“I’m sorry, Trinity.” Stevo looked like he
was about to cry. At sixteen he was even younger than Tahyra had
been when I’d lost her. He wasn’t nearly as reclusive or as shy as
his older brother Hockey, but he was still very sensitive.
I shook my head, unable to speak.
“Come on, let’s go get some coffee.” Stevo
held out his hand. I grasped it just as Gerik’s bedroom door
opened.
“Shit,” Gerik said, reaching behind himself
for a blanket to cover his nakedness.
“Nice to see you, Trinity,” Onyx piped up
cheerfully, her head peeking out from around Gerik.
I could only stare. Sweaty and flushed, his
hair a mess, Gerik looked like the poster child for sexual
indulgence. My body instantly responded, and the burning need for
the man in front of me had unfortunately resumed. Apparently magic
co-exists separately from my brain cells.
“Can we help you with something?” Onyx asked,
“Or are you just going to stand there and gawk?”
Oh holy Goddesses. I’d never wished anyone
dead until now. That man is mine and I will wage war against her
the likes of which no one has ever seen. May the birds of Ares pick
the skin from her bones and vultures use her leftovers to feed
their young.
Squeezing Stevo’s hand, I ground my teeth
together, trying not to explode.
“He is mine,” I told Onyx, my voice shaking,
“You-
“Trinity.” I jumped at the sound of Gerik’s
voice. He was staring down at me with his beautiful blue eyes, all
knowing, and full of guilt.
Gods, what was wrong with me? This wasn’t me.
I didn’t wish people dead over guys I’d only known for a few
months.
I cleared my throat, just to make sure my
voice didn’t break. “Stay away from me, Gerik. I don’t ever want to
see you again.”
Smiling with satisfaction, Onyx disappeared
back into his bedroom.
Something cold and painful slithered through
me and I felt the need to take back what I said. My betraying body
still begged to go to him, to touch him, and connect with him on
any level.
“Don’t fight it,” He whispered. My eyes
flared. I couldn’t be certain if he’d spoken the words aloud or in
my mind. But it didn’t matter. How dare he sleep with her then have
the nerve to tell me to accept the fact that I had somehow been
magically shackled to him?
I pressed my palms to my temples and screamed
within, forcing the need for him back to bowels of my mind.
He winced.
The feelings fled abruptly. And I left.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“What has gotten into you fată?” Xan had his
hands up, palms facing front. I jumped forward, rocking from my
heels to my toes. With my head down and eyes up, I slammed first my
right fist into his right palm then my left fist into his left
palm.
“Working off some pent up aggression?” He
asked, grinning at me as he jumped backwards, beckoning me with two
fingers. “Come and get me baby.”
I rolled my eyes and with my arm, wiped the
sweat off my face. “Don’t tempt me.”
“You couldn’t take me,” he said, grinning,
“I’m too much man for you Trin.”
“You’re too much something,” I agreed.
His already dark and deadly looking eyes grew
even darker. He punched his own palm and put his hands up again.
“Let’s go then, put some of the energy you waste talking my ear off
with your useless Greek stories into your punches.”
I narrowed my eyes.
With his teeth bared, he shook his head
causing his dreads to fly out, all around him.
“That’s it, get real angry Trin. Then come
over here and show me just how angry you are. Maybe then you might
get close to landing something resembling a decent punch.”
I ran at him with everything I had.
He sidestepped my first punch, and then
easily blocked my next two, all with an infuriating grin on his
face. On a whim I pretended to aim for his jaw and instead dealt
him a solid blow in the stomach, then ducked. When he lunged for
me, I spun out of his reach, only I wasn’t fast enough. His hand
wrapped around my arm in a bruising grip.
I had a small window of time before he was
going to crush me to him, bringing me down hard on the ground. This
had happened too many times already and I was ready to go straight
to Hades and take Persephone’s place before I let it happen
again.
As Xan turned me toward him, I quickly
brought up my knee, deftly turned my hip over and snapped my leg
outward from the knee delivering the deadly strike against his shin
with the ball of my foot.
Eyes wide, tottering on one foot, Xan fell to
the ground. His hold on me weakened and his hand slid down my arm.
Realizing what was happening, he tightened his grip as it was about
to slide past my wrist. With one hard pull he yanked me down with
him. I fell in an unceremonious sprawl on top of him.
“Who showed you how to do a roundhouse?” He
gasped.
I giggled. “Marko.”
He flipped me over, pinning me underneath his
massive body, bringing me face to face with the cynical curve of
his lips, the sharp pull of his cheekbones and the exotic slant of
his dark alluring eyes.
My pulse quickened.
My mouth dried.
My body heated.
And none of it was magically induced.
I pushed at his chest suddenly terrified of
what was happening to me. “Get off me!”
“And if I don’t?” He asked, his tone
nonchalant.
I might turn to Jell-O. “I’ll scream.”
He laughed, the sound deep and throaty and
full of pure masculine dominance, daring me to scream as loud as I
liked. “Afraid I might try and kiss you again fată?”
Oh Goddesses.
I licked my lips. “Pp...Please don’t.”
His grip on my biceps flexed. His mouth
thinned.
“Right.” He jumped up and offered me a hand,
lifting me to my feet. “I had forgotten how horrible it was.”
Actually, I’d been so caught up in my
reaction to Xan that I’d forgotten how awful that kiss had been.
I’d never before experienced the conscious desire of wanting
someone. Not really, not like this. With Gerik I always felt like
I’d suddenly ran right into a brick wall of lust. This was the
opposite, softer, giving me time to access my feelings.
This must have been what other girls had been
acting so freakishly crazy about my entire life; the reason for
their obsessive behavior about hair and makeup and finding the
perfect outfit. Now their endless conversations about boys, boys
and more boys that I could never seem to find any interest in, made
perfect sense.
My stomach did a funny little tap dance and I
had a fleeting worry about my own hair.
“So…” Xan began, “How about some live
rounds?”
I looked up, surprised.
“Gotcha!” He said and took off running.
“Xan!” I screamed, running after him. “I’m so
going to kill you!”
He grinned over his shoulder, “That would
mean you have to catch me first!”
If I’d had to guess at how long it was going
to take Gerik to show his face and beg forgiveness from me for
being a man-whore, I’d of said a day or two. I’d based this guess
on how’d he’d never before been able to leave me in peace for more
than a few hours at a time.
I’d never of guessed he’d actually avoid me
for almost two entire weeks.
I had just settled down near a low burning
fire for reading hour with Alana’s three little ones, Adi, Daniella
and little Benyamin Jr. Hockey’s little sister, Simza, and the
Moldoveanu twin’s Pali and Mala. We were reading one of Maisera’s
books, an older version of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, the leather bound
cover cracked and worn.
“Can we talk?” Gerik asked, interrupting the
woodsman’s assault on Snow White.
“I’m busy.”
“I’ll wait, yeah?”
“I’ll be awhile.”
“Trinity,” He pleaded with me. I looked up at
him, noticing the small black and blue marks on his neck. From
Onyx. Jealously, immediately followed by anger, flooded me. I
couldn’t take much more of this. Here he was, more than likely
wanting to talk me back into our dysfunctional relationship when he
was wearing physical evidence from his other one.
In the end it was the tired, defeated look
about him, the fact that his hair wasn’t braided and the dark
circles under his eyes, that did me in.
Despite my anger and all my confusion about
us, seeing him hurting, hurt me. I nodded my answer and continued
reading. And reading. I read until most of the children had gotten
bored and wandered off. Gerik had to have known that I was
intentionally making him wait as long as possibly but he didn’t say
a word. He continued to sit patiently as I read story after story
until Alana came by to pick up Benyamin Jr., who was asleep in my
lap.
I closed the book and let out a long,
suffering sigh.
“What do you want?”
“Can we talk somewhere private?
I folded my arms across my chest. “Here is
good. Plenty of people around to witness magically forced
orgasms.”
Gerik swung towards me, his face red, his
nostrils flaring. His eyes were white, no slow bleed of colors; it
had been instant, just like his anger.
“I would never hurt you,” He said, glaring at
me. “I was trying to show you what is between us, what more could
be between us if you would just let go.”
Was there something substantial I needed to
let go of? Or was this a metaphorical jump I was supposed to take?
Gerik never made any sense when he started talking about us.
“Why won’t you just trust me?” He spat out.
“And stop blocking me!”
Blocking him?
“Oh, I don’t know,” I murmured, “Maybe
because trusting you would require you not lying to me about things
like SLEEPING WITH ONYX!”
He had obviously prepared himself for this
very discussion. The mention of her name and the fact that I had
started yelling didn’t seem to faze him at all. I tried to reign in
my steadily rising anger, hating that I felt anything at all about
Gerik and his girlfriend when I didn’t want to.
If I agreed to “let go” as he put it, would
he keep her as his mistress?
“What about her?” He asked me, suddenly a
picture of calm.
I huffed. “You tell me? Why did you lie to me
about her? If you want to be with her then just be with her! Why
bother with me at all? I’m not like you, I don’t have magic and the
Gods know how hard I’ve been fighting this thing between us! You
say we are special, Gerik, but what is so special about us? Our
deranged little love triangle?”
“You don’t understand!” He roared, reaching
for me. “It’s so hard having you here and not being able to be with
you! Really truly with you!” Grabbing my shoulders, he roughly
pulled me toward him, until we were nose to nose.
“You’re everything Trinity, EVERYTHING!” He
shook me violently making my teeth rattle. “I need her to… or…I
don’t know...she’s-”
Wearing a tank top today had been an epic
mistake. His hands were on me and heat was pouring through me from
his touch. I fell limply forward pressing my face against his and
moaned. Gerik grabbed my hips and in one swift move brought me
forward, over him. I wrapped my legs around his waist as he
stood.
“I’m taking you back to my place,” He said.
“We’re going to finish this. Right now.”
I mumbled something in response, too busy
pulling up the bottom of his t-shirt in order to caress bare skin
to worry about talking.
“Damn,” He growled, as I went for his neck.
“Don’t stop.”
Stop? I wouldn’t dream of it. Gerik was all I
wanted. He was my everything. My life before him was nothing; a
faint memory at best. He was my present and my future. He was my
forever.
“Move,” Gerik ground out harshly. He’d
stopped walking and I wiggled against him, whimpering. Why in all
the Gods was he stopping?
“Looks like Trinity is going to be missing
practice today,” A familiar voice said, laughing.
Something niggled in the back of my mind.
Practice?
Gerik growled loudly, the sound reverberated
through his entire body, vibrating against mine. I mewled loudly,
grabbed his chin and thrust my tongue into his mouth. He responded
immediately.
“How ‘bout I get that door for you Gerik? You
look a little busy?” Several people laughed, causing cold slivers
of embarrassment began to worm their way into my overheated
body.
Suddenly, I knew something wasn’t right.
Then I was falling, falling from Gerik’s arms
and onto his bed. Contact was broken. Oh Gods dammit. I was
furious. More than ready to kill the Viking on top of me.
I punched Gerik in the stomach, hurting
myself and not moving him an inch from his predatory position above
me. Sore now, I cradled my hand against me.
“You’re promises are nothing but crap!” I
shouted.
I felt sickened, suffocated and… furious by
my circumstances. This wasn’t right. I was sure of it now. This
wasn’t love, it wasn’t even a prelude to love. This was twisted and
hurtful. It was wrong on so many levels, full of lies and bereft of
reality.
Gray eyes bled to blue. “Trinity,
please…”
“No.” My voice stayed firm despite the
budding emotions rising inside of me at the sound of panic in his
voice.
“No,” I repeated, more for myself than him. I
was so Gods damn weak in his presence.
“This isn’t right; this isn’t how it’s
supposed to be. This is magic, or whatever, but it’s not real. This
isn’t how people end up together.”
“Not real, yeah?” His voice raised. “What
keeps those monsters out of camp then? What killed that thing
attacking Xan?” He thumped his chest with his fist. “I was born
with magic inside of me. Are you saying I’m not real?”
“But I won’t ever know just how real any of
it is, will I?” I shrieked. “You won’t explain any of it to me? You
won’t explain what’s wrong with us! Do you really expect me to just
blindly trust you?”