Page 58 of Dark Souls

Cave Of Truths

A s the last beams of daylight disappeared above the small, jagged opening above, I was plunged into darkness. Nightfall. It was possibly my last night on this Earth, and I was here, spending it alone, captive in a cave with nothing to comfort me but the belief that I’d done enough to keep them safe. Story of my fucking life. Had my final act to save the only people I loved been my last attempt to give my life meaning? Would this one good deed give retribution for all my sins? Would I be able to let go of some of the self-blame and hatred I held for myself when I took my final breath if I knew my sister was free? If I knew Ilaria had saved her? Maybe.

Ronnie should have turned by now. The sire bond would force him to find Ilaria and tell her everything. And all I could do was pray that she understood my actions. Pray that she would still be willing to help Hana, even though I’d broken her fucking heart. I knew she would. Because I knew Ilaria. She’d go to The Underground , find Wesley and get the information she needed to find my sister.

As my vampire senses adjusted to the night, I looked down at my battered body. Thanks to my quick healing, the three broken ribs and fractured collar bone from the 400ft fall into this stone prison were now just a dull ache as I rolled over onto my side and attempted to lean up on one elbow. I had no fucking clue where this place was, but before The Devil sent his foot flying into my chest, kicking me backwards through the small opening in the ceiling of this cave, I’d have guessed we were still in England from the rolling green hills in the distance and the sound of the sea smashing against the cavern walls. Not to mention it was freezing down here. The Devil had transported us, giving me the first major clue who he was since I’d met him. I guess now he had no intention of keeping me alive. It didn’t matter to him anymore. Only one type of vampire could transport themselves with magic, and they belonged to the Romano Clan. The Devil was a member of the very clan Ilaria was destined to lead.

My skin scraped along the coarse, grainy sand as I dragged myself towards a fallen rock. Gripping onto the slimy surface, I tried to use it as leverage to help me stand upright and take a good look around. Uneven rocks shaped the walls, sharp and crumbling, making it seem impossible to climb or even lean against them without the risk of death. They curved inward above me, cocooning me and amplifying that suffocating sense of entrapment. The only glimmer of hope for escape was through the small opening so far above that it felt like a cruel illusion. It was a taunting promise of freedom for anyone who dared to reach it. I knew The Devil chose this place for a reason. To mock me. If I could shift into Heathen, I’d be able to fly out or use his telekinesis to break away the rocks to climb. It was just another bitter reminder of what had been taken from me.

Of course, there was always a silver lining. Being in my vampire form meant I couldn’t die. I could attempt to climb these walls, jump as high as I could to reach the ceiling, only to fall and smash my head open on a rock, and it wouldn’t even matter. I’d come back to life and be able to try again. But what would be the point? Even if I escaped, one rub of that sigil and Heathen would be summoned back to him. It was all fucking pointless.

My stomach grumbled and fangs tingled with hunger as a sign of how much energy it had taken me to turn a giant of a human like Ronnie and heal my injuries from the fall into the cave. I needed a decent feed to replenish myself but had a fat chance of hunting a single living creature down here. I glanced around, finding evidence of the long-forgotten victims left to rot in this stone tomb. Their cracked and brittle bones were bleached with age, showing just how long this place had been used for.

Was that The Devil’s grand plan? To starve me of blood and organs for centuries until I was just a rotting corpse? Starvation was nothing new to me. The Knowltons had kept me in a state of starvation for years to weaken me. Much to their frustration, yes, it had weakened my body, but it never weakened my mind. It was the isolation I couldn’t stand. And now, after Ilaria, the thought of being stuck down here without ever seeing her again, not knowing if she was safe or what she was doing, was the worst imaginable torture.

I kicked the sand at my feet. I noticed something sharp poking out and bent down to retrieve my scorched dagger made from the charred remains of my family home. The Devil had thrown it down here after my body. Picking it up, I twisted the familiar wooden stake in my hand, my skin itching with the need to scrape it along my flesh until the addictive burn became unbearable. I guess The Devil was allowing me one comfort down here. To bring myself pain. Anger sparked through my veins and I tossed the stake away. I allowed my body to slide down the rock, fell on my ass in the sand and closed my eyes.

I wasn’t scared of dying. The amount of times I’ve come so close to giving up over the centuries, to wanting this all to just go away permanently and knowing the easiest way to make that happen was to allow them to kill me was countless.

Never surrender.

Even now, hundreds of years later, my brother’s words still spoke to me like my own personal bible. I’d failed him in life. Fuck if I was going to fail him in death, too. I would never surrender.

A few hours must have passed because it had grown even darker. The faraway sprinkle of stars shimmered through the break in the rocks above as I stared up at them. Every drip of water that fell from the cave’s ceiling echoed in the confined space.

The incessant ache in my chest where I knew my heart beat only for her was a welcome pain; a keepsake of the bond that I never believed I’d be lucky enough to find. In the grand scheme of my life, I’d only had her in it for a flicker of a moment, but she’d never know how much those moments mattered. How being with her, holding her in my arms, erased years of suffering and pain. She was the remedy to my darkness. And I never even told her how much I loved her. I’d die knowing that was my biggest regret.

I crippled over at the waist unexpectedly. An excruciating stabbing shot through my chest, straight into my heart, causing every beat to become a torrent of insufferable anguish. Looking down, I half-expected to see a wooden stake lodged in my chest, but instead, I grabbed at the unmarked skin as I gritted my teeth and fell forwards. What the hell was this?

Ilaria.

Was she hurt? I tried to focus my mind through the pain and feel what she was feeling through our bond. What I found, I didn’t fucking like. Panic, disgust, outrage and… guilt. She was with another man. Another man was touching her.

Staggering to my feet, I gripped the jagged rocks and roared. The sound shook the cave walls, causing a few small rocks to dislodge and crumble down. Another man dared to put his hands on her. Kiss her. And she didn’t like it. She was panicking.

Red-hot lava fuelled my veins as I leapt from the floor, catapulting myself as high up the rock walls as I could. Barely halfway, I dug my claws into the sharp, slippery surface, cutting my hands in the process as I tried to scramble higher. My foot slipped. The fall was quick but brutal. Landing on my back, I felt all the air knocked from my lungs in one vicious blow. I wheezed, rolling over onto my stomach and forcing myself up on all fours, trying to catch my breath before I attempted again.

The turmoil that threatened to tear my soul apart subsided. The bond returned to a deep ache of longing at our separation. I squeezed my eyes shut and dropped my head into my hands in the sand. I didn’t want to think about what that meant; about what kind of situation Ilaria had put herself in to help Hana. To help me. But I knew I had to trust this. I had to trust her and that she knew what she was doing.

A scuffle in the darkest corner of the cave caused my head to snap up. I wasn’t alone down here. Using my speed, I zoomed across the cave and grabbed the neck of a man who had been hiding behind a boulder. I slammed his back against the rock as he held up his hands, his red eyes wide with fear. As I took in his sunken cheeks, the black circles beneath his eyes and his dirty, tousled brown hair, I hissed with warning.

“P-please,” he choked, his chapped lips trembling beneath his fangs. “Don’t kill me.”

I held his gaze. He was a young vampire. I could tell. In his late twenties would be my guess. No match for me and he knew it. I released his neck and he dropped to his knees in the sand. His clothes were torn and damp, hanging from what once would have been an athletic body of ripped muscles but had been clearly weakened by starvation.

I took a few steps back from him, keeping my gaze on him to ensure he didn’t try anything stupid as he peered up at me with uncertainty.

“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 what he wants. 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.”

Fuck. Poor kid. These assholes were more twisted than I thought. To deny their daughter her own soulmate just because of status.

“What’s her name?” I asked.

The smile that lit up his face was full of heartbreak and joy as the word slipped from his lips. “Lia.”

I let him sit with his feelings for a moment. I could tell it was the first time he had said her name aloud for years, and it clearly had an effect on him. He rubbed his hand down his face and then looked at me.

“Do you have a soulmate?”

I exhaled as Ilaria’s face flashed before my eyes. Her beauty doing just what Hayes had described; it took my breath away. “Yeah. Her name’s Ilaria.”

The realisation that this was the first time I had told someone she was mine hit me like a lightning bolt, shocking me to my core. That wasn’t fair. I wanted to tell the world she was mine. Scream it from the fucking rooftops. And here I was, telling the one and only person I’d probably ever get a chance to tell.

Hayes’ eyes had widened dramatically. “As in Ilaria Romano-Black? The vampire princess?”

Muscles I rarely used twitched in my face as a resemblance of a smile appeared. “Yeah. That’s my woman.”

“And that before…” He glanced over to where I had been hunched over, fighting against the unbearable pain through our bond.

I shook my head, the memory instilling rage once again. “Someone was touching her. Someone that shouldn’t have been.”

“You’re bonded?” Hayes asked in surprise.

“Partly,” I replied, pulling myself back to my feet and turning slowly in a circle to assess our surroundings once more.

“What do you mean? Partly?”

“Don’t freak out on me. I’m a Demonski Upir.” I was done hiding who I was from the world. If I was going to die, I was going to do it unashamed.

“I have no idea what that is,” he muttered, looking me up and down suspiciously.

“I’m part vampire, part demon.” I walked over to one side of the cave, tugging on a large, protruding rock and pulling it down to find only more layers of rock behind it.

“Demon?” Hayes questioned, also standing to his feet. “As in… horns and wings from the Underworld demon?”

“That’s right. We have forked tongues, too.”

Hayes snorted. “That must be useful.” I smirked, tugging another rock free from the wall. “But doing that is no use. We are deep in the centre of the cave. I’ve tried digging down, digging through. The only way out is up. Why don’t you just shift into your demon and fly out?”

“Wouldn’t that be an idea,” I muttered under my breath and then turned to face Hayes when the rocks just continued to crumble to nothing at my feet but never gave me a slither of hope that there was any way out. “The prick that put you down here? Mitchell? He controls my demon. I don’t.”

“Ah, shit,” Hayes rubbed his hands together, blowing into them to warm them against the bitter chill. “Is your demon more likely to eat me?”

“Oh, a hundred percent,” I said matter-of-factly, which made all the colour drain from his face. “But only if you piss him off.”

“Noted,” Hayes whispered.

A loud cawing sound echoed down into the cave and we both glanced up at the opening to see the black silhouette of a raven circling above. The side of my lips lifted as it swooped down through the entrance and flew down to perch on a boulder. I held my hand up to Hayes and pressed my other finger to my lips to signal him to stay still and quiet. Slowly, I approached the raven as it cocked its head to the side, its beady eyes taking me in from head to toe.

“Are you following me, Raven?” I asked as it flapped its wings in response and dropped whatever it was carrying in its beak. It jumped back as I reached for the black velvet fabric with the diamond stone dangling from it. “No fucking way.” I grabbed Ilaria’s choker, the same one that she’d told me had a hidden camera in it, which had outed me to her Aunt Sienna. My eyes lifted to the raven as he bowed its head low before cawing.

“Friend of yours?” Hayes asked, staring at the raven with just as much curiosity.

“You could say that.” I turned to Hayes, holding up the choker between us. “Time to expose the truth.”