Page 48 of Dark Souls

Worst Fear

I t took everything in me not to shout TADA when I jumped through that window and gave the royals the fright of their lives. But I can read a room and I knew my humour would be unappreciated. I was on my best behaviour as I sat waiting patiently for them to pick their jaws up off the floor and join me at the table so I could dig into the tasty organ I had extracted from the traitorous fae’s chest.

I wasn’t exactly expecting a group hug after Ilaria announced me as her soulmate but this awkward silence as they all just stared, unmoving, unblinking, was a little disconcerting. Ilaria looked from all their frozen faces to me and I shrugged. She glanced back at her mum, who was staring at me with a mix of shock, disbelief and distrust.

“Can someone say something?” Ilaria finally broke the suffocating silence as my talons tapped against the tablecloth, itching to dive into my dinner. It was still warm and bloody. Fresh. But time was ticking before the tender tissue would be like chewing rubber if they didn’t hurry the eff up.

“Is this a joke?” Alpha King Ezra questioned with fury lacing his tone. He was still half shifted into his wolf with his claws and canines on show and white fur sprouting out of his enormous, broad shoulders.

“No. It’s very much not a joke, Dad,” Ilaria answered, placing her hand on my shoulder. I hooked my arm around her waist, pulling her into my side. I wanted to tug her down on top of me but I think that might cause an aneurysm in the wolf. Even my arm snaking around her waist elicited a deadly hiss from Arius Romano.

“Get your fucking hands off her,” were his very next words.

“Papi! He is my soulmate. What aren’t you getting here?” Ilaria said defensively. I am glad she was the one to speak up because what I would have said in return wouldn’t haven’t been so friendly. I had to remember that they were in shock and protective.

Their concern comes from a place of love. Keep calm and don’t kill anyone.

“This can’t be true! He’s a Demonski Upir, Ilaria!” Her tribrid uncle stated the obvious.

“I am well aware of what he is,” Ilaria answered with a sassy roll of her eyes. Gods, I loved her. “Look, I know you are all in shock right now. But Heathen’s kind is misunderstood. He’s not the monster you all think he is.”

“Misunderstood?” Her dad growled. “He just murdered an innocent man who told us about his existence and was meant to be under our protection! He broke through a window with a bloody heart in his hand which he is waiting to eat! How is he not a monster?!”

“A heart that is getting rather cold,” I muttered under my breath, which earned me a shove from Ilaria’s hip.

“Can you all just back off with the intimidation for one second? Why don’t we all sit down and I will explain how all this is possible?”

“Not until he shifts,” Arius demanded. “I’d rather deal with a vampire than a demon.”

“Ouch,” I slammed my hand over my unaffected heart, which still didn’t warrant any laughs. Tough crowd.

“He can’t shift. He’s not in demon form as a threat. He honestly isn’t in control of his shifts. Like I said, if you all relax a little and take a seat, I’ll explain. He won’t hurt anyone.”

It was Queen Ruby who conceded first, lowering her magical hands to her sides and agreeing as she pulled out her chair and took a seat opposite. Ilaria sat next to me. And slowly, one by one, the rest joined us, though they never took their hostile glares off me and remained on high alert. Snow exhaled a shaky breath and turned to face me.

The oak doors opened abruptly and a black-haired man walked in. Jesus. He was a good-looking fucker if ever I’d seen one. Like a Greek Ken doll, but with bigger muscles. He froze when his green eyes landed on me, taking in my wings, horns and claws. I lifted one claw and wiggled my talons at him, smiling in greeting.

“Did I miss the memo?” he asked in confusion, glancing round the room at his family before staring at me again. “Who’s in the impressive fancy dress Satan costume?”

“Demon,” I corrected. “Demonski Upir, to be exact, but you weren’t to know.”

“A what?”

“Lorcan, this is Heathen. And it’s not a costume. He’s an actual demon and he’s my soulmate. Heath, this is my brother, Lorcan.”

“Oh, the wolf one? Back from Heroux? How’d it go, mate?”

Lorcan blinked. The whole family looked perplexed. Oh, yeah. I forgot I knew far more than I should, thanks to my noteworthy stalking skills.

“Come and sit down, Lorc. I’m about to explain how this is possible. Can I tell them? Everything I know?” Ilaria turned to me and my black eyes darted around the room at the skeptical faces of her family. I knew when I bulldozed my way in here this would be the outcome but it still gave me a squeaky bum. Trust wasn’t something Luka or I had much of and clearly her family hated my fucking guts already. But what choice did I have? That gobshite fae had outed me. To stop The Devil from harming Hana, this was my only option. Show myself, allow Ilaria to tell them the truth and pray that they had our back in this. I knew they loved Snow and would hesitate enough not to kill me when they found out I was her soulmate but that didn’t mean they would help me. If word got back to The Devil that the royals knew about me, it would be game over. He’d kill both me and my sister to stop him from being exposed.

I nodded and Ilaria gave me a proud smile that warmed the icicles off my frozen heart. Speaking of hearts, I glanced down at the one on my plate. “Do you all mind if I dig in while Snow explains? A wasted heart is really a bugbear of mine.”

No one said anything.

“Just eat the damn thing,” Ilaria whispered and I smiled. Using my telekinetic powers, I picked a knife and fork from the table at the back of the room and flew them over her parents’ heads and into my talons. It had been a very long time since I’d used utensils and they felt extremely fiddly in my huge claws.

“I need you to all keep an open mind when I say this. Everything you’ve ever read or been told about Demonski Upirs is wrong,” Ilaria started, as I dug the fork into the centre of the heart and cut a corner away. All their eyes moved with my fork as I took my first bite and chewed. I felt Ilaria’s eyes burning into the side of my head and turned to look at her innocently. “You are really not helping your case here.”

“I’m hungry!”

She rolled her eyes and faced her family again. “Okay, well, nearly everything. Yes, they can only survive off blood and organs and yes, they are extremely powerful and deadly but they are not crazed monsters with no feelings or morals. Heathen has proved to me time and time again that he cares, that he respects me and shows empathy. He had a family who were just like us. Full of love for each other. They never killed anyone unless it was completely necessary to survive or defend themselves, just like we do. They were hunted without mercy. What happened to Heathen’s kind was completely unjust and undeserving. Not all Demonski Upirs were a threat to humanity. Not all Demonski Upirs were evil. Many lived normal, civilised lives. Yet, every single one of them was treated as such just because of the reputation of a few that was exaggerated by our own ancestors. All because of greed and jealousy.”

She moved her attention to her grandpapi. “You know better than anyone what that is like. The damage rumours can do. Everyone feared you for being the first hybrid of equal powers without even knowing you. They wanted you dead because you were different and more powerful than them. They saw you as a threat when you gave them no reason to believe you were. The same goes for mum and Uncle Raiden, being the only tribrids in existence. Heathen’s family were victims of an unprovoked attack from the slayers led by the Knowlton Coven.”

I paused halfway through eating and placed my knife and fork down to give Ilaria my undivided attention. I was awestruck. How did she figure all this out? She continued to paint a picture of my upbringing, my family and what had happened to me, talking quickly but with such clarity on my past that I found myself transported back to those dark memories as if they had happened yesterday.

“And here’s an extremely disturbing part.” Ilaria finally stopped to take an overdue breath and looked at her grandpapi, who was giving nothing away with his tense expression. “The Knowltons couldn’t work out how to possess a demon’s soul and break Heath away from his vampire side. So they sought help from the most powerful dark witches at the time. Witches that were also slayers and managed to create the very spell that led to Heathen being kept captive and controlled ever since. He has no free will. The crimes he’s committed, the kills the SIA are investigating. Someone called The Devil summoned him to commit those crimes to control The Underground’s members. And all of this was only possible because of Celeste and Cora.”

I studied the faces of Arius, Raiden and Ruby with interest, seeing as they were directly related to the very witches Ilaria was talking about. It took a moment for the penny to drop for Raiden and Ruby, who paled at this shocking turn of events. But as my black eyes met Arius’ across the table, I could see this wasn’t new information. My nostrils flared as I tried to keep the complex emotions at bay.

“You knew,” I accused, digging my talons into the wood of the table to stop them from sinking into his chest.

Ilaria’s head whipped from me to her grandpapi with alarm. “Grandpapi?”

Everyone was staring at him now. Even his own mate looked surprised.

He leaned back in his chair, calmly threaded his fingers together and placed his hands on the table as he held my gaze. He could see how close I was to murdering him, depending on his next words. And I suddenly wasn’t sure I should be here. Maybe that’s what this was. He was going to provoke me to kill him so Ilaria wouldn’t want me. Because if he was about to confess to anything that implicated him in my captivity, in my family’s demise, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold myself back, grandfather or not.

“I knew Lucius and Celeste had once been slayers,” he said carefully, still only holding my gaze and preparing himself for my reaction. “My father was friends with Alatar Knowlton. I also knew that the Knowltons had two Demonski Upirs captured and controlled because of their help.”

I flung myself up out of my chair and roared, sending everyone in the room into a tailspin of fighting stances once more. Everyone except Arius, who remained seated and staring at me.

“Heathen!” Ilaria grabbed my face in her hands and forced me to break his eye contact. “Look at me.” The moment those pink eyes broke through the red mist, I heaved out some rapid breaths and tried to get myself under control. But I knew I couldn’t be here in case he said anything worse. This was what I had feared all along. What I knew Luka would be fearing. That her family was aligned with the rest of the world. That they would never accept us. It was too much.

“I need to leave,” I growled lowly, keeping my focus on Ilaria and ignoring everyone else in the room. “I don’t trust myself, Snow. I need to leave.”

She gulped when she realised what I meant. I promised her I would never hurt anyone she cared about, but I couldn’t sit here and listen to this. She nodded slowly and reached up on her toes to place a hard kiss on my lips. I wrapped my arms around her, squeezing tightly and allowed the feel of her against me and her lips on mine to calm me enough to be able to turn away from the rage I wanted to unleash. I didn’t even let her break away and say goodbye. One minute I was there, kissing her, and the next I was gone through the window.