Page 13 of Dark Souls
True Form
H e’d finally found me. Adrenaline spurred me on as I marched out of the castle doors and turned just in time to see the back of the guard’s broad frame disappear into the forest. Except it wasn’t my grandpapi’s loyal guard. It was my heart thief. My stalker. Heathen.
The past week had been a mixture of excitement, stress and anticipation while I tried to hide from him. The constant need to move and fabricate reasons for not staying in one place was exhausting. It was almost a relief that he’d finally appeared and I could stop running because that meant I’d finally get some answers. The most terrifying thing about purposefully keeping my distance was how much I thought about him. About who he was. What he was. Why was he doing this? I’ve spent a lot of my time asking people about The Underground , trying to gather any information anyone might know about it, but I’ve found out very little. My gut tells me he’s connected to that club somehow. I’ve been reading people’s minds but no one I’ve questioned has in fact been a member, so they are as clueless as I am, only relaying rumours they’ve heard.
Using my vampire speed so I didn’t lose him, I zoomed into the forest and stopped in the thick woodland, completely concealed by the vast trees towering overhead. Only the odd hoot from an owl nearby broke the silence, and a sinister fog clouded the eerie atmosphere, sending a shiver down my spine. I knew how this looked. The stupid, helpless girl walking into the woods alone at night to lure out a dangerous creature had a slasher movie written all over it. Except I wasn’t stupid or helpless. I was curious. And angry. How dare he walk around my grandpapi’s home disguised as one of his loyal men and spy on my family? It was one thing to stalk me from the shadows, but to be eavesdropping on my family’s personal business was a step too far.
I spun around in a circle, my eyes narrowed and my vampire senses on high alert. He was close. Very fucking close. But even the tree trunks looked like figures in the mist.
“You’ve found me. Time to show yourself, asshole. We had a deal.”
“The deal was that you needed to impress me, Snow.” My head snapped up to the baritone voice that rumbled through the air from the trees above. The guard’s body was crouching on a thick branch in the tree, one hand leaning against the trunk. His eyes, those black soulless pits that gave his true identity away, twinkled with mischief and pure trouble. Giving him my most lethal glare, I placed my hands on my hips.
“It’s taken you eight days to find me. I’m the one that should be unimpressed. I expected so much more from you, Heathen.”
He chuckled darkly, glancing out into the distance with a thoughtful expression. “Eight days, huh? Felt longer. Let’s not do that to ourselves again. I didn’t like a single fucking minute. It felt less like days and more like eight centuries.”
My treacherous heart did a weird flutter. I scowled harder to hide it.
“It was your idea.”
He nodded, smirking as those terrifying eyes connected with mine once more. “I may be a callous killer but I can still admit when I’m wrong.”
“Can you?” I questioned. “Because the hundreds of rotting corpses on your track record would beg to differ.”
He leaped down from the soaring height, landing on his feet right in front of me with dangerous agility that would have caused anyone else to flinch and step back, but I forced myself to stand my ground. I wouldn’t let him intimidate me. One thing I had noticed about his murders was the way he normally tortured them before he killed them. He wanted their fear. Craved it. Perhaps he even fed off it. So it was the last thing he would get from me. Like I said, I don’t spook easily.
’Unless you have eight legs and weave webs .’ Rue shuddered, causing my body to do the same.
‘Don’t remind me.’
‘Tell him about our phobia of spiders. I am positive he’d rid the world of every last one of them for us.’
I couldn’t stop the eye roll at my vampire counterpart’s weird affection for this psycho. She enjoyed him far more than was healthy.
“Did you just roll your eyes at me?” Heath asked, stepping in closer. So close that I had to physically crane my neck not to break eye contact.
“And what if I did? Would that be enough to warrant my death at your hands?” I shot back, frowning, when his lips twisted into another one of those unnerving smiles. “Or do your victims provoke you just by breathing?”
“You seem very curious about my motives. That’s good,” he said, his tone even and completely unaffected by my interrogation. I was trying to get a reaction from him. Trying to test the boundaries at play between us, but he was giving me nothing. Maybe it was idiotic, but some part of me wanted to understand him. Calm, cold and calculated. Those were the only things I was getting.
He prowled around me, a threatening act which I refused to cower to.
“So?” I snapped, growing impatient with his lack of information. “Are you going to tell me why you kill? Is it purely for sport? To feed? Or is there more to it?”
“What do you think?” He stopped behind me, pressing his chest up against my back. My whole body turned rigid at the contact, but the warmth he radiated seemed to melt the icy chill in my spine. Leaning down, he nestled his face into the side of my hair, inhaling deeply and not even trying to hide the fucking freak he was.
“Are you going to answer any of my questions or am I wasting my time here?” I hissed. “Because my entire family is only a short distance away and in seconds, I could alert them to your presence and you’ll be fucked.”
“Hmmm, say that again,” he husked, his voice deepening to an even more erotic sound that sent heat straight between my thighs.
“Say what?”
“The part where I get fucked. As long as it’s by you, I don’t mind,” he whispered, his lips right next to the shell of my ear. Unable to take the strange bodily reaction he was provoking, I stepped forwards, out of his suffocating proximity and turned to face him.
“I know what you’re doing.” I narrowed my eyes, folding my arms over my chest with attitude. “Trying to distract me from finding out anything real about you. But we had a deal. You wanted to earn my trust, didn’t you? Then you better stick to your end of the bargain and give me something in return.”
He held up his hands in surrender, a lopsided grin on his face. “Oh, I’ll give you something.” The cocky bastard winked before he lowered his hands and leaned back against a tree trunk, folding his disguise’s arms across his chest to mimic me. “Problem is, I’m not sure you’re ready for it.”
Losing my temper, I growled, “Stop wasting my time and tell me, for fuck’s sake.”
“You’re so cute when you’re being all bossy. I could just eat you up. In fact, I’d love nothing more. And I can guarantee that you’d love it too,” he replied. Those black eyes glittered with dark sexual greed.
“We’re done here. Don’t ever come near my family again.” I turned abruptly and started storming away towards the castle, calling his bluff. Suddenly, a blur of a body swept past me and I walked into a rock-hard chest. I stumbled back and gasped.
Towering before me at over six feet was the most alluring yet terrifying creature I had ever seen. Taut muscles sculpted his shirtless body, and thick black vines snaked across his chest, stomach, and down his arms, ending in two clawed hands. Magical tattoos of strange demonic symbols moved over every visible inch of his tanned skin. My wide eyes wandered up his thick neck and to his sharp, masculine facial features, which were also covered in those strange black vines apart from his jaw and mouth. Dark horns spiralled from his head and magnificent black feathered wings with pointed talons sprouted out from his back. He was a monster. A stunningly gorgeous monster. One that I knew I should be horrified by, yet all I felt was instant and intense attraction.
My heart thrummed in my chest, and my breath became laboured in his presence. Yes, there was a small flicker of fear there, but something far more deadly was manifesting itself—fascination. I’d always found darkness beautiful, and his beauty was deadly—hypnotising like a toxic plant reeling you in with its vibrant colours and alluring scent, just to poison you with one touch.
“What are you?” I whispered, my eyes continuously tracing every inch of him, completely entranced. I’d never seen anything like him.
“The callous villain in all the history books,” he answered, his voice still the same. Distinct, ancient and slightly accented. “Tell me, Snow, does seeing the true monster within scare you?”
I swallowed thickly and slowly shook my head. “No.” His smile widened, showing the sharpest set of fangs I’d ever seen and sent pleasurable chills through my veins. “Can I—” I paused, stopping myself. Was I seriously going to ask to touch him? I was losing my mind but I couldn’t help but feel drawn to his darkness.
“What?” His dead eyes narrowed into slits between the vines that protruded around them.
“Can I touch you?”
His powerful body tensed. His expression darkened with deep lust. I felt my core clench in response. He nodded once and I tentatively took a step forward. Reaching up, I caressed my fingers over the black vines on his chest and the mythical tattoos, feeling a range of sensations. His skin was hot, almost burning, but the vines were cool and smooth like the skin of a snake. I followed their trail up his neck and to the back of his head, having to lean up on my tiptoes to reach. He closed his eyes, a deep rumble coming from his chest with appreciation as he tilted his head down towards me to help with the distance. My fingers traced over the curve of his hard horns and down to the tip and he shuddered violently. His black eyes slammed open and stared right into my soul.
“It tickles,” he whispered in a low, raspy tone. My lips turned up into a small smile, but it soon faded when he had captured me in his trance. Unable to look away, I felt a probing in the depths of my mind. A dark power took over my sensations, making me feel touches that weren’t there. Caresses across my face, my lips, down my throat. They travelled all over me as my eyes fluttered at the sensual feeling. A gasp that quickly turned into a moan escaped me when I felt the phantom touch curl up my thighs and between my legs. The pressure heightened, and my lips parted. My breathing turned to small pants as the phantom touch played with my clit. I was in a haze of intense pleasure. A euphoria of sensation. And oh my god, I was going to have a fucking orgasm. Just as I neared the peak of my ecstasy, ready to tumble off the fucking cliff and fall into oblivion, the sensations disappeared. The dark power retreated. I opened my eyes, the cloud of seduction dispersing and, with it, the reality hitting me like a bucket of ice-cold water. He had caged me in, pressing my back against a tree. My hands dug into the hard flesh of his biceps as he peered down at me with such intensity that I struggled to breathe. What the fuck just happened? Did he do that?
Using all my vampire strength, I shoved him away from me, my fangs snapping down with rage as I hissed, “What the fuck did you just do?”
“I made you feel how you were making me feel. How you always make me feel.”
“But how?” I shouted, unable to comprehend how I had been taken to a state of complete orgasmic heaven so quickly and without being physically touched. I was completely disoriented, with no sense of time or place. It was all in my head. In my mind. He’d mind fucked me! Literally. “You have demonic abilities, don’t you? Which means you must be from the original bloodlines. Blessed by Hades, God of the Underworld.”
“Well, look at you. You do know your shit. Except I call Hades, Veles.” He clicked his neck to the side and shook out his arms before meeting my gaze once more.
“But that’s impossible. Your species is extinct! You were all hunted and killed hundreds of years ago.”
Fury flashed across his face for the first time. And my god, he was truly horrifying. I saw the deadly monster I knew I was supposed to fear. Instinctively, I stumbled back, and a branch from the tree slapped me in the face. The wood scraped my cheek and I hissed at the burning sensation it caused. Yeah, forests were never a good idea for vampires.
Before I had time to react, he cocooned me, wrapping his feathered wings around us so I couldn’t escape. His expression was still angry, but he looked more concerned as his eyes cast down to the cut on my cheek. He lifted his clawed hand, and before I could protest, he swiped his finger along the cut, mopping up the blood that was seeping from the wound. His gaze lingered on the blood on his finger, hunger burning in his eyes. Then, his forked tongue shot out like a snake and lapped up the blood, leaving me speechless. His eyes squeezed shut and he almost winced as though he were in pain himself.
“I knew it. My own sweet elixir.”
My nostrils flared and I realised I was now in a very precarious position. I was bleeding in front of one of the deadliest species that had ever existed. I didn’t know how this was possible, how he was even alive, but if I wanted to remain breathing, I needed to get away from him as quickly as possible.
He must have sensed my panic as he opened his eyes and smiled. “You don’t need to fear me, Snow. You are possibly the only person on this hellish Earth that I will never harm.”
“Why?” I questioned, narrowing my eyes at him with distrust. It was the question I had been asking myself since the night I found Eddie’s heart so neatly gift wrapped in my bedroom. Why me?
“I don’t know. You’re different,” he answered, and I had to give him credit for his honesty.
“Do you make a habit of stalking women or is it just me?” I don’t know where the question came from but I had to know the answer. Maybe I was a whore for his attention because the thought of him stalking other women like this made me feel a little pissed off.
“Only you, Snow. It’s only ever you.”
I inhaled deeply, feeling that weird flip in my heart once more and trying my best to ignore it. This was so fucking confusing. All of it. I was supposed to hate this man. No, demon. But he was making it so fucking hard to do.
“What do you want from me?” I settled on the second question that had been driving me insane all week. “Why play these games with me? Why show me who you are? What do you want from me? ”
He held my gaze, and my heart thundered. A few intense moments passed and he still hadn’t answered. He stepped away from me.
“To own your soul. You have to give it to me.”
I frowned. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“You’re smart. You’ll figure it out.”
He winced once more, his features contorting with pain and his shoulders hunched before he relaxed again. His wings extended behind him and it was a stunning sight. Then hit me. He was leaving.
“Wait. You’re part of The Underground, right? Do you work for them? Or are you a member?”
Another cruel smile appeared on his face. “See. Smart girl.” He crouched down, his muscular thighs straining to break from his jeans as he sunk one claw into the dirt. “Oh, and by the way, if you’re doing laundry, you might want to wash your bed sheets in the attic. Or... you might not…”
With a mischievous wink, he launched himself off the ground and into the night’s sky. Soaring higher into the clouds until he was just a speck in the distance. I slammed my hand over my chest, willing my heart to calm down. He was a true demon with so much power. And I was right! He was connected to The Underground .
Yet as I stood there, staring up at the night sky, feeling aroused, extremely irritated and a little in awe, all I could think about was what the fuck had he done to my sheets?