Page 40 of Dark Souls

Survivor

C rippling pain racked my entire body. Screams of agony echoed off the damp stone walls. Frantically, I tugged my wrists and ankles against the restraints; every movement drove the wooden spikes of the table deeper into my back. Suddenly, my fibula bone fractured under the impact of dark magic. Then each of my ribs. Sweat drenched my body. All because I’ll never give them what they want.

“Enough,” an authoritative British voice rang out through the cellar and the magic dispersed. But the pain remained, causing me to pant heavily and try to calm my jerking body to avoid adding more pressure to the bed of spikes. A man approached as I blinked rapidly against the sweat dripping into my eyes. Dark hair, high cheekbones, an air of pompous importance. Leader of the Knowlton Coven. Alatar Knowlton. He glared down at me, only pure disgust and hatred in his eyes. Leaning closer, he whispered, “We will break you. One way or another, you will break, boy.”

I lifted my head and spat. A smirk appeared on my face when my saliva hit my target. His eyeball. He flinched back, grabbing the white cotton from his pocket to wipe his eyes as he growled. When he lifted his hand, I felt an invisible magical pressure on my chest, sinking me further into the spikes. I roared through clenched teeth, squeezing my eyes and fists closed as I repeated the mantra in my mind again and again.

Never surrender. Never surrender.

“Father. Let me try speaking with him,” a female voice broke through the pain. The pressure stopped. I opened my eyes. Black ringlets piled on top of her head, large sparkling eyes that shimmered with her own magic set in an elegant face. Belladonna.

I dropped my head back as her face triggered a flurry of emotions. Rage. Hatred. Guilt. Shame. Betrayal. When her father nodded once, the rest of the coven, who had been idly watching the torture with sadistic grins, climbed the stairs of the cellar, leaving me alone with her.

Narrowing my eyes as she walked gracefully towards me with a small smile, she twiddled her star constellation necklace in her fingers, the same way I always used to find so endearing. I wanted to choke her with it.

“Stop fighting them, Lukas. You are only making this so much worse for yourself.”

I gritted my teeth and refused to speak. She sighed, stepping closer and running her hand along my naked thigh. “Look at what they’ve done to you, darling. So broken.” Her fingertips glided higher up my leg, over my hip and up my stomach as her eyes stared at my flaccid dick with greed. “You are still undeservingly beautiful, though. My beautiful monster. You disgust me just as much as you fascinate me. It’s rather bothersome.”

“Do. Not. Touch. Me,” I hissed. My eyes changed to red as my rage caused my vampire form to take control. My fangs snapped down as she continued to caress my stomach and up to my chest. Covering her fingers in my blood from open wounds, she brought them to her lips and painted them ruby red.

“Why?” she whispered, smiling seductively, leaning closer to my face. “Scared you will still like it? Even after I led my coven to your family? Even after I watched my father kill yours? You still want me, don’t you? Do you still love me, darling?”

“Go to hell! You repulse me!” I roared as she threw her head back and laughed. She licked her lips, her eyes shimmering as she allowed her magic to come forth. Pressing her lips to mine in a harsh kiss and smearing them with my blood had bile rising in my throat. I twisted my head as her hand wrapped around my cock. “You will never break me, witch.”

“I admire your tenacity. But they will never stop, Lukas. They’ll break you into pieces until there is nothing left of you. But don’t worry, darling. I will come and fix you every time. We will keep it our little secret. Just like we used to.”

I hissed as I felt my body reacting to her seduction magic. She smiled down at me. My cock grew harder without my permission and I thrashed against the restraints, ignoring the tearing of skin on my back when she started pleasuring me.

Her eyes brightened with excitement as she pumped me manically, and I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking out her magic and the sensation; trying to focus only on the hate and anger.

“I’m sorry it had to be this way. But with power comes great sacrifice,” she breathed against my face, her hand working my dick faster, wanting to watch me fall apart for her just to prove she still had power over me. But she didn’t. I would never give her that satisfaction again. “The fortune-tellers believe my mother will have a son in the future. Father has always wanted a son. An heir to the Knowlton Coven. But now, because of you...” She kissed my cheek. “He sees me as worthy. You were a glorious prize and I’ve finally made him proud. He’s naming me next in line. This coven shall be mine. And all it took was this. It is a great shame, I will admit, that you have to die. But at least I can make you feel good before you do. My gratitude.”

She climbed on top of me, straddling my hips as she lifted her skirts to her waist. I bucked my hips wildly, throwing her off but causing the spikes to jam straight through my back as I roared with pain. Black dots danced across my vision as the smell of my burning flesh from the stakes thickened the air, but I still made out her furious face as she jumped up from the dirty floor.

“I would rather impale myself on these stakes than ever touch you again,” I panted through the agony as her eyes turned to slits.

“Very well. I look forward to watching you die a slow and painful death, Lukas Nezera.” She spun on her heels and stormed towards the cellar steps.

“No!” I shouted, forcing her to freeze and peer back at me over her shoulder. “It is I that shall take great pleasure in watching you die, Belladonna Knowlton. Do not fret, darling.” I growled out the last word through my teeth and she scoffed.

The moment the cellar door slammed closed, a single tear slid down my temple before I passed out from the pain.

The memory switched.

I’m thrown to the wet floor, a puddle of rancid water beneath me. I tried to roll over. The new torture wounds inflicted all over my body caused me to groan. I wasn’t healing quickly anymore. Their new tactic of starving me was working. I’m weak. But I wouldn’t surrender. They had nothing to use against me and they knew it. As long as my mind stayed strong, they could never break me.

“Luka?” A small, frail voice choked on a sob from the corner of the dark cell. My heart quickened. No. No, it can’t be.

“Mama?” My voice came out hoarse and thick with emotion as I lifted my head to see the skeletal woman crawling along the floor towards me. Her refusal to eat since my father’s death had left her with sunken eyes and skin stretched taut over her bones. “No! What are you doing here?”

She cried when she saw the state of me, her bony hands pushing back my hair as she caressed my face. “I let them find me. I could not allow them to kill you, too.”

“Mama!” I growled, fury lashing through me that she’d be so stupid and reckless. I had spent months hiding her and Hana. Protecting them from this fate and she did this!

“Shhh, my boy. I am here to free you.”

I glanced around the disgusting cell in panic. “Hana? Where’s—”

“She’s safe in a human village. I promise. But you must get out of here and find her. Keep her safe.”

“There is no way out. I have tried! And now you are here; they will use you to weaken me!”

“No.” She smiled, running her hands down my face and shaking her head. “No, because you are going to kill me, Luka.”

“W-what?” My eyes widened. She had lost her mind.

“Luka, listen to me.” She held my face still and stared into my eyes with conviction. Her once beautiful green irises were dull and lifeless. “I am dying.”

“Because you refuse to feed!”

She shook her head. “Because I cannot feed.”

“I don’t understand?”

“Your father was my lifeline. My only food source. I was completely dependent on him. It is the way of our bond.”

“But—”

“We do not have time to discuss this. But I am slowly dying through starvation. Not the way I chose to go. I want to be with your father and Zoran, Lukas. If, through my death, I save your life, let it be. Let me go with honour. You must kill me and consume all my blood. My blood is as much mine as it was your father’s. With it, you gain his power. When they find me dead and attempt to remove me, you will have your moment to strike. Do not stay and fight, Luka. You must flee. Find your sister and run. Never stop. Do you understand me?”

“Mama, I cannot,” I cried, my voice shaking as I lowered my head.

“You must!” She grabbed my chin and lifted my face. “Please. Do this for me.”

Bile rose in my throat as I nodded slowly.

“You must promise me two things,” she said. “Do not let them take my body. You must protect my bones and reunite me with your father’s, so we may be together for eternity in the Underworld. And you must never, ever—”

“Surrender,” I choked as she smiled brightly, her natural beauty still breaking through.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

I woke with a start, throwing myself over the side of the bed and dry heaving as I slammed my hand over my mouth. Ripping the covers off me, I darted into the bathroom just in time to make it to the toilet and threw my guts up. My hands shook as I gripped the rim of the seat and inhaled frantic breaths to calm my overactive heart.

Slouching down with my back against the bathtub, I brought my knees up to my chest and dropped my head in my hands.

Oh my fucking god.

With tears in my eyes, bile in my throat and a poisonous sickness manifesting itself in my stomach, I tried to calm myself down enough so that I wouldn’t freak Luka out. I said I could handle this. That I could handle the memories of his past. I knew it would be bad, but there really was no way to prepare myself for what I was about to see when I closed my eyes. That was so vivid. More vivid than any of the others I’d had. I only drank his blood a few hours ago. Was that why? Were his memories connected to drinking his blood?

I couldn’t stop myself. My shoulders shook as I muffled my cries against my arm. I sobbed like I had never done before. I wasn’t much of a crier. Neve and my brothers have always teased me, calling me the Ice Queen. But the pain and suffering through the eyes of my soulmate was the most heart-wrenching thing I had ever experienced. What that coven did to him… What that witch bitch did to him... And then his poor mother and the horrendous position Luka was put in. Did he go through with it? Did he kill his own mother? I couldn’t even imagine living with that on my conscience for the rest of my life.

I lifted my head when the realisation fell into place. That had to be it. The act that caused him to turn off his humanity. He couldn’t live with the pain and guilt.

Snuffling and wiping my tears away quickly, I felt pathetic and helpless. How dare I sit here and cry about what he went through! I inhaled a sharp breath, preparing myself to climb back into bed with him and try not to show what he would deem as pity. It wasn’t pity, though. It was anger at what that coven put him through. Rage like I had never felt before. And I’ve experienced my fair share. But this was something else. Why would they do that to him? Why target Luka? Belladonna had called him a prize. What did that even mean? Was he gifted? What were they trying to achieve by torturing him? They wanted to break him down, get him to give into something, but what?

I tugged at my hair as the frustration became too much. Every time I felt like I was finally learning something new, it only added more unanswered questions to the long list I already had. But no matter my frustration, it must have been nothing compared to what he and Heathen felt every day, unable to talk about themselves.

As I carefully re-entered the bedroom, tiptoeing to avoid waking him, I stopped when I realised the bed was empty. He wasn’t there. Come to think of it, I didn’t sense him next to me when I woke up in a panic, spewing my dinner everywhere. A loud cawing noise came from the open window and I spun around to find a large black raven perched on the window ledge. The beginning of the morning sun’s rays were trickling over the cliff in the distance, painting its silky feathers in obsidian and purple hues. It tilted its head towards me as if it was sizing me up. Feeling a little judged and seeing that Luka must have brought my luggage upstairs at some point, I reached down into my suitcase for my hoodie and a skirt to throw over my naked body.

It cawed again and hopped onto the desk as I stepped back. When did ravens become so friendly? Suddenly, it took off in flight across the room and through the door leading out to the hallway. Bloody hell! First, I have to share this place with spiders and now birds too? My curiosity was piqued, and I followed it out of the room, needing to know what the flying rat was up to. I was surprised to find it waiting for me on the large, intricate banister. When it saw me coming, it took off again, heading downstairs.

“Hey!” I shouted, half expecting it to pause and listen to me. I zoomed down the stairs to keep up with it and stopped when it landed on a rectangular rug that lined the corridor towards the kitchen. “What now?” I asked, placing my hands on my hips.

It bent its head towards the floor and pecked twice against the rug. Exasperated, I shook my head, about to leave the silly bird, when I noticed the rug’s corner was folded over as if recently moved. The raven pecked at it again with persistence and then flew up onto the windowsill, watching me as I squatted down and pulled the rug away. There was a trapdoor in the floorboards. I glanced up in surprise to look at my strange little messenger to find the windowsill completely empty. It had already flown away. What the hell…

Chewing my bottom lip between my teeth, I twisted the heavy latch and lifted the trapdoor. I was greeted by steep stone steps that led down to utter darkness. I glanced over my shoulder to check Luka really wasn’t anywhere in sight.

“Luka?” I shouted down into the darkness, hoping to hear his voice, but when my own echoed back, I stood up. I removed a candle from the fixing on the wall and lit it with the box of matches Luka kept beneath it.

“Here goes nothing,” I said to myself as I started down the steps, only the flickering candle’s flame leading the way.

Once the steps ended and led to an uneven stone floor that was damp and slippery, I searched for more candles on the walls and slowly lit them as I went. The further I travelled, the greater the knot in my stomach twisted and I felt the familiar pang of poison take hold. Rusting hooks and chains along the walls and bloodstains on the stone suggested the place’s former purpose. I knew in my gut this was the cellar they had kept Luka in. Where they had tortured him within an inch of his life. God knows for how long or how many times. When the space opened up into a larger area, I paused as I noticed blankets and a pillow in the corner. They looked recently used. Clean even. I frowned as I approached, lifting one blanket to my nose and inhaling Luka’s scent. Did he sleep down here? On the floor?

My hands trembled as I dropped it and stood up. Turning around, I came face to face with a small cove. There, on a bed of hundreds of dried flowers, was a pile of bones and a skull. My fascination with all things morbid and macabre over the years led me to believe this was the skeleton of a female. And from the fangs in the jaw, a vampire.

“Ilaria.”

I jumped, slamming my hand on my chest as I turned to find Luka standing at the bottom of the steps, his eyes wide and jaw tense. The candlelight sent eerie shadows dancing across his face as he stared at me with a look I’d never seen on him before. Panic.

My lips quivered as the memories rushed through my mind once again and I raced forward, wrapping my arms around his body and hugging him so fiercely he stumbled back before righting himself. His entire body was like a solid wall of tension as I buried my face in his chest and breathed in his scent, reminding myself that he was alive. He’d survived all of that somehow. When I realised he wasn’t hugging me back but frozen like a statue, I lifted my head to glance up at him. His red eyes blinked down at me in confusion, but the clear panic was still there too and the darkest shade of green circled his pupils.

“This is where they kept you captive,” I whispered. There was no point in making it a question. We both knew it to be true. “I saw it, Luka. What they did to you down here. I’m so sorry.”

He swallowed thickly as I pressed my face into his chest once again. I never wanted to let him go. The silence stretched between us and he slowly lifted his arms and wrapped them around me.

“You’re shaking,” he mumbled, leaning his face down to kiss the top of my head. A choked sob left me, knowing he was more concerned about me right now than about him. I released him and stepped back.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I know I’m a mess. I’m not normally like this, but just feeling and seeing what you went through makes me so—” I couldn’t even find the right words to explain how it made me feel. Like I wanted to burn the entire world to ash. I hated I couldn’t keep it together for him.

“Stop apologising,” he demanded, his red eyes with the slimmest halo of green flaring as he reached out and wiped a tear from my cheek. “You feel, Ilaria. You care. I haven’t had anyone care about me in a really long time. I forgot what that’s like.”

I stepped forward into his chest, grabbing his top in my fists and holding his anxious gaze. “I care about you, Luka. Of course, I care. I want to bring every one of those fuckers back to life so that I can kill them with my bare hands for what they did to you.”

“Don’t worry. I already did that.”

“Good. I’m glad you got your revenge.”

His eyes narrowed as he searched my face. “You’re not disgusted that I killed an entire coven? I wiped out an entire bloodline.”

I shook my head quickly. “They deserved it.”

He licked his lips. “I killed women. Teenagers. Elderly. Everyone that lived in this house and played a part.”

I nodded slowly. I knew most people would see that as monstrous. But I understood him. If anyone killed my family and tortured me, I wouldn’t stop until I’d wiped them out, too.

“Like I said… they deserved it.”

“Not everyone I killed deserved it,” he said, as a pained expression appeared on his face. His humanity teased with his emotions, bringing them to the surface, but I tried to remain nonchalant, so I didn’t cause them to retreat. The panic returned as he dropped his hands back to his sides and glanced over my shoulder at the shrine behind me.

“Is that her? Your mother?”

His eyes bulged with alarm as they met mine and he stepped back, putting physical and emotional distance between us. I could feel his need to shut this down.

“You saw that too?” He dropped his head to his chest and raised his hands in his hair.

I reached out and grabbed one of his hands, forcing him to stay with me. He needed to see that I wasn’t judging him. That I didn’t think he was the monster he believed that made him.

“Luka. What she asked you to do… I can’t even imagine what that must have been like. Living with that for the rest of your life is a burden, but you shouldn’t blame yourself.”

“What are you talking about?” he snapped, any signs of his humanity extinguished and only anger remained. He yanked his hand from mine. “She is no longer here because of me. Her own son. I’m a monster. I wouldn’t blame you for wanting nothing to do with me now that you know.”

“No.” I shook my head. “That’s not true. She said so herself. She was dying painfully. You set her free and in doing so, you gave yourself a chance to survive like she wanted. I am guessing you managed to escape because of her sacrifice?”

He licked his lips and glanced back over at his mother’s bones. I followed his gaze and felt the pain in my chest tighten. “You’ve looked after her. After all this time.”

“She isn’t meant to be here. She is meant to be with...”

“Your father? She said she wanted to be buried with him. Is that right?”

A tense expression passed over his features and his fists clenched at his sides. “I can’t find him. I’ve looked for years for his bones. They need to be together and I can’t even-” He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, his anger snowballing. He clearly blamed himself for that, too. I grabbed his hand, opening his fist to thread our fingers and calm him.

“Is Hana your sister? Did you find her? Where is she now?”

The muscles in his jaw ticked as I realised I’d done it again. I’d asked him questions he couldn’t answer, making him beyond irritable. I quickly changed course.

“Do you sleep down here?”

“When I sleep at all,” he answered, dropping our hands and marching over to the bedding on the floor.

“Why?” I asked softly as he fell to his knees and pulled out a loose stone from the wall.

“It’s what I’m used to.”

Those words sliced right through my heart, but I kept my emotions in check and did not fall apart all over again. Instead, I focused on what he had in his hands from the secret hole he’d made in the wall. He stood up, hesitating before he extended the belongings towards me.

I took them carefully. The first was my pink feather boa from Sienna’s party and I smiled at the memory, raising my eyebrows at him. He smirked, a small twinkle in his eyes, which soon faded when I focused on the other items. One was a handmade stake. The wood was charred and scorched by fire, and dark blood stained it. I gulped, knowing who he was likely to use this on. Himself. The second was a bunch of photographs. All of one woman. A rather beautiful woman with long red hair.

Of course, my first instinct was to feel intense jealousy that he had so many photos of a stunning woman in his possession, but as I studied her face, I saw an uncanny resemblance. I lifted my eyes to stare at him as his nostrils flared.

“Your sister? Is this… Hana?”

He exhaled.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” he growled with rage.

“Is she safe?”

He huffed again. “I don’t know. But she’s alive.”

My mind raced as I began pacing the floor. I had a few more pieces of the puzzle, but they weren’t connecting. I needed more.

“So you don’t know where she is? When you met my dad and Grandpapi, you said someone you cared about was in trouble. I thought you meant Heathen, but you didn’t, did you? It was Hana. Does someone have her against her will? Oh my god, is it the Devil? Is that how he controls you?”

He stepped forwards suddenly, grabbing my shoulders in his fierce grip and my lips parted.

“Have I ever told you how brilliant you are?”

I smiled, knowing he was basically saying I was right on the money.

“Okay. Do you have any of her belongings? Anything to do a locator spell?” I asked eagerly, but the excitement fizzled away when Luka shook his head. That wouldn’t deter me, though. “That’s okay. Look, my family has resources and skills that we can use to help find her. I am sure of it. If we—”

“No.” He shook his head quickly and I sighed, knowing how he felt about getting anyone else involved.

“Luka, I promise my family can help. You can trust them with this. They will find Hana,” I argued as I saw an internal fight starting behind his eyes.

“Not yet. Not until you know who I am,” he interrupted. “Because that will change everything. And I can’t put her life at risk, too.”

“What do you mean?”

He grabbed my hand and led me out of the cellars and back up to the first floor of the manor. I had to jog to keep up with his long strides until he opened the door to the vast library room I had decided was my favourite room in this terrible place. Bookshelves lined the walls, holding hundreds and hundreds of ancient-looking books. A desk sat at one end with a stack full of papers, as if the owner had just left them for another day, believing they would return. At the other end was a small sofa in front of an open fireplace I had fallen asleep on last night.

“I don’t know what you will find in here. Honestly, I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at what sick and twisted shit they might have had. But if you think you can handle it, I am pretty sure you’ll find enough answers to your questions to realise who I am.”

He stepped back as I walked into the room and paid attention to the titles of the books. Damn, most of them were in Latin.

“I might need some help to read some of these,” I explained, turning to find him in the doorway, observing me. He looked… nervous. “I didn’t pay much attention in my Latin classes. My brother, Leif, reads Latin fluently. So do my mum and grandpapi but I know!” I raised my hands up in the air. “You don’t trust them.”

“They’re royals. And witches. I can’t.”

I spun around quickly when an idea struck me. “I have a family friend. She’s like a second mum to me, actually. She can read Latin but she won’t ask questions if I just ask her to translate a few pages. Is that okay?”

He rubbed his forehead as he glanced around the room. “She won’t tell anyone?”

“I’ll say it’s for a project I’m working on with the SIA…”

“Fine.”

“Good.” I smiled, but he continued to look on the verge of a mental breakdown as he slumped down on a bench by the door. He seemed uncertain about this and I felt the need to reassure him, though I wasn’t entirely sure what I was meant to be reassuring him of.

Making my way towards him, I stood between his legs as his rough hands ran up the back of my thighs, leaving a pleasurable tingle in their wake. I grabbed his jaw and forced his face up to look at me.

“Luka, I promise, whatever I find out about you won’t change how I feel. I’m in this. I want you. Someday, I hope you will be able to trust that.”

He stared at me with a blank expression before he replied, “I’ve heard that before. Though, this time, I really hope it’s true. Because I can’t lose you, Ilaria. I’ve survived everything else. But I won’t survive that.”

I leaned down and kissed him.