The Soul Mate (14 page)

“Xan?” I whispered, unsure of why he wouldn’t
look at me.

I gasped as he grabbed my shoulders and
muscled me through the small doorway of his bedroom. My knees
buckled as they hit the mattress, causing me to fall backwards.
Crawling over me, he gripped my hips, and pressed our bodies
together. When his mouth closed over a nipple, I shuddered.

Not out of pleasure or pain, but horror.
Everything inside of me screamed that this was wrong, that to let
this man touch me intimately would cause nothing but devastation,
to me, to him and to Gerik.

So terrified by my thoughts, I couldn’t
speak. Grabbing handfuls of his hair, I yanked, desperate to pull
him off of me.

I was still shaking when he covered me with a
blanket and lay down next to me. Ashamed and embarrassed, I looked
away. “I’m sorry,” I croaked.

Instead of answering me, he pulled me over
him, gathering me in the crook of his arm. He pressed my head down
over his heart. “Trin… It doesn’t matter.”

I stared up at him in shock. “But it
does!”

He just smiled and pushed my head back
down.

“No fată, it really doesn’t.”

“But-

“Shh…”

We lay there in silence for awhile. Both
pillowed and sheltered by the bulk of his body I eventually began
to relax. At least I could touch him, talk to him and be near him.
None of those things felt wrong.

When I felt comfortable enough I ran my
fingers down his stomach and encountered a large puckered scar to
the right of his groin.

“How’d you get this?” I asked.

“Bike accident.” He replied, kissing my
forehead. “A guardrail decided to jump in front of me, it was the
damndest thing.”

I looked up at him, realizing how much I
still didn't know about him. “Tell me more?” I asked.

“What? About the accident?”

I shook my head. “No, your motorcycles. Your
life outside of camp. The friends you had. Your dad. All of it, I
want to know all of it.”

Xan stared down at me through puzzled eyes,
saying nothing.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him, hoping I didn’t
cross the line by bringing up his father.

“Seriously?” He asked. “You really want to
know about all that shit?”

Now I was really confused. I’d asked, hadn’t
I? “Yes,” I told him. “I really do. I know you performed stunts
with your bikes and that your Dad is a half Blackfoot Indian,
right?”

He nodded still looking bewildered. I pulled
on a few of his dreads. “So then, Gypsy, tell me more.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Did you see Gerik today?” I asked Xan after
dinner as we walked back to the living lot.

He shook his head. “He’s been MIA, but so has
Onyx.” He shrugged and cocked one of his shockingly black eyebrows
at me. “Why? Miss him?”

Ignoring that, I continued, “I’m just worried
that he’s going to do something crazy.” And I really was. I didn’t
want all that unstable magic loose on Xan. Or me.

As it turned out, it wasn’t Gerik we had to
be worried about. Waiting for us in front of Xan’s trailer was
Drina, her hands on her hips, her mouth set in a straight line.

“Come with me,” She said, not bothering to
mask her unhappiness at the sight of our clasped hands.

“What’s this about?” Xan asked her.

She glanced first to her left then her right.
“Not here fiul meu. There are eyes and ears everywhere.”

She gestured for us to follow as she began
walking away. Xan, although rolling his eyes, obeyed.

“She is so over dramatic,” He whispered.

Drina’s RV greeted us with the strong scents
of Blessed Thistle, Calamus and Fennel as well as many others I
couldn’t yet put a name too. I had begun to recognize a lot of the
herbs and roots used for protection around camp. Drina would wrap
them in cloth and tie them to strips of leather for people to wear
around their necks or put underneath their pillows and
trailers.

Ducking the strands of dried vegetables
hanging from the ceiling, Drina sat down at her work table,
immediately picking up her pestle and mortar which she began to
vigorously grind.

I sat down across from her, waiting patiently
for her to speak but Xan remained standing, his expression
conveying annoyance.

Drina’s eyes went glassy as she continued to
work on her mixture and I got the feeling we had been
forgotten.

Xan, slammed his fist on the table, finally
gaining her attention. He glared down at her. Drina glanced up, her
equally dark gaze matching her son’s.

“You cannot see her,” She snapped, pointing a
long bronzed finger in my direction.

Not only the camps healer, Xan had told me
his mother is clairvoyant, like a fortune teller only much more
powerful. Drina was able to do cold readings on people,
ascertaining their pasts, presents and futures without having to
even touch them.

Xan shook his head, angry. “Stay out of my
business,” He replied.

Drina ignored him. Instead she focused on me,
her pupils, barely discernable from her from irises as it was,
began to expand until only a small amount of white remained. She
looked like a demon.

Xan, unfazed by this, grabbed my hand and
pulled me out my chair.

“She’s taken!” Drina yelled. “Born with a
destiny and meant for another!”

“Shut up!” Xan roared, kicking the table. The
entire structure shook and the pestle and mortar fell to the floor,
shattering.

“Don’t you know what she is?” Drina screamed
at her son. “What she is to Gerik?”

The table was suddenly flying across the
room. A crack in the wall appeared where the table had hit. The
small table bounced back across the floor, stopping at Drina’s
outstretched foot.

Drina cursed. “Stupid boy.”

“What do you mean?” I asked her, “What am
I?”

“You’re a gift for the chosen!” She snarled,
“Given only to the most powerful, the most revered of Nature’s
children!”

She shook her fist at me. “You have the other
half of the boy’s soul, you foolish fată!”

“I… I’m a gift?” I’d heard the rest, but I
seemed to be unable to get past the part where I was a gift.

“Yes!” Drina snapped at me. “Gerik’s gift!
Stay away from my son!”

“But…how? Why?” I asked, still having a hard
time processing the fact that I was a gift.

“But why?” Drina mocked. “Gerik’s affinity
for all the elements comes at a price. As he grew, so did his
magic. All that power cannot be contained in his body alone.”

The urge to throw up was promptly my biggest
concern.

“Am I even a real person?” I asked her,
feeling very odd. I had a fleeting thought that maybe none of this
was real and I was locked up in an asylum somewhere. Sadly, that
would have been infinitely better than this reality.

“Yes,” She said, giving me a strange look.
“What else would you be?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I murmured. “A fairy,
maybe a werewolf? Anything would be preferable than being forced
into magical slavery.”

“You ungrateful child!” Drina stood, peering
down her nose at me. “You were made for Gerik! There is no other
path for you!”

I jumped when the door behind me slammed.
Ignoring the rest of Drina’s ranting, I followed Xan outside.

Leaning against Drina’s propane tank, arms
crossed, he refused to look at me.

I blew out a slow breath. “It’s not like I
knew.”

“No?”

“No!”

He snorted. “Right.”

“Wait, you’re upset with me? I just find out
that I’m some guy’s gift and you’re upset? How is that fair? I
haven’t done anything!”

“Yeah, not yet.”

Taken back, I was at a loss for words.

“Yeah! Not fucking yet!” He repeated, his
voice raising. “It’s only a matter of time, Trin. You’re
his…his…his soul mate!” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Jesus
Christ, she said you were made for him! Made! For him!”

Pushing off the propane tank, he turned
abruptly and punched the side of trailer.

“You said you were going to help me!” I
yelled. To think I had been worried about Gerik acting
irrationally.

I took a step toward him but he halted me.
“Go be with your soul mate.”

I froze. All of the anger I had felt toward
Gerik suddenly reared its ugly head at Xan.

“Xan! Screw you!” I cried out as he walked
away. He paused but didn’t turn around.

“That’s Gerik’s job!” He bellowed back.
“Always has been!"

Hours later, I was still fuming. A Gods damn
gift, Drina had said. And I had half of Gerik’s soul to boot. It
seemed the Viking had more than some Neanderthal claim on me. As it
turned out I was his birthday present for being extra special good
boy.

When in all the Gods and Goddesses had this
happened?

My father had told me, in the form of a
bedtime story, that mankind long ago had two heads and four arms.
At some point in time they did something that offended a God and
that God punished mankind by splitting them down the middle. This
resulted in the creation of humankind. The punishment was that we
as a race were now condemned to spend our lives searching for our
other half, our soul mate.

Was it all true? Did I only have half a soul?
Was that why being with Gerik made me feel so… complete?

Are people actually made for one another?

I’d asked my daddy, when I was still pretty
young, why he hadn’t stayed with my older sister’s mother. He
chucked me under the chin and said, “Our connection just wasn’t
strong enough to last through the both the good and the bad.”

I asked him then if he was going to leave my
mom too. His handsome face turned very serious as he knelt down in
front of me and cupped my cheeks. “No my heart, your mother and I
are not just connected, she is the Aphrodite to my Ares.”

But were they soul mates? Everything inside
of me screamed yes. I’d seen the way he looked at her. The way
they’d kissed each other when they thought no one was watching. But
there had been no force of Nature, no magic behind their joining,
had there?

Or had all the events that led to my birth
been predestined just so Gerik and I would end up together?

And then all the events after that?

I lurched up in bed feeling sick again.

I’d just barely reached the swimming hole,
towel and clean clothing in tow, more than ready for a good long
soak, when I realized Gerik was standing behind me.

“I miss you,” He said, his deep voice
trembling.

I closed my eyes and sighed. The last thing I
wanted to do right now was tell him that I knew what he’d been
hiding from me. It was a fight waiting to happen that I didn't have
the energy for.

He ran shaking hands through his unbraided
hair. “I... the thing with Onyx, I can explain it all. I can stop
Trinity. I just need you in order to do that. It’s complicated. But
it’s you I want…please try and understand?”

He reached for me and I wasn’t quick enough
to avoid him. As he pulled me forward I waited for the onslaught of
hormones but they never came, he hadn’t touched me skin to skin.
Looking up into his blue, beseeching eyes and I felt a stab of
regret for how harshly I’d been treating him.

It wasn’t his fault we were connected, it was
something we were both born into. However, I still wasn’t ready to
forgive him for the many times he’d refused to use restraint when
it came to touching me. He’d been careless, blatantly so.

I sank into his embrace and let his presence
wash over me, comforting and soothing me in a way no one else
could, not even my own mother.

A loud, thundering crash had both of us
glancing toward the chicken coop. Xan had just dropped an entire
armful of logs next to one of the smaller fire pits. One by one
they toppled over each other. Xan didn’t bother picking them up or
straightening them. He just stood there for a moment, staring at
the fallen wood then lit up a cigarette. He took a long slow drag
and blew it out equally slow.

Then with a hateful glance my way he strode
off, disappearing behind the trailers and tents.

Tobar, Jericho’s grandson and the Popa Clan
heir, was standing a few feet away watching the whole mess over the
rim of his coffee mug, thoroughly amused.

Gerik looked back at me, his expression
stormy. “I’m not blind, yeah? You think I don’t know what’s been
going on?”

I said nothing. I didn’t feel I owed him an
explanation for anything.

“With Xan!” He exclaimed, the tone of his
voice suggesting that he’d felt what I had done was right up there
alongside cold blooded murder.

Agitation mounting at my silence he again
raked his hands through his hair. “I’m hurting! Can’t you see that?
I’m sick of needing you and not understanding why you don’t need me
back. Why would I get cursed like this, bound to someone who isn’t
bound to me? It’s not fair, yeah?”

I raised an eyebrow at his slip up. “Cursed,
Gerik? Bound?” I twisted in his grasp, freeing myself. I didn’t
bother to hide my sarcasm. “Why whatever do you mean? I thought we
were simply special.”

His eyes flashed white. “You know.” He bit
out.

“Yeah, I know! And I have no idea why you
look so pissed off. You had no right to keep that from me. Telling
me we were special and that was all! Gods it was so much more than
that and you… you had the nerve to tell me magic had nothing to do
with it! All lies!”

“How could I tell you?” He shouted, “You were
grieving Trinity! You watched your sister die! The world had been
destroyed! Magic had just been introduced into your very sheltered,
very Gaje existence and what… you wanted me throw this in as well,
yeah?”

Well… I had to admit that sounded
reasonable.

“Exactly how was I supposed to do that? Good
morning Trinity, and by the way you’re my other half, literally!
You were made especially for me and my magic! You would have
thought I was crazy!”