The Soul Mate

CHAPTER TWENTY

I awoke sometime later in an unfamiliar bed, several candles flickered beside my head, and sharp pains throbbed throughout my right ear and temple. Drina’s face appeared above me, frowning.

“How do you feel?” She asked.

“Uh, not good.” My voice shook and creaked like an old rocking chair.

Her eyes narrowed. “He feels terrible you know.”

“What?" I asked, confused. Who?”

“Xan, of course.” Drina snorted. “Stupid boy. Your ear I was able to heal but if he hadn’t shot the creature you’d be dead right now. That is one thing I can’t fix.”

Shot? The wards! That monster! Oh my Gods!

“My back?” I yelled, sitting up, remembering the feeling of something tearing into my skin.

“Calm down!” Drina snapped. “You were scratched, not bitten. You and Xan have matching scars now. Drink this, you’ll feel better,” She said, handing me a steaming mug of foul smelling liquid. I choked down as much as I could before I felt it might come back up. Yet Drina was right. The pain in my head and ear slowly receded.

“Like magic,” I muttered.

Drina’s laughter was deep and slow. I could have sworn at that moment, it was tangible, a live entity and completely separate from her and if I wished to reach out and touch it I would have been able to.

“Trin?” Xan’s face came into view as he rounded the bed and came into the candle light. Drina stood and the magic I’d felt from her evaporated.

“I’ll be at Jaelle’s.” She said, looking at Xan, her expression grim. Mother and son stared hard at each other, their dark identical eyes waging a silent battle.

I burst into tears as soon as she left.

“Shhh…” Xan whispered, embracing me. He stroked my hair, my back, and my arms. Any part of me he could find. I was shaking, cold even though it was warm in Drina’s trailer. Needing his warmth I buried myself into his body. I’d been without him for too long.

“Please don’t hate me,” I sobbed against him. “I never wanted any of this.”

“No fată… I could never… didn’t ever…” He stopped speaking and gripped me tighter.

“I’m sorry,” He finally said.

Xan was at a loss for words? Apologizing even? Had the world come to an end? Oh… well yeah, sort of.

I knew it was time to make a decision. I could keep fighting against Gerik’s claim on me, keep fighting against what my body demanded but the rational part of my brain rejected. Or…I could give it all to Gerik. My virginity, my soul, and my free will.

My family was gone and the world as it had been… gone. I had a new family now and a choice to make between two men. One with so much magic he couldn’t contain it all and the other without any.

Both were beautiful, caring and ready to be there for me when I needed them. Gerik made me drop to me knees, desperate and… not at all myself.

Xan… He made my stomach flutter when he smiled at me. His soft touches made me ache for more than just touches. I wanted Xan. I wanted all of Xan. I wanted our late night conversations and playfulness during practice. And more. I wanted everything I could get out of him.

I encircled his neck pulling him toward me until his face was close to mine. I traced a finely edged cheekbone and brushed my lips against his.

“Xan, I need you.”

“I’m here Trin. I’m not leaving this time. I promi-

“No.” I smiled at him. “I mean I want you.”

He studied me for a moment. I watched as his usually harsh features softened. “I don’t want it to be horrible for you.”

I shook my head, ours noses touching. “Not being with you is infinitely worse.”

Drina’s poor bed side table was only the first of many casualties.

Pulling his shirt over his head and kicking off his jeans, he surveyed my clothing. “Do you like this shirt fată?” He tugged at the baggy black t-shirt I was wearing. I glanced down at it.

It was Gerik’s. Drina must have gone to my trailer for clothing and grabbed the first thing she found. Xan grinned when I didn’t answer. “In that case…”

That was all the warning I had before he ripped it from collar to hem and tore it off me.

Ours was more of a battle than any sort of intimacy. The moment Xan’s lips met mine every fiber of my being begged for retreat, forcing me to run from the man I wanted more than anything. Touches meant to create pleasure caused me to cry out in agony even as I screamed to be closer to him.

The walls shook and the windows rattled as we had no choice but to attack each other.

Xan’s passion eventually turned into brutal desperation.

In our hopeless attempts to get as close as two people can, all of the pain, humiliation and rejection Xan had endured up until now, was all coming to a head. He was quickly reaching the point of no return.

“Tell me to stop, Trinity. Tell me.” His words were clipped and hard. His breath was hot against my face. He had me pinned me up against a wall and had tried to kiss me. I’d turned away just in time and he’d responded by punching a hole in the paneling right next to my head. It was one of many.

He jerked my chin until we were forehead to forehead, our heavy breathing mingling in each other’s mouths. Gripping me tighter he wedged his hips in-between my legs. “Otherwise I’m going to finish this right now,” He said harshly.

My body jerked at the intimate contact only there was nowhere for me to go. His hold on me was bruising and he was seconds away from making good on his words.

“Tell me to stop fată,” He growled. His eyes had begun to shine with wild abandon.

Humanity had no place here. Here, we had no choice but to let loose the animal inside, an ancient instinctual part of us all, no matter how deeply buried. One ounce of mercy and all would be lost. I knew I would not be able to go through this again.

“Finish it,” I whispered through my teeth as my body tried to shrivel away from his.

With one excruciatingly painful thrust he found his entry inside of me. My body went limp as the pain instantly receded and was replaced by liquid warmth. Brushing sweat drenched hair out of my face, dark eyes found mine.

“It worked,” I panted.

Arching up until I could kiss him, I swept the tip of my tongue inside and felt nothing but the sweetness of his own mouth and the instinctual need to deepen our kiss, but he pulled away.

“You are not his anymore, Trin,” He said, his voice rough as his body retreated and then returned, pressing hard into mine. I gasped as foreign sensations of pleasure burst forth and exploded within me.

“Do you know what that means?” He asked, his tone and body language fiercely possessive. “You’re mine, Trinity. Mine.”

There was so much emotion in those dark eyes that I felt my heart immediately responding.

Then Xan began to move.

It was painfully obvious that what had happened so far had only been the prelude; the calm before the storm.

Our bodies crashed together like waves, the pounding of Xan’s heart against my own was like thunder in my head. I saw stars as my body fevered and shook with the feel of him moving inside of me.

Xan was everywhere, all over me, inside and out, surrounding me, yet I wanted, no, I needed more. With every kiss, every touch, every stroke, he brought me higher, taunting me to reach an unseen edge and to freefall over it alongside him.

When my world exploded, my insides shattered, my skin quivered and melted, it was all I could do to hold on to reality.

Alive is a relative term. As long as you were breathing you were alive, right? Just breathing would never be enough for me ever again. What I had experienced with Xan was life at its finest. The way his smiles turned me inside out and how his kisses made my stomach dance, the way his skin felt underneath my touch and how amazing he felt inside of me. It… it was everything.

“Holy Himeros,” I sighed.

Xan looked down at me, his features hard.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, worried.

Silence.

“Xan?” My voice cracked. Why wasn’t he saying anything?

“Are you mad at me?” I asked him. “Did I do something wrong?” Was being a virgin really that bad of a thing? Maybe to a guy like Xan it was.

“God no.” He kissed me softly on the lips. “It’s just… I didn’t realize that you really had never been with anyone before.”

“How could I? I’d never even kissed a guy until I met Gerik!" I said defensively. "I’d never even wanted to!”

His eyes widened. “I know! I mean, I didn’t know that but I knew that you couldn’t…dammit Trin. I just didn’t think that you and Gerik never actually-

“I don’t want to talk about Gerik right now!” I yelled and rolled away, giving him my back.

“Why me?” He asked, surprising me. “You said you had never even wanted to kiss a guy until you met Gerik, so why me? What happened? Why would you give me this?”

When I rolled back over I found his face full of wonder. He looked young and vulnerable in a way I’d never seen him before.

“I’m not really sure what happened,” I told him honestly. “I just wanted you.”

Instead of answering, he pulled me to him.

“Xan?”

“Mmmhmm?” His teeth grazed my neck.

“Oh,” I said giggling. “What if I told you I was tired?”

The look he gave me would have made small children cry.

He covered me with his body and the heavy hard feel of him instantly stirred me back to life. He wound my long hair around his hand until my face was flush against his fist and just when I thought this round was going to be as abrasive as the first, he captured my lips in a light embrace. The man I watched lift motorcycles with his bare hands, split logs in single strokes, began scattering soft kisses down my neck, across my breasts and over my stomach, then back up again.

I wrapped my legs around his waist and in one upward thrust I joined us.

“Virgin…” He muttered.

“Not anymore,” I said, grinning.

The sex this time was gentler, rhythmic, and even slower than the beating of our hearts.

We finished together; his face buried in my chest as he shook with his release. And it was like that, that we fell asleep, Xan still deep inside me.