Page 177 of Dark Souls

“Who are you?” I asked, leaning against another boulder and folding my arms across my chest.

“Hayes Cohen. I didn’t mean to hide from you,” he spoke with an English accent.

“Yes, you did,” I stated, studying him carefully. “And you were right to. We are alone down here. And by the state of you, you haven’t had a decent feed in years. Let me guess, you were waiting for me to fall asleep so you could pounce?” I raised an eyebrow.

He shook his head quickly. “No. No. I know I’m too weak to take you on. It would be suicide. I’ve been barely surviving on the odd bat I could capture. I’m too weak to fight anyone, especially you.”

“Smart kid.” I sunk down on my ass, bending my legs and balancing my arms on my knees as I stared at him. “So you were hiding because you thought you’d be my next meal?”

He visibly swallowed, his throat moving with the action as he looked down at the sand.

“Relax. I won’t kill you,” I said, leaning my head back against the rock and staring up at the crack in the ceiling.

“Why not? You’ll starve.”

“Because that’s whathewants. He wouldn’t have put me down here with you if he meant for you to keep breathing.” I lifted my head to find Hayes looking at me with understanding. He slowly nodded. “And trust me when I say I’m done being his little bitch. He wants you dead? He can do it himself.”

Hayes started drawing circles in the sand with his finger next to him. “He won’t do it himself. So, it looks like I’m in for centuries of enduring a slow death of starvation. On second thought, maybe you should kill me. It would be kinder.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, the dripping of water around us becoming more and more unbearable. If anything would drive me to the brink of insanity, it would be that fucking sound. So when Hayes opened his mouth again, I sighed with relief.

“What did you do? Why did he put you down here?”

I scoffed. “That’s a long story.”

“I think we have time,” he said, his lips curving up in a ghost of a smile that showed just how attractive he would have been before this. Funny too.

“I sold my soul to The Devil. And no good can ever come from that. Why are you down here?”

Hayes huffed, rubbing his hand through the sand to destroy the pattern he had made. “I love their daughter. Apparently, that’s punishable by death.”

I frowned, staring hard as I took in the defeated look of a man who had his soul crushed. “What? The Devil’s daughter?”

Hayes lifted his eyes to mine. “Who’s The Devil? I’m talking about Mitchell and Parisa Morton.”

My heart started thundering. “Is he a vampire? And Parisa his witch mate?”

Hayes nodded, looking completely confused. “Yeah. He’s the Commander of the Romano Vampire Army. Works directly under Arius Romano himself. And she’s some Mother of a Coven in Devon.”

I exhaled a loud breath before a sick eruption of laughter rocketed out of me. After all these years, after every attempt I’ve made to find out who they are, I find out like this. When it’s too fucking late to do anything about it. Life just loves punching me in the face, doesn’t it?

“I… I don’t understand. What’s so funny?” Hayes asked, staring at me like I was mad.Oh, kid, you have no idea how mad I am.

“Nothing,” I said, forcing myself under control. “Nothing at all.”

“Right.”

I leaned forwards suddenly, confusion taking over as I remembered what he said. “Why would you be put down here for loving their daughter?”

He hit his head back against the rock and closed his eyes. “Because, in their eyes, I’m not good enough for her. They’re ambitious people. They want her to be with someone of status who can keep them in power. I’m just a low-ranking soldier from a humble background. Nothing to my name other than a small house on the outskirts of the Romano village. I’m a good fighter, like to think I have a few brain cells and can make a mean lasagne, but apparently, that’s not what they envisioned for their daughter’s soulmate.”

I clenched my jaw, feeling my fury rising. “So what? They locked you down here to die? How long ago?”

He shrugged, as if he’d already accepted his fate. “Can’t be sure. A few years. I was twenty-three when they captured me.”

“What about their daughter? Didn’t she try to stop them?”

“She doesn’t know or at least I’ve told myself she doesn’t.” He sighed, picking up a small bone and tossing it away. “The day I saw her, she was walking with her parents through the Romano village. She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Long blonde hair, blue eyes as bright as the sky. And when she smiled. Fuck, I couldn’t breathe. I followed them, unable to take my eyes off her. Her parents stopped to talk to someone and I watched her walk over to a bush. She picked a flower off it and put it behind her ear. She was young. So when I approached her, asking what her favourite flower was, she didn’t feel the bond between us. She told me she was seventeen when I asked. I could tell she liked me, though, by the way her eyes lit up, and the way she watched my mouth when I talked. She even blushed when the flower slipped, and I placed it back behind her ear. That’s when her mother interrupted us and called her back. I waited all day by the gates for them to leave again in the hope of just a glimpse of her. When they finally did, I stepped in front of her and placed a note in her hand. It had my phone number and asked her to meet me on the outskirts of the village that night. I was going to tell her she was my soulmate, but she never showed up. Instead, I was knocked unconscious and woke up here.”