Page 143 of Dark Souls

“Lukas. Expecting me?”

“Not until next week.”

“Hmm, well, we have an important matter to discuss that just could not wait.” He stormed past me, the sigil peeking out from under the open collar of his crisp white shirt and marched towards the kitchen. He stopped dead when he saw the mess Ilaria had made of the portraits. Turning slightly towards me, he raised a questioning eyebrow.

“I had a bad night. Needed an outlet.”

He huffed, his polished shoes crunching over the glass until he reached the kitchen. “I gathered you were in quite an unpleasant mood last night. In fact, recently, you seem to be in a darker place than usual. Which is exactly why I am here.”

I followed him into the room, my heart thrashing wildly but showing no outward signs of stress as I kept my face blank. “Not really sure what you mean by that and pretty sure you have seen me on my darkest days. I wouldn’t consider anything recent to hold a torch to them.”

“No? So the dead vampires at what is supposed to be a relatively peaceful sex event, the eye you disfigured of one of our VIP members who has been nothing but loyal to the club for years and the body count of thirty-eight members from last night’s murder maze doesn’t seem a little extreme even by your standards?”

How the hell did he know all that?

“When you list it like that.” I shrugged. “Maybe I need therapy. Work through my obvious anger issues.”

“This isn’t a fucking joke, Dealer. You are the face ofThe Underground. Yes, people are supposed to fear you but not enough that they start to cancel their memberships because they are noticing how erratic your behaviour has been recently.”

“In my defence, the vampires were breaking the club’s rules. Alpha Hugo disrespected me, which others witnessed and last night was nothing to do with me. You summoned Heathen for that event, remember?”

“Yeah, well.” He threw down a device on the kitchen island. “While you’ve been focused on releasing your anger issues, you’ve dropped the fucking ball. We have a snitch in our midst. A member who made it through that maze alive.” My heart fucking stopped in my chest. He slid the device towards me and I gripped the marble island to hang my head over the image of a fae hybrid and hid my face. I slowly exhaled a subtle breath. “Marlon Vesrio. He’s been a member for two years. Survived the murder maze for the second time last night but that is not what bothers me. The fact that he has requested a meeting with the Royals this evening is far more worrying, wouldn’t you think?”

My head snapped up in alarm. “How do you know that?”

“It doesn’t matter how I know. What matters is why he is going there in the first place? I need to speak to Heathen. And I need him to kill the damn asshole before he makes it through the Romano Castle doors. If this comes back to bite us on the ass, you won’t be paying for it. Your sister will be. So Heathen better fucking deal with it.”

I swallowed thickly. He pulled out the sigil and muttered the Latin he had memorised. I gritted my teeth as the sharp pain hammered through my skull and I squeezed my eyes shut, praying that Heathen wouldn’t fuck this up. And then I blacked out.

Royally Screwed

“Getup.”

I groaned gruffly as I lifted my head off the kitchen floor. Slowly, pulling myself to my feet, I leaned over the island and dropped my horns into my hands.

“Give a demon a fucking minute to desummonise the fuck out here, won’t you?”

“Okay but time is ticking to stop some pretty terrible torture techniques being used on your sister.”

That woke me up. I lifted my head and hissed between my fangs, slamming my fist down on the island, causing the marble to crack. “Don’t you fucking touch her. You know I lose my shit when you threaten her.”

“Then you better get a move on.”

“With what?”

He tapped the device on the counter with a ringed finger and I narrowed my eyes at the fae member. I saw him last night. He was the only survivor apart from Ilaria. They’d split the winnings fifty-fifty and both left with no issues.

“He has a meeting at the Romano castle tonight. I’m not sure what he’s about to tell them but the 38 dead members from the last event aren’t a great start. What the fuck were you thinking? Not only have we lost thirty-eight paying customers, but you’ve freaked out a member so much that they are running to the Royals.”

“I didn’t kill thirty-eight members. Maybe thirty. I was just giving them what they paid for. The thrill of being hunted. Not my fault if they fucking sucked at it.”

“Well, he is now a problem. Did he see you? Were you in true form or a disguise when you terrorised everyone in that maze?”

I was too excited to be in disguise. Snow wanted me as I am. She wanted me to chase her, catch her and fuck her in my true form so there was no way I wasn’t killing every fucker in there just so I could. But I didn’t, did I? This slippery sucker got away. I clicked my tongue, not willing to give an answer which made The Devil red in the face.

“You fucking idiot.”

“I’ll sort it.”