My Soul To Take (15 page)

“Think of me as your landlord. The landlord that’s evicting your sorry ass from camp.”

“I need my shit,” he hissed.

“No. You’re goin’ as is.”

Nicu’s face turned red with rage and the scent of magic permeated the air. But before Nicu could even lift his hands, Xan had dropped and rol
led to the right. The blast of air missed him entirely. He immediately leapt to his feet, kicked the coffee table aside and lunged for Nicu’s sparking hands. With a good grip on both of his wrists, he slammed him backwards into the wall, pinning his hands high above his head.

“I’m only gonna say this one more time,” he repeated. “When I let go of your hands, put them in your motherfucking pockets.”

“Who’s gonna make me?”

Switching his two-handed grip on Nicu’s wrists to one hand, he used his free hand to pull his dagger out of its sheath. Nicu struggled until he pressed the sharp teeth of the blade into his neck hard enough to draw blood.

“Me.”

Not taking any chances, he pressed his body firmly against Nicu’s, keeping the blade against his neck, before letting go of his wrists.

This time Nicu did as he was told.

With both pieces pressed up against Nicu’s neck, he led him across camp, passed through the wards and out into the surrounding farmland. They walked for a long time through nothing but rotted out farming fields, the crops long since dead and the area far too open for what he had planned. Hours later, when the sun was cresting on the horizon, he finally came across a decent patch of forest.

“In there,” he said, shoving Nicu forward.

Nicu stopped walking and his body went rigid. “You said you were just walking me out of camp, you fuck!”

“I lied. Now, go.”

At a snail’s pace, Nicu walked stiffly into the seclusion of the trees.

When he felt they’d gone far enough, he yanked Nicu to a stop and pointed a gun at the ground. “Kneel.”

Nicu sunk to the ground. “At least have the balls to look me in the eyes.”

He’d planned on it.

With a barrel pressed against each of Nicu’s temples, he walked around him until he was front and center. Then he leaned down until their noses nearly touched.

“You deserve worse than death,” he whispered. “Much, much worse. You deserve to be beaten within an inch of your life, tortured and fucked from every orifice of your body. Trouble is, I don’t feel like wasting an ounce of energy on your sorry ass.”

Nicu’s nostrils flared ang
rily. “Who are you to judge me? You’re not any better than I am! In fact, you’re a whole lot worse, aren’t you? You think everyone doesn’t know that you were Jericho’s bitch, the only clan member that could stomach the dirty shit the Barό needed done! All the jobs he’d outsourced you and your sadistic fucking skills for. And for what? Just to fill the clan’s pockets! How many fucking sins do you have hanging over your conscience, frate?”

“None that are currently bothering me,” he spat.

“Yeah, well, that makes two of us. And I’ll see you in hell, Deleanu. Count on it.”

“Yeah, you will.” He shoved both barrels into Nicu’s mouth and looked him dead in the eyes, unblinking. “But not anytime soon.”

His fingers twitched and the back of Nicu’s skull blew out in a spray of blood, bone, and brains. His body wavered once before slumping to the ground in a heap.

Force of habit had him cleaning his prints off the guns. Shaking his head at his stupidity, he shoved them back in his pants. It wasn’t as if he was in danger of being locked up anytime soon.

Nicu was right. This wasn’t the first time he’d killed someone, not by a long shot. When it was his time, he knew he was going straight to hell, and he’d go without a fight and with a crystal clear conscience.

After giving Nicu a swift kick in the face, he wiped the blood off his boot, turned his back on the piece of shit, and headed back to camp.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I glared up at Gerik. “It’s not working!”

He sighed, exasperated. “Just close your eyes, Trinity, and concentrate. The rest will come naturally.”

Taking a deep breath, I once again dug my fingers deep into the soil beneath me and closed my eyes. Nothing happened. I blew out a breath, irritated.

“Give it time,” Gerik chastised.

I was about to give him a piece of my mind when a small electric shock pricked my fingertips. It started out as a small trickle that was gradually growing until it was a veritable waterfall of…life.

It came pouring in after that. So much knowledge. Not in words or images but an innate understanding of the world beneath my feet. Life giving soil millions, billions of nutrients, roots galore, plants and animals and organisms of all shapes and sizes and colors invisible to the naked eye. I knew them all. And I knew the reasons for their existence. Their purpose on earth. Everything had been created for a reason and served an individual purpose in the circle of life.

I felt Gerik’s claw slide down my cheek and brush across my lips. “I’m really proud of you,” he whispered. “Now try to focus on only one thing. A dying plant perhaps or a wilting flower and—

“TRINITY! STOP!”

STOP!

My eyes flew open.

In an explosion of light, I blew backwards and skidded across the ground. When I came to a stop, dazed and confused with a very sore bottom, Gerik was laughing hysterically. Baffled, I stood and started to brush the dirt and grass off my jeans…

And stopped. And stared.

As far as I could see, the entire park was covered in giant dandelions. Leaning up against a tree, knee deep in yellow weeds, Gerik was smirking.

“It’s all about control, yeah? And delegating your power appropriately. And as you can see, we have a lot more work to do.”

Wide eyed, I looked around. “Did I really just do all this?”

“Mmhmm. Think what would have happened if you’d poured all your power into…say, an earthworm?”

My mouth fell open. “Ew!”

He burst out laughing and held out his arms to me. “Come here, beautiful.”

******

Magic school sucked. Especially when you’re not allowed to use your powers, but instead forced to listen to long-winded speeches on control and safety for days on end. Gods, who would have thought magical powers came with an instruction manual. A giant magical-Viking-dragon instruction manual who makes you sit on the couch and studiously listen while he paces back and forth in front of you rambling for hours on end.

Rambling aside, it was informative. For instance, it is only because of
earth that I am able to create protective wards within the ground. My power works like a battery, infusing natural objects with the elements and once buried connects through the earth to form a barrier. If these objects are upset or removed, the wards will break. Even the slightest tremor can dislodge an object, therefore breaking the wards. The attacks on our camp in the Catskills suddenly made a lot more sense.

I learned that
fire could not only destroy but also heal. This had been Xan’s mother, Drina’s, affinity. Gerik explained that different people have different levels of power. On a scale of one to ten, Gerik and I were both so far off the scale he didn’t even bother guessing at a number. Drina, he’d said, would be considered a ten, but her mother, despite having only one affinity, had been a hundred times more powerful than Drina. Nobody knew why. According to Gerik, she’d taken her magical secrets to the grave.

“Fire is hot, internal energy, plain and simple. Because it comes from inside of the person wielding it, it is easier to manipulate than any other element.” Supposedly, because of
fire, I could control predatory insects, animals and amphibians. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be testing that ability any time soon. Controllable or not, I wanted to be nowhere near a poisonous spider.

“What was Onyx’s affinity?” I asked.

He narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

I thought back to my attempted murder and recounted the events for Gerik, explaining how she’d pushed me twice with a ridiculous amount of strength that no woman of her size should have been capable of.

“Air,” he muttered. “And I’d rate her around a seven.”

“What about Becki? What’s her affinity?”

He smirked. “Aren’t you curious?”

I stuck my tongue out at him. “I was kept in the dark for so long! I want to know everything now! Absolutely everything!”

“Earth,” he chuckled. “I’d rate her around a three. She helped with the gardens mostly.”

“Jericho? Maisera? Tobar? Nadya?”

He burst out laughing. “They’re all Popas!"

I frowned. “So?”

He smirked. “So, they’re all tens. Jericho possessed fire, earth and air. Maisera had fire and earth, Tobar had fire, earth and water, and Nadya had fire and air.”

I shook my head, stunned. “I find it amazing that you were all able to hide these things from me for so long.”

“That was my decision. I wanted to ease you into it. Knowing about something isn’t the same as experiencing it firsthand, yeah?”

I smirked. “Right. Like how I knew you were my soul mate but I’d had no idea how fantastic you were in bed.”

His eyes went black. “Don’t tempt me, woman,” he growled. “You have a lot to learn and I don’t have a lot of…” He trailed off and cleared his throat. Before I could stop him, Gerik used one of his claws and sliced open the skin on his calf. Blood welled and he looked to me, expectant. “Heal me.”

Frantic, I shook my head. “I don’t know how!”

“Yes, you do. All you have to do is call upon your fire and will your body to heal mine.”

I blew out an exasperated breath but did as he said. Covering the wound with my hand, I concentrated, thinking only of healing Gerik, of stopping the bleeding and knitting his skin back together, making him whole again.

Almost instantly, my energy began to wane.

“You’ve almost got it, Trinity,” Gerik rumbled happily.

My vision began to swim and my head felt suddenly too big for my body.

“Gerik,” I managed to squeak out just before everything went black.

When I opened my eyes, Gerik was hovering over me, grinning. “You did it,” he said proudly.

I sat up too fast and got dizzy all over again. “Oh my gods,” I whispered, blinking at the scabbed over cut on his calf. It wasn’t fully healed,
but whatever
; I’d just used magic to heal! “I did it!" I yelled, clapping.

Gerik grinned.

The rest of my lessons for the day were spent focusing solely on control; mainly on how to control a low level of each element in their basic forms, manipulating them or combining them. Figuring out how to exert only a certain amount of power was easy.

“Calling forth an element,” Gerik explained, “Is like sucking in a breath of air. How much air you choose to release is up to you. If you release too much, just suck it back in.”

Combing elements was another story altogether. I couldn’t wrap my mind around fire and water being compatible in combat since they cancelled each other out. That was my first problem, Gerik had said. If I think it’s going to fail, it will. Then he proceeded to set fire to a bucket of water. The flames danced along the surface, inextinguishable, while the water remained room temperature and the bucket unharmed.

When I tried, the water boiled and the bucket melted.

“I suck,” I whined.

“No,” he laughed, “This is just very new to you. You can’t expect to be as good as me overnight...if ever.”

“Hey! Not nice! I could be as good as you someday! Maybe even good enough to kick your ass!”

His eyes danced with laughter. “I doubt it. That’s my magic inside of you. How can you kick someone’s ass with their own power?”

How, indeed? Well, if that person just so happens to be your soul mate whose thoughts you have access to, shouldn’t you have access to their power as well?

An idea began to form.

“You’re right,” I said, leaning in for a kiss. “I’m just a silly little girl.”

“You’re my silly little girl,” he rumbled, pulling me into his lap. As Gerik kissed his way across my neck, I felt for the bond inside of me, the connection that bound our broken soul and fused us together. It recognized me instantly and with open arms allowed me to sink inside Gerik’s power core. My own power poured excitedly into his and mixed naturally. This often happened during sex, but not until now had I ever given much thought to what being joined so completely could accomplish outside of causing intense pleasure.

But
…instead of just using myself as a conduit for the elements, what if I could use me and Gerik and our joined abilities?

Gerik ran his claws down my body, stopping at the button on my jeans. My zipper was going to be next. It was now or never.

Using Water, I let my senses flare, spread out across my surroundings until I could sense all moisture inside the room. I pushed farther out, connecting with all the moisture in the air, drops of dew on the new grass, on the budding leaves and finally, I found what I was ultimately seeking.

The lake.

Then I pulled. I pulled with everything I had, as well as everything Gerik had. I felt the lake rear up and form a massive tidal wave. I broke out in a sweat as I tried desperately to hold on to the gargantuan amount of power in my grip and continue to will it to me.

Gerik looked down at me, his expression disbelieving. I could feel him tugging at his power and coming up empty. When that didn’t work, he yanked and my insides painfully jerked but I held fast. He roared in frustration; there was nothing he could do, I had complete control.

When the front door burst open, startling me, my connection to Gerik severed. I lost all control of the water as it rushed inside and filled the cabin.

With his arms around me, Gerik leapt into the air. His fist pounded into the roof, repeatedly, until the wood cracked. One more punch and the roof busted open, allowing us our escape.

As we hovered above, I stared happily at my destruction.

“Trinity,” he growled, bristling with anger. “You just destroyed all of our stuff.”

“Yup,” I agreed, far too pleased with myself to let that worry me. “And I just kicked your ass with
your
magic.”

His nostrils flared. “I stand corrected.”

******

While we salvaged what we could from the decimated cabin, Gerik was pushing on my last nerve. He had yet to cease his angry muttering, all of which was directed at me.

“Trinity,” he would growl. “You need to stop acting on impulse!”

Or… “You never think things through!”

Or… “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

When I’d finally had enough, I threw down the wet pile of clothing I’d been carrying onto the floor of our new cabin and whirled around.

“What is your gods damn problem?” I demanded.

“My problem is you could have gotten us both killed with that stunt you pulled!”

“Stunt?” I yelled. I stomped my foot in anger and glared up at him.

“What would you call it?” he roared. “I doubt you did it because you thought the lake looked better in our living room!”

“You’re just mad because I was able to catch you off guard! That’s it, isn’t it? Big, bad, alpha dragon man is all upset that his little human girlfriend pulled one over on him!”

He bared his teeth at me and snarled. “You’re not my girlfriend!”

I put my hands on my hips. “Then what am I?”

“My soul mate,” he hissed. “A very bratty, smart-mouthed, irritating, annoying, belligerent, demonstrative, disaster-seeking, headstrong, smart, loving, sexy, amazing, wonderful, perfect…soul mate.”

I smirked. “Nice save there at the end, Viking.”

He scowled. “I’m going out.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”

He gestured to our soaking wet belongings. “Because, Trinity, we need some new shit, yeah?” Then with a roll of his beautiful blue eyes, he took to the skies while I finished setting up shop.

When he returned, he brought back with him more belongings than a normal man could have managed even with the aid of a moving truck.

“Did you steal an entire house?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Pretty much.”

I reached up to thank him with a kiss and found his eyes pitch black with yellow slits slashed through their centers. With every vertical blink, a horizontal one followed.

Gerik had a nictitating membrane.