My Soul To Take (14 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Xan awoke in the middle of the night to someone taking a jackhammer to his front door.

“Coming,” he bellowed.

He had just barely pulled on a pair of sweats and flipped the lock when the door swung wide open. Gunnar shoved him deeper inside the trailer and kicked the door closed behind him.

“What the fuck is going on,” he growled, pissed off that he had been woken up only to be manhandled by a pothead.

Gripping his forearms, Gunnar stared at him with wild, red puffy eyes.

“She told me not to tell you, she told me not to tell anyone but you’ve got to see her, Xan! She didn’t come home last night, so I went looking for her and found her out by the wards! Someone fucking beat her half to death, and she won’t—”

He shoved Gunnar aside and took off running for the Horváth’s RV. Barefoot and shirtless, he tore through camp running faster and harder than ever before.

Bursting through their front door, he found Ritsa and Mags huddled on the couch, sobbing hysterically.

“She’s locked in her room,” Mags cried out as he sprinted down the hallway. Fifi’s door was locked and he wasted an entire minute kicking the shit out of it until it cracked down the center. Shoving his fist through, he found the lock and yanked open the door so hard it came off its hinges. He took one look at her and had to fight to stay standing.

Aside from a pair of dirty white socks, she was naked. From her face all the way down to her ankles, her bronzed skin was mottled with deep purple and black bruises. It looked as if someone had systematically punched their way down her body, not even an inch of skin had been safe from the brutality she had suffered. Her lips were split in several places, puffy and bleeding, her nose was broken and one of her eyes was swollen shut. Blood trickled out of one ear and down the side of her, disappearing into her mud-encrusted hair.

Seeing him, she tried to curl in on herself but it was obvious she was in far too much pain to move more than a few inches at a time.

Breathing hard through his nostrils in an attempt to tamp down his rage, he approached her, making sure he appeared as non-threatening as possible.

“Fi,” he growled, trying to keep his voice soft. “I’m gonna take you home with me. Okay, baby?” Her attempt at nodding ended with her flinching in pain.

Using the dark pink comforter she was lying on top of, he wrapped her up, shifted her into his arms and lifted her up as gently as possible.

He found Gunnar crying just outside her door.

“Gunnar,” he growled as he passed by him. “Go get Maisera, send her to my place, and neither of you –” He pointed at Ritsa and Mags. “Tell anyone about this!”

He leveled his glare on Mags, one of the biggest gossips in camp.

“Do you understand me, woman? NO ONE IS TO KNOW! Or I’ll rip your goddamn heart out through your throat!”

“I would never!" she cried out.

“What are you going to do?” Ritsa whispered.

He gave her a hard look. “What I do best,
fată.”

She swallowed thickly, nodding.

“Good,” Mags whispered. “Good.”

He took the long way back to his t
railer, keeping to the edge of camp, moving quickly and staying unseen. Back in his trailer, he lay Fifi down on his bed and covered her with a few more blankets.

He wanted to scream.

Cry.

Hold her close.

Beat the living fuck out of something…someone.
Someone.
He already knew who, but he had to be sure.

“Who did this to you, baby?” he asked, stroking the palm of her hand. Aside from her feet, her hands were the only place on her body that he could touch without causing her an ungodly amount of pain.

Her eyes overflowed and her bottom lip trembled. “Nicu,” she whispered hoarsely.

Fire spiked his blood and sweat dotted along his forehead as his body clenched with fury. A fine tremor rippled through him as he fought for the control he’d lost the second he’d laid eyes on Nicu’s handiwork.

“Did he rape you?” Even his voice shook with rage.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Gunnar burst through the front door, Maisera and Tobar were right behind him. Maisera rushed toward Fifi and gently lifted the blankets to assess her injuries.

“Who?” Tobar demanded as he stared in horror at Fifi’s battered body.

Ignoring him, he went to the storage cupboards under the sink. Grabbing his duffle of weaponry, he pulled his 380 Smith and Wesson, his Glock and then, just because, he grabbed a serrated edged dagger.

“I’m nowhere near as good as your mamă was, Xan Daniel. You’ll have to get Nadya to help me heal her,” Maisera said, eyeing him warily as he finished dressing and strapped on his weapons.

Tobar glanced back and forth between his grandmother and Xan.

“
Bunică? Înțelegi?” Tobar asked her.

“
Din păcate, da,” she said grimly.

“I’ll get Nayda,” Tobar offered, glancing at him.

“Good,” he said and then turned to Gunnar. “Stay here with your sister.”

He’d expected Gunnar to argue with him, but surprisingly he didn’t
. Instead, he crawled up in bed beside Fifi, took her hand in his and placed it over his heart.

“I’m so sorry,
surioară, I’m so fucking sorry. Doamne iartă-mă Îmi pare așa de rău.”

Tobar followed him outside. “Xan…”

He spun around. “What!”

“Who did it?” T
obar hissed.

“Nicu!” he hissed back.

They stared at one another.

Then Tobar nodded, just a slight dip of his head. “You have my permission,” he said somberly.

Like he fucking needed or cared about Tobar’s permission. “Damage control,” he growled back. “Get on it.”

Not wanting to draw any attention, he stalked silently through camp towards the Siwak brother’s RV. The short walk was enough time to get his shit together. He’d have to handle this delicately. Nicu had magic, he didn’t. Not that he hadn’t gone up against magic users before, because he had, several actually. But usually hits like this took a bit of strategic planning to pull off quietly.

Finding the front door locked, he shouldered the thick piece of plastic and threw all his weight into it, breaking it open.

The noise woke Nicu, who’d been asleep on the couch.

Nicu took one look at him and smiled maliciously. “Who’s jealous now, Deleanu?”

He gaped at him. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he demanded.

"What’s wrong with me?" he asked, incredulous. “Fuck, Xan, you really don’t get it, do you?”

“No, motherfucker, I don’t. Care to explain?”

Nicu snorted. “We’re all dead. Every single one of us. Whether our time is tomorrow or a year from now, we’re all gonna die before we should. If you want to sit around and feel sorry for yourself, living day to day, just going through the motions, waiting to kick it, that’s on you, but I’m not gonna go out like that. I’m taking advantage of the time I got left.”

“No, asshole. You took advantage of a woman in the w
orst fucking way.”

He scoffed. “I’m no different than anyone else in camp. Nico wanted Becki, so he took her. Before him, Hockey took her, tied her up against her will, if I remember correctly. My own mamă was forced into a marriage she didn’t want. Even M
aisera and Jericho’s marriage had been arranged. And Lyuba… Christ, she’s still unhappy.

“Hell, don’t you remember when we were kids, Marcell just up and took Edina the night of her thirteenth birthday. He was nearly forty years older than she was and
no
one stopped him
, not even her tată and mamă. The whole camp had to listen to her screaming and crying every night for months while he forced himself on her.”

Yeah, he remembered. He’d been so young at the time he hadn’t thought anything of it. It was just the way of thin
gs among the clans. Men from the old country, men like Marcell and Lajos, and like Jericho and his own tata mare, had followed the old ways and looked down their noses at change of any kind.

The next generation, most of who had been born and raised in America, immersed in American culture and slowly stopped adhering to the old traditions. His own generation rarely practiced them at all, and when they did, they certainly weren’t raping thirteen-year-olds.

But when it came down to it, Marcell hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d acted within the confines of Romani law and the law clearly stated that when a fată reaches her thirteenth birthday any man could claim her at any time. And said man has every right to suppose sexual relations with said wife. As a married woman, it is one of her expected duties.

Law abiding or not, in his opinion, Marcell should have taken a full grown woman as his wife instead of a fetiță that he’d purposely kept fat and pregnant just to make sure she didn’t run off. There was no denying
Edina had been miserable throughout their entire marriage. Twenty-one years and eight children later, she still hadn’t been able to look upon her husband without pure hatred shining in those pretty brown eyes of hers. When Marcell was killed back in the Catskills after a group of Skins had attacked camp, Edina had burst into tears. Happy tears. She’d fallen to her knees, thanking God for finally answering her prayers.

It had been the first time he’d heard her laugh in twenty-one years.

But Nicu hadn’t claimed Fifi. As it was, Fifi hadn’t been up for claiming. He’d laid dibs on her long ago, because it was what she’d wanted, and whether he married her or not after laying claim, fata was off limits to all men except him.

“Fi wasn’t yours to take,” he growled.

“Was Trinity yours to take? You married her without her knowledge. What the fuck does that make you, Deleanu?”

“A selfish bastard,” he hissed. “Not a man who beats women into submission so he can rape them.”

Nicu laughed bitterly. “You’re going to stand there and tell me you didn’t have to force yourself upon
Gerik’s soul mate
? I seem to remember her crying out in pain from a simple kiss. I can’t even imagine what kind of torture she had to endure while you fucked her. I know you had to pry those sexy Gaje thighs apart, Deleanu.”

“It wasn’t like that!” he roared, enraged that Nicu would dare talk about something so private, so intimate and precious to him and have the audacity to call it rape.

Nicu sneered. “You keep telling yourself that.”

He pinned Tri
nity up against his mamă's bedroom wall, their naked, sweat-drenched bodies pressed tightly together. He’d just tried to kiss her and she’d turned away from him. Again. Frustrated, angry as hell with Gerik, and so damn hard he thought he was gonna burst, he punched the wall just inches from her head. Again.

“Tell me to stop, Trinity. Tell me,” he spat. Because, fuck, he couldn’t take this anymore. He needed so badly to be inside of her, to claim her as his, to fuck her until neither of them could move, and then fuck her again. But not like this. Not when she couldn’t bear his touch.

Grabbing her chin, he forced her to look at him. Forehead to forehead, with a hand under each thigh, he spread her further. She jerked in pain and tried to move away, but he could feel how wet she was. He could see in her eyes how much she wanted this.

Knowing that she wanted him just as badly as he did her spurred him on and he pressed into her.

“Otherwise I’m going to finish this right now,” he growled.

“Finish it,” she whispered through clenched teeth, even as she tried desperately to wiggle away from him.

Shit. Goddamn shit. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t force her.

No, fuck that. He could do this. It wasn’t her who didn’t want him; it was her soul, but not her. And so, he would do it for her.

Finding her entrance, ignoring her screams and cries, in one excruciatingly forceful thrust he buried himself inside of her.

Jesus. She hadn’t been lying. Trinity was a motherfucking virgin and she was so goddamn tight he almost came right then and there.

While he fought for control, he felt her body go limp in his arms. Panicked, he found her eyes and his heart skipped a beat. Pain no longer tightened her beautiful face. And what he saw in its place rocked him to his core.

“It worked,” she said breathlessly.

Then she kissed him. She kissed him long and hard and he lost all sense of time and place; hell, he lost himself inside the mind-blowing sweetness of her innocence.

His life as he’d always known it was forever changed.

Yeah. Fuck this asshole for making him second guess the first time he’d been inside his wife. That hadn’t been rape. Not by a long shot. That had been two people willing to do anything to be together. To him, that was love in its purest form.

He was done talking and done listening to Nicu’s crazy justifications.

“Do me a favor, frate. Stand up. Put those magic hands of yours in your pockets and walk towards me real slow.”

Nicu’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”