Hilary & Deacon.
A scream explodes from my pursed lips as the pain expands over my stomach and spreads through my back and legs.
“Just pant, baby.” Deacon checks between my legs for the tenth time and then comes back up to my face. “It’s okay, don’t panic. Remember from when you had the others. Don’t panic, breathe, visualize.” He mimics panting for me. “It’s too early for the baby, it can’t come yet. These are just Braxton Hicks—practice contractions. It’s not real, it can’t be real, not yet.” He closes his eyes for a second and focuses himself.
I want to reach up and kiss him and tell him that it will be okay, that I’ll be fine, that the baby will be fine, but I can’t—because I don’t believe that. The baby is coming too early, and this pain is nothing like the pain from birthing my other two children. This is worse than any pain I’ve ever felt before.
The burning pain threads through every nerve again, starting abruptly on my stomach and pushing down between my bloodied thighs, down my legs and back up my spine.
I try to hold in the gut-wrenching scream, try to hold myself together for him, but I can’t. It hurts so damn much and I’m so damn scared. And when I look at Deacon’s face, all I can see is pain and worry, and I know
that he knows this isn’t normal—that this isn’t anything like our other children.
He grabs my chin as I scream again, forcing me to look at him, forcing me to stare into his bloodshot, frightened eyes. I grit my teeth, holding back the pain, feeling a tooth at the back of my mouth crack at the effort I’m putting on it to stop my scream from escaping.
Deacon leans over and presses his lips to mine, and I feel his hot tears drip onto my cheeks, mixing with my own tears. He sobs loudly, and I join him in the misery, meeting him halfway, because we know—we both know—that this is it, the moment we’ve been dreading. Even if it is too early. Way too early.
We thought we would have more time, but then, don’t you always?
“It’ll be okay, baby. It’ll be okay. I’m going to look after you,” he whispers.
Pain begins to radiate again, and I hold onto it for as long as I can, trying to breathe through it, pant, goddamn it—anything to stop the scream that reaches up from my gut and throws itself from my swollen, bloodied lips.
I cough violently, choking on blood and phlegm, gagging as Deacon pulls me up to sitting and pats on my back to help me hack it all up and out. But he can’t help. Nothing can help.
We knew this risk when we left. We knew there would be no medical help—we just prayed that we wouldn’t ever need it. The pregnancy surprised us both.
“Deac,” I cry out, coughing on more blood. It sprays from my mouth, dribbles down my chin and covers the bed covers that I lie on. “I can’t,” I sob. I feel the warmth of more blood gush between my legs and I scream again.
A loud, guttural scream filled with fear and pain and goodbyes.
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(The Holy Trinity Series Book One)
by
Madeline Sheehan
Copyright © 2012 by Madeline Sheehan
The world won’t end with a bang.
The world won’t end with a whimper.
In fact, the world won’t end at all.
But it will change and if we refuse to change with it…
It will be us that ends.
Bulgaria, 1056 AD
“The screaming has stopped, Emilian. Time to go.” Ferka gestured toward camp, where Zora Petulengro’s birthing screams had previously seemed unending. Emilian had never been so thankful before that he’d been born a boy.
He had no desire to go back to camp, even though a few minutes ago he’d felt the sudden urge to run straight there, straight to…that baby.
That baby, a little girl who was to become his. No, she was already his. She had been given to him, as a gift of sorts. They would be bound together as soon as he could muster up enough courage to make his feet move. She would become his bride when they were of age and would eventually bear his children.
He closed his eyes.
His soul mate.
He’d scoffed at his
tată
and mamă when they’d spoken to him of this foretold prophecy. How could a seven-year-old have a soul mate? How could he have a soul mate?
But Emilian wasn’t just any seven-year-old. He was the firstborn son of
Baró
Gavril Drágon, the leader of their
Romani
clan, and already had more magic inside him than his full-grown tată. Magic that would grow too powerful for any one man to contain without going mad. He would need to have an outlet, a vessel with whom to share his gifts. That was where this baby came in.
“You look green, my friend, but methinks you better go before the baró comes looking for you himself.”
Ferka was right. Green or not, the wrath of Baró Drágon was indeed something to be feared, especially if you were his son. Dragging his heels in the dirt, Emilian began to walk slowly back to camp.
“Where have you been, you cowardly little fleabag?”
He winced as his mamă grabbed him by the ear and yanked him in the other direction toward the Petulengros’s wagon.
“You were supposed to be close!”
He didn’t answer her; he knew no answer was good enough for Violca Drágon when she was angry.
As his mamă dragged him across camp, much to the amusement of the entire clan, he could only stare longingly toward where the horses were tied. He wished he could yank free of his mamă’s hold, grab a horse, and be gone from here forever.
Boldo Petulengro thrust open the small wooden door of the wagon as they reached the steps, his large overbearing frame dwarfing the entire structure. The look of disfavor on the man’s face belied any happiness he thought the man might have had for the birth of his new daughter.
Cowering beneath Boldo’s simmering glare, he slipped into the wagon and approached his tată, but couldn’t avert his eyes from the sight of the new mother and her child. Lying on a pallet of rushes in the corner, Zora was holding a tiny bundle in her arms. The new mother looked exhausted, covered in sweat with small bruises under her eyes. A pile of bloodied rags lay near a bucket of equally bloodied water.
“Come here, Emilian,” Zora said hoarsely, a strained smile on her face. “You must touch her, make her yours so there will never be another.”
Ignoring the penetrating dark gaze of his tată, the anxious stare of his mamă, and Boldo’s disapproving glare, he instead focused only on Zora, the only person who was treating him with any sort of kindness.
On shaking skinny legs he knelt down beside her, waiting with bated breath as she unwrapped the small bundle. A tiny head covered in black fuzz appeared.
The babe was sound asleep.
“Wake up, love.”
Zora stroked her daughter’s cheek. The baby blinked sleepily a few times and opened her mouth in a toothless yawn. He fought the urge to smile. Just because she was adorable didn’t mean he had to like her. Then she opened her eyes wide and the entire group gasped.
“Green?” Violca squawked.
“What does that mean?” Boldo demanded of the baró. No
Roma
had green eyes. They had varying shades of brown, some almost black, others had hazel or even caramel colors, but not a blue or a green among them; it was simply unheard of.
Gavril stared at the tiny girl as a smile began to spread across his face. “She is perfect, my friends. Do not fret, for green represents balance, harmony, and stability, everything that Emilian will need. She is everything we could have hoped for.”
This answer seemed to delight the parents. Violca, however, continued to study the baby with narrowed eyes.
“It is time.” Gavril lowered himself to one knee with Violca and Boldo following suit. Together they said the proper Romani blessing over the two children, binding them together in love, family, and clan. Their union had been foretold by nature and would be upheld by the very people who had sworn their lives to protect nature’s blessings and gifts.
“Touch her, child,” Zora urged, smiling at him.
Deciding to touch only the top of the babe’s head, he leaned forward. As he crept closer, his body responded to the nearness of her and, without thinking, he kissed her cheek instead, breathing in her scent. Shocked, he stumbled back and landed awkwardly on his backside.
“Son?” Gavril asked. “Did it work? Did you feel something?”
Struck dumb by the sweetest perfume he’d ever smelled, Emilian couldn’t yet speak. He could only stare at the most beautiful pair of sparkling green eyes he would ever see.
Catskill Mountains, New York, Present Day
Too afraid to move, I continued watching with trepidation the daddy longlegs spider that was poised directly above where I lay. It was a creepy-looking little devil, with its tiny little body and obscenely long, spindly legs.
Bugs, I was convinced, were placed on this earth to make my life miserable. Then again, there wasn’t much that didn’t make me jumpy these days. The end of the world would do that to a person.
I blew out the breath I’d been holding as the spider took off running. It skittered across the stained brown canvas ceiling of my 1980s pop-out tent trailer and disappeared.
“Ugh,” I told no one in particular. “I am having a bad day.”
“The day hasn’t even started yet, woman. It isn’t possible yet for it to be bad.”
I huffed at Becki, my trailer mate. “You don’t consider waking up to giant arachnids hovering over your head, waiting to eat you, a bad day?”
I ducked the pillow that came flying from the other end of the trailer. It hit the canvas wall directly above me where possibly hundreds, maybe thousands, of hungry daddy longlegs spiders could be living.
“You could have scared the spider back out!”
“Trinity, it’s a spider.”
“Do you know how vengeful spiders are?” I asked in my haughtiest voice. “Especially to the Greeks?”
I couldn’t quite tell since her head was still buried in her mattress, but she mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, “Here we go again.”
“Well,” I continued. “The Greek goddess
Athena
…” I paused. “You know who she is, right?”
“How could I not? You talk about her all the time.”
I chose to ignore that comment.
“Anyway, Athena and a mortal princess, named Arachne, had a competition to see who was the better weaver of the two. Arachne won and Athena was furious, so she destroyed Arachne’s tapestry and cursed the princess to live a life full of disgrace. Arachne, unable to bear the weight of her curse, hung herself. Then Athena took pity on her and brought her back to life…but as a spider!”
“Trinity, if I had known living with you was going to be a constant lesson in Greek mythology, I really would have reconsidered.”
“How would you like to be brought back to life as a spider? Wouldn’t you be angry? Or vengeful even?”
Becki scowled at me as I sat up. Her long curly brown hair was hanging in front of her dark brown eyes, but I could see enough of them to know that if looks could kill, I would have been dead two or three times by now. Becki Bӑlan was most certainly not a morning person.
“Good morning, sunshine.” I grinned at her.
“I wish I could turn you into a spider,” she grumbled, cocooning herself inside her blankets until all I could see was the tips of her toes.
I was about to respond with another little tidbit of Greek mythology when I smelled it: Christmas in the middle of July. The sticky sweetness of fresh pine trees and the thick, pungent odor of cinnamon flew in through the open window on the warm morning breeze.
“Gerik’s coming,” I told her, jerking my head toward the doorway. The scent of the man preceded him wherever he went.
The screen door swung wide open and a six-feet-four-inch shirtless Viking came bounding through the small doorway, dominating the entire trailer, bringing with him his unique scent. He always smelled so amazing, so intoxicating…but only to me. The one and only time I’d asked another person if they smelled what I did… Well, I was pretty sure Alana still thought I was insane.
Gerik paused just inside the doorway and shook out his long, soaking wet hair, spraying water everywhere.
“Oh. My. God.” Becki moaned. “Why is everyone against me today?”
He turned to grin at her while stretching his long, muscular body. The magical runes tattooed on his chest rippled with the sinuous movements.
Gerik Hjemsӓter looked like none of the other
Gypsies
in this Romani camp I’d been calling home for the past few months. Most of the men and women in camp were of Romanian origins and had darker shades of skin combined with dark, alluring features; others had olive complexions, also with dark hair and eyes.
Gerik was different. He was strong and tall like most of the Roma men, his forehead wide, his cheekbones high and prominent, but that was where the resemblance ended. Like many of his Scandinavian ancestors, his hair was the color of ripe wheat and his eyes were a deep ocean blue that misted and swirled like a stormy sea. Gerik’s nose was proud and strong, unlike the majority of low-rooted muzzles here, and his jaw was strong and square, standing out among the many rounded chins in camp.
Needless to say, Gerik was like nothing I’d ever seen before.
I watched him wipe his wet face and chest with his T-shirt before slipping it on, easily picturing him covered in heavy animal furs and wearing a horned helmet. Before I knew it, I was giggling.
Becki was watching me. She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Trinity, we all know how sexy Gerik is.”
Her correct assessment of my thoughts embarrassed me, but Gerik hadn’t been paying her any attention. As usual, his focus was solely on me.
“Do my braids, yeah?” He held out his ponytail holders.
My giggles turned into full-on hysterics. Gerik always wore his hair in two long braids that hung down his chest, making him look even more the part of the Viking warrior. I patted my bed. “Come, Viking. I’ll plait yer hair before ye go off to battle.”
Still grinning, Gerik grabbed the corner of my old red quilt and with one quick tug, yanked it off me. I shrieked and lunged for my covers, managing to keep the sheet over my legs.
“Ugh!” Still in her pajamas, Becki jumped out of bed and shot us a disgusted look. “It’s a little early for the mushy stuff. I’m out.”
The screen door slammed hard behind her as she stormed out.
Gerik and I exchanged confused glances. Since I’d arrived in camp, Becki hadn’t been a gracious morning person, but she’d never been outright mean.
I scooted closer to him when he sat down, taking the beaded ponytail holders from his hand. The sheet that was still covering me slipped down my legs. I followed his gaze to my underwear and exposed thighs.
The air in the trailer grew hotter, heavy and thick with anticipation. I knew without having to look that Gerik’s eyes had turned gray.
Gerik made me tremble with want; he could make me forget everything around me except for him. Even without the knowledge that Gypsies still roamed the earth and that magic truly did exist in our world, I would have felt the power in this man.
He was a force of nature and muddled my brain with energy the likes of which I’d never felt before. He zapped my body of will and strength just by being near me. Gerik was the stuff gods and goddesses were made of. Only…a Viking god. Well, actually a
Gypsy
god, but tomāto, tomäto.
His hands slid up my sheet-covered calves, the material of the sheets thin enough for me to still feel the rough and calloused skin on his fingers, caused by years of physical labor. The kind of labor you didn’t see in the world I had been accustomed to.
I couldn’t stop the shiver that tore through me in appreciation of his masculinity.
Gerik was strength incarnate; it showed in how he carried himself, how he spoke, and now in how he was deliberately, oh so slowly and very neatly, sending me down a path he knew I wasn’t ready to travel.
I pushed at his chest. “Stop,” I whispered hoarsely.
Gods, he was just too much, too intense for someone as inexperienced as me.
His voice was a deep rumble in his chest when he asked, “Is that what you really want?”
I was breathing heavily, our lips nearly touching, his hands now gripping my sheet-covered knees. It was a sliver of sanity he had allowed me to keep; one I was thankful for. If Gerik touched me, skin on skin, I would be los—”
“Gerik!” I gasped as he gripped my naked thighs. Roughly pulling me underneath him, he was suddenly situated over top of me.
Heat flooded me as his hand slid under my T-shirt to wrap around my waist. Everywhere he wasn’t touching began to quiver with need.
Gerik and I had this crazy chemical reaction to each other, something I’m sure scientists would have loved to have gotten their hands on and studied until there was nothing left of us but blood and guts, if that.
We were like the line in that ridiculous song, “Just one look, that’s all it took.” Except in my case it was, “Just one touch, and Trinity turned to mush.”
“Tell me to stop, Trinity. Tell me to stop right now…and I will.”
He ran his lips across my cheek, then down my neck where he sucked softly, and my body involuntarily clenched. Gods, he was such a liar.
My skin tingled, my limbs trembled, and my body’s sensitivity heightened to unbearable levels as the fever of his touch raced through me. I couldn’t tell him to stop because I couldn’t speak. I was so desperate for him, so focused on the completion of our joining and how magnificent it would be.
Gerik wasn’t playing fair at all; once he touched me, he knew I was lost to a world of sensation, where only feelings ruled. Awareness of the outside world was sucked away to a teeny, tiny part in the back of my brain that I could barely reach.
Stop! Stop! I thought over and over again. This wasn’t right; this wasn’t the way I had imagined losing my virginity. Not in a haze of magic and desperation.
As if he’d heard my silent plea, he released me. I scooted back until my butt hit the canvas.
“Trinity…” His voice was so ragged, so full of hunger, full of everything a girl would want to hear from a man. “I didn’t mean…”
“Save it,” I snapped, trying to shake the haze of lust that, to my embarrassment, so easily consumed me in his presence. He stared at me for a moment, then in a quick singular movement reminding me of an acrobat, jumped off my bed.
“You touched me,” I accused, trying to right my clothing. “Skin on skin. We made a deal, Gerik. We would only do that if we prepared each other. Which,” I gave him a deliberate look, “you definitely did not.”
He didn’t even have the decency to look apologetic. He stood there in all his Viking glory, looking as proud and as indifferent as ever. If it weren’t for his refusal to meet my eyes, I wouldn’t have known he was feeling anything at all.
“It wasn’t a conscious thing, yeah? I got…caught up. Don’t freak out.” He ran his hand through his wet hair and headed for the door.
“Gerik?” I called. “Do you think that maybe someone could fix us?” I braced myself for his anger. It always surfaced when I brought this up.
He took a deep breath before answering. “There’s nothing wrong with us.”
“But…it’s magic. It has to be.”
“Trinity,” he said, turning to face me. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that no one cast a spell on us. There are no witches casting love spells like in your Greek stories. And before you even suggest it again, there are no fairies either. The magic the Romani possess is ancient and was gifted to our people by nature. It isn’t something that is thrown around for silly little things like love or lust spells, but that’s all I can tell you about it, my little
Gaje
princess. You know the rules.”
Yes, I knew them. Being a Gaje, a non-Gypsy, I wasn’t privy to the Roma secrets, the origins of their magic or their true history, unless I was allowed to marry into the clan, something that could only happen if I cut my ties with the Gaje world completely and a council of elders deemed me worthy. Then a ceremony that consisted of purging my Gaje blood would be performed, all before the marriage could even occur.
According to their laws, it was forbidden for me to even live here. But an apocalypse changed everything.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Stupid rules.”
He shrugged. “They have protected my people for centuries.”
“Fine, whatever. You go on protecting your Viking sex hoodoo and keep me in the dark.”
“I’m not purposely keeping you in the…” He paused and his eyebrows rose. “Did you say Viking sex hoodoo?”
I narrowed my eyes and snarled. “Don’t make fun of me!”
“So, what you’re saying is, no one is actually attracted to me, hmm?” He grinned. “They only want me for my longship and my battle-ax skills, yeah?”
I couldn’t look at him when he started flirting with me; it was nearly as bad as his touching me. I cleared my throat, embarrassed. “You are such a guy.”
“You want me too, Trinity,” he said softly. “And don’t pretend it’s magic.”
I couldn’t share the sentiment. “Shoo.” I waved him away. “I need to get dressed.”