The Lost Souls (4 page)

From his snow-covered treetop perch, Shandor watched the group of Skins below, feasting on the family of deer they’d come across.

The deer he’d scented from miles away.

The deer he needed to soothe his own burning hunger.

He could kill the Skins, he supposed, and take their meal. He’d killed plenty of them before his transformation. He could kill them again.

Couldn’t he?

He’d been over this many, many times in his head, and every time before, the answer had been a resounding yes. But now, looking down at them, knowing what he now knew…

He couldn’t.

After his run-in with Trinity, Shandor had been unable to shake the melancholy that seeing her again had stirred to life. He’d spent several weeks shut inside a run-down barn, missing his family and his friends, missing Xan most of all, and wanting desperately to be human again instead of…

What the hell was he?

Several times back at his clan’s camp in the Catskills, he’d heard his baró, Jericho Popa, use the term
vampir
in regard to what he’d become. Was that what he was? A vampire?

Even as he’d thought it, he’d laughed. Remembering the modern
Gaje
obsession with the bloodsucking Don Juan types that had taken hold of pop culture and hadn’t let go, he’d found the very idea ridiculous. At least one thing was for certain
—he was pretty sure any Gajes left alive weren’t swooning over vampires anymore.

Eventually he’d dismissed the possibility, feeling ridiculous for thinking it in the first place, but still he couldn’t seem to shake the word. It stuck within, always in the forefront of his mind, taunting him, teasing him, eating away at him.

Shandor tried tirelessly to poke holes in the theory, to disprove any validation he came up with, but the more he tried, the louder Jericho’s voice grew inside his head. Vampir. Vampir.

Louder and louder it grew, screaming at him incessantly until one day, a memory surged forward. A memory of one of the many fireside stories he’d heard, passed down from generation to generation of Gypsies, a history of the clans, of the most powerful Roma…

“
Centuries ago a boy was born, the eldest son to the baró of the Drágon clan. He was a powerful
Rom
, blessed by
nature
with all the magical elements. Back then, Romani were not welcome in the Gaje world, and they had to travel many miles in hiding. This particular clan had settled peacefully, deep within the Carpathian Mountains, far away from the towns and villages that had condemned them.

“But they were not alone in the mountains. Unknown to the Roma, a Gaje lord with a hunger for power lived among them, watching and waiting until one day, in an attempt to learn the secrets of their magic, he attacked. The baró’s two sons, who’d been away from camp, returned home to find their entire clan slaughtered. It is said that the lord had spared no one his brutality, not even the children.

“Mad with revenge, the eldest son had walked for days, thinking only of the vengeance he would exact on his enemies. His body grew gaunt, his clothes torn, but still he walked. Upon his arrival at the
lord’s castle, the guardsmen had laughed at the solitary Gypsy who’d thought to take on an entire fortress of armed men. They laughed until they’d looked into his eyes and instead of a man, they saw bottomless pits of black despair. The baró’s son, the most powerful of all the Roma, had called upon dark magic to seek his revenge. No man, woman, or child who crossed his path that day was safe from his madness.”

But it wasn’t the
“why” that Shandor was concerned with, it was what had happened as a result of it.

“In this life,
” the story went on, “nothing is given freely. There are consequences to every action. For cutting short the lives of hundreds of innocent people, the baró’s son was condemned to live out the lives he’d taken, and the lives of their unborn children, and their unborn children, in a never-ending cycle, filled with eternal pain and shrouded in darkness. In return for his bloodlust, he would always hunger for blood, never knowing peace or life without suffering. They say from that day forward he never left the fortress, and that anyone who dared to venture into those mountains was never heard from again. Mullo was the name given to him. It means ‘the first vampire.’”

Suddenly, it had all made sense.

The end of the world. The bloodlust, and an eternal life full of suffering.

The story of Mullo was true.

Mullo had called upon dark magic and reaped the consequences, becoming the first vampire. Once realizing that the legend wasn’t just a legend but an accurate account of history, Shandor had looked down at his talon-tipped fingers, and for the first time understood what had happened to him.

Vampirism was real, just a little different than everyone had always thought. But why would a world full of nonbelievers think magic had anything to do with anything
? The Gaje had very little faith left; they believed in only what they could see, touch, and taste. Their world was reduced to equations and definitions; everyone needed substantial proof or they deemed it impossible.

But the impossible had happened
, and it had happened because of magic.

This revelation also explained why Shandor’s power had shifted. Having had magic before his transformation, not only was he now a darker version of himself, but so was his power.
What he still couldn’t figure out was the whole he-still-had-a-soul thing, why he still felt guilt over his actions and why he could better control himself than any other Skin he’d encountered. None of the Skins he’d come across had retained their souls. Their auras were as black as death itself, proving them soulless, and leaving Shandor to further believe that this could only be the result of dark magic.

Both humans and animals had souls
. While an animal’s soul was simple, a human’s soul was colorful and complex, full of emotions and feelings, desires and dreams. Comparing the two was like comparing a circle to a decagon; the comparison could be made because both actually had a soul.

Skins had nothing. Nothing but icy
, black emptiness.

So
, why had he retained some of what he used to be? Was it the
light magic
that had once been inside him that had kept him tethered to his humanity?

Shandor went still on his perch as a cool hand wrapped around his throat, and sharp claws pierced the skin on his neck.

“Are you alone?” a throaty feminine voice whispered.

“Yes,” he hissed, pissed off that he’d been spotted, and furious that he hadn’t even realized it.

When the hand released him, he spun on
the branch he’d been perched upon and froze again.

Crouched in front of him—her eyes red, her bloody fangs bared, her claws ready to rip into him—was a naked female Skin. Her long black hair was ratty and snarled, covered in bits of leaves and caked with mud, and her olive skin was smudged with dried blood and dirt.

She was by far the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“Fuck me,” he whispered, looking his fill of her lithe, muscular body.

She cocked her head to one side, her lips curving in amusement. “So sure of yourself.”

She laughed, a throat
-purring sound, and his body hardened. “Fată, you have no idea what I’m capable of.”

“I already know you’re a narcissistic asshole.”

He grinned. “I’m easy, too.”

She matched his grin, and his cock surged forward.

“I can smell your need,” she said with surprise, studying him every bit as intensely as he was studying her. “I can see it, yet you do nothing.”

Oh, he wanted
her. He wanted her very, very badly.

“Say the word,”
Shandor growled, “and I’ll do everything.”
Please, please, say the word.

Her smile turned nasty, taunting him. “I have a male,” she said. “Several
, actually.”

Unfamiliar jealousy hit him like a ton of bricks and he didn’t much like the feeling. Before he could stop himself, h
is arm shot forward and grabbed a fistful of her hair. Using his hold on her, he yanked her up against him.

“Fuck your males,” he said hoarsely, cupping her breast and squeezing the soft flesh.

She sucked in a harsh breath and growled low. “Release me,” she demanded, “before I rip your heart out through your throat.”

Damn, he hadn’t wanted to grab her in the first place. Okay, that was a lie. He’d wanted to, and he’d tried to control himself, but something inside of him was refusing to let her go. Even knowing that attacking a fată who didn’t want his attention was wrong
, he still couldn’t seem to let her go. Rational thought had begun fading the minute he’d lost control over his sexual impulses. Not only that, the urges were baser; he wanted to control her, to claim, the need coming from deep within him. His body was literally demanding hers.

Every part of him screamed, berating him to take her, to throw her down and force her into submission whether she wanted it or not.
Shandor swallowed it back, trying to fight the urges, trying to fight the monster inside him that wanted to make this female his.

“I can’t,” he rasped, twitching as his muscles continued to fight against his will. “I can’t stop.”

Her leg shot out from under her, and her foot connected with his groin. Howling with pain, he released her instantly and she jumped to her feet, then took hold of the tree branch above her. Using both feet, she swung and kicked and with a heavy thud, her bare feet landed square in his chest.

Shandor hit the earth hard, breaking several bones, including his spine. While he lay there, groaning as he healed, the female swung down from the tree and pounced on him. The other Skins, having heard his fall, had abandoned their meal in favor of him. There
were nearly a dozen of them gathered in a circle where he lay, all ready to tear into him.

“I said,” the female growled, “hands off.”

She was strong. He’d give her that. But he could kill her. Hell, if he wanted, he could kill them all with one wave of his hand.

But he was a Romani, a Gypsy, a man who’d grown up in a clan nearing one hundred
souls, and never once had he been alone or on his own. Now, after what he’d become, his family would never accept him. They’d kill him, or worse…he would kill them.

But these Skins…

He could have a clan again. A family again.

And if it meant he got to fuck the shit out of this fată as well…

He glanced around at the circle of angry red eyes, all waiting on her. She was their leader. Even the males looked to her.

Shandor felt his skin ripple with anticipation of the fight and the reward.

Wait, what was wrong with him? This wasn’t him. He didn’t hurt women.

But s
he wasn’t a woman. And he was no longer a man.

And if he didn’t want to live alone any longer, he was going to have to take her down. Show his dominance in front of the entire
pack
.

He felt the need for power rear up inside him, felt the seductive adrenaline rush that followed it, and he looked her dead in her glowing red eyes. “I heard you,” he said, jumping to his feet.

Using his inhuman strength and incredible speed,
Shandor lunged forward and grabbed her upper arms. Clutching her to him, he spun around in the opposite direction and took off running. He ran as fast as he could until he’d felt he’d put enough distance between them and the rest of her pack. Shoving her face-first against the nearest tree, he kicked her legs apart and…

Shandor
couldn’t stop his magic, couldn’t contain it, and he knew his eyes had turned black. His entire body could feel the darkness rearing up inside him. It spread like wildfire through his blood before bursting from his skin and creating a protective circle of black-streaked flames around them.

“You don’t get to make that decision anymore, fată,” he growled. “I do.”

Sinking his fangs into her shoulder, he pushed himself inside her.

By the time her pack caught up to them, he’d finished and was working through their second round. She’d long since submitted and was now purring like a kitten, her ass in the air, begging him for more.

The feelings he’d derived from this triumph were nearly indescribable. Euphoria raced through him, better than alcohol or any drug. He felt like a king. No, fuck that, he felt like a god.

Grabbing hold of the female’s hair,
Shandor yanked her head back. “What’s your name?” he demanded.

“Tahyra,” she replied, her voice a throaty growl.

“You’re mine, Tahyra,” he told her, then looked to the rest of them, staring at him with wide, astonished eyes.

“She’s mine,” he repeated. “You’re all mine.”

Not one of them disagreed. Satisfied, he went back to his whimpering, moaning reward.