Page 114 of Dark Souls

“I have loads of stuff already there. I’ll just gradually move my stuff over. Let’s not make it into a big thing.” I shrugged. “You’ll still see me just as much. I’ll still stay at the palace or here at the castle if I fancy it.”

“Okay, darling. Sounds good. Now all you need is to meet your soulmate, and you’ll be set for forever.” She chuckled as my eyes darted over to my Grandma, who chose that moment to choke on her wine.

“Do not put that out in the universe!” my dad snapped, pointing his finger at my mum. “Break my heart one piece at a time and give me a chance to recover, please.”

Everyone laughed. Grandma coughed, turning red in the face. I grabbed her glass and slung back the rest of her wine.

‘Oh, but daddy we love him. Please let us keep him,’Rue sniggered in my mind.

‘Shut it, Rue. We are not in love with him. Not yet. No. Definitely not.’

‘Uh huh, whatever you say.’

Hunched over the bar with my head hung low over my glass, I ground my back molars together at every booming laugh or snarky comment from the gambling tables behind. The members seemed rowdier than usual tonight. Or maybe it was just my lack of patience to be here listening to their shit that was heightening my irritation because this was the last place I wanted to be. In fact, the only place I wanted to be was wherever Ilaria was. And that just pissed me off more because it meant I’d failed. Yet again.

I was supposed to stay away from her. Keep her out of my mess and spare her the heartbreak I was bound to cause her eventually. I needed to push her away until she hated everything about me and realised that I was no fucking good for her. But it wasn’t working. Even after everything that has happened between us so far, she was still sticking around. Granted, there was a hell of a lot about me she didn’t know yet. She truly believes that nothing I’ve done or who I am will ever scare her away. I want to believe her. But I’m having a hard time with it.

I want to trust her and believe she won’t betray me, that she’d still want me when she knew the full extent of my darkness. Of who I am and what I’ve done. But it’s so damn hard to accept it after centuries of betrayal, torture and judgment from the world and every fucker in it. I’m a monster. It’s what I’ve been told all my life. And when you are told something enough times, you believe it. Become it.

But Ilaria’s different. For the first time since my life turned upside down, she makes me want to be better. Do better. She even tempts me to flip that switch in my brain, the one that hasn’t budged for too many years, and turn my humanity back on just so I can be marginally more emotional for her and not so volatile all the time. If only it were that simple. But the problem is, the moment I do, I don’t know who I will be. I don’t know if I’ll survive the pain. With no humanity, I have my memories but they elicit no emotions but anger. The moment I open the floodgates to my feelings and I experience just what every kill, every bad decision, every immoral act, every painful loss of my past, really feels like, I’m not sure that I’m strong enough to come back from it. The safest option was to be this person. Because as this person, I didn’t care that I was a monster.

Except you care if Ilaria thinks you are.

“There is no fucking way you didn’t cheat, asshole! You used magic to see through my cards!”

“Sit your sore ass down, Rocco, and shut the hell up. I beat you fair and square.”

I glanced over my shoulder with a lethal glare as the warlock used his hands to scrap the money chips across the table and into his corner as the werewolf loomed over the table, knocking his chair down behind. His eyes locked with mine, and he stilled just enough to contemplate the consequences of diving over the table to choke the warlock out. I spun around on the bar stool and leaned my elbows against the bar top as I held his gaze in warning.

“Is there a problem, gentlemen?” I asked casually, but the bite in my tone made the whole room pause and take notice.

The werewolf inhaled deeply, puffing out his chest as he glanced towards the warlock and then back to me. “No. No problem.”

I nodded once and turned to face the bar again, catching the bouncer’s attention.

“Cut them off,” I mumbled into my glass. He nodded and moved over to the table, announcing that this would be their last game. I was too on edge tonight, and I didn’t trust myself not to kill someone over the smallest thing. Especially after hearing what the fuck Heathen had been up to with Ilaria these last few weeks. That all-too-familiar, agonizing heat of red-hot lava coursed through my veins once more, making my nostrils flare as if I could smell the sulphurous fumes.

The presence of a large body approached the bar and a deep voice ordered a whiskey. I closed my eyes, knowing exactly who it was. The VIP member who had openly flirted and touched Ilaria at The Pleasure Den, even though he had his little she-wolf side bit there, too. Hugo Rochefort was an Alpha of a pack in France and, after losing his fated mate at a young age, he’d become a member ofThe Undergroundto relieve his anger issues. He also seemed to enjoy the other specialties the club offered, like the female members, but that girl Sammi was his main toy. He’d always been a pretty respectful member, keeping to the rules and paying his monthly fee on time. He never caused trouble. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever even had a conversation with the wolf. But then… he thought he could have what was mine, even if he couldn’t remember doing it.

“Hugo, isn’t it?” I asked, with my head still hanging low over my glass. I felt him physically tense when he realised I was addressing him directly.

“Uh yes. And you’re The Dealer. It’s a pleasure to meet you properly.” He hesitantly held his hand towards me in a gesture of goodwill and I tilted my head to the side slowly, staring at it with disinterest.

“Is it?” My gaze drifted up to his face as he swallowed thickly. “A pleasure?”

“Well.” He chuckled uncomfortably. “I’ve been a member here for longer than I can remember, yet this is the first time I’ve had the honour to speak to you, so yeah, I see it as a pleasure.”

I lifted my glass and took a sip, staring straight ahead at the rack of bottles on the wall. “If you’ve been a member here that long, then you should know what it means when I speak to someone directly.” I glanced back at him to see him standing deathly still, but beads of sweat were forming above his bushy brows. “Nothing good.”

He licked his lips. The worry radiating off him was the perfect appetiser to the main course: fear.

“I, uh, have I done something to cause offence? Because if I have, that was not my intention. I’m a very loyal member who—”

“Loyal to who?” I interrupted as he frowned, completely confused.

“To you. To the club,” he started.

“But not to your woman?”