath him.

How human he looked surprised me. He was
young, definitely younger than me, and very handsome. He had dark
bronzed skin like Xan and long brown hair, pulled back into a
ponytail. It was only when he smiled that the animal was revealed.
His teeth were horrifying close up. Every tooth came to a sharp
jagged point and his canines were still dripping with the blood of
his last victim.

He brushed my hair away from my face and
froze. Wide, red eyes turned brown.

With a roar he pushed me away from him. “This
is not possible!” He yelled.

Not knowing what to do, I curled up into a
ball and prayed.

“Your eyes!” He yelled, coming closer. “Let
me see your eyes!”

When he leaned over me, I opened my eyes as
wide as could, praying to the gods that his face wasn’t going to be
the last thing I ever saw.

“Treime?” He asked in a shaking voice. “Is it
you?”

“Not hungry Walther?” A shadow fell over us.
A Skin Eater with wide shoulders and a shock of red hair was
peering down at me. “I’ll take her off your hands.”

Walther hissed. And with speed I couldn’t
comprehend, he had me standing and positioned behind him.

“Easy man, why so touchy?”

“No one touches her!” Walther demanded.

“Are you going to change her?” The redhead
surveyed my body in a way that made me feel violated, then grinned
at me, flashing his own set of bloodied fangs. “I wouldn’t blame
you.”

I took that moment to momentarily lose my
mind.

“You psycho!” I screamed, then spit at him.
“You should all be put down like the animals you are!”

The red head’s lips peeled back in a snarl
and lunged at me. Thankfully, Walther was faster and blocked him
from reaching me. The two of them became nothing more than a blur
of fists and kicks.

The battle ended nearly as soon as it had
begun, only the redhead was now minus his head. Grabbing me by the
arm, Walther dragged across the bloody battlefield. The screams had
waned, replaced now with sobbing. Which, I decided, was infinitely
worse.

Wrenching open the Horváth’s trailer door,
Walther threw me inside. I skidded across the linoleum floor until
my back hit a short metal pole that secured a small table to the
floor.

“You stay put until I come for you,” He said
and left.

I immediately went for the door, there was no
way I was going to sit in here until he came back to kill me. But
the door wouldn’t open. Somehow he’d locked me in from the outside
without a key.

I was two seconds away from picking up a
chair to bash into the door when the ground began to shake so
violently I was forced to position myself under the Horváth’s
bedroom doorframe to keep from falling over. All throughout the
trailer dishes and knick knacks were toppling over and shattering.
Clinging to whatever I could, I inched along the wall toward the
bedroom’s largest window.