Page 61 of Dark Souls

Pick A Side

Lia

I glanced over at my bedside clock. 5am. Another sleepless night. Another shitty day. Sighing deeply, I peered around my luxurious room, taking in the soft grey walls accented with gold swirling glitter and the floor-to-ceiling windows that allowed the moon to cast a natural glow on everything it touched. The breeze filtered through the delicate and custom-made sheer curtains from Italy, causing me to shiver. Giving up on getting any more sleep, I tugged back the covers and placed my feet in my fluffy slippers that sat regally at the side of my bed every night. I made quick work of making my bed, a habit that only riled my mother to no end. We have maids for that, Evangelia. I could hear her voice snapping in my mind as I smoothed out the plush velvet throw and rearranged the monochrome pillows. No one called me Evangelia except my mother. And she only did it because she knew how much I hated it.

Walking over to my massive walk-in closet, I opened the doors to reveal rows of designer clothes, all organised by colour and season. It’s not like I have had much else to do with my time since I graduated from the Academy. My eyes scanned the impressive collection of shoes, from towering heels to limited-edition trainers, all taking their place on mirrored shelves next to my even more impressive collection of handbags. I righted one shoe that was sitting slightly to the left. There. Perfect. Yet, there would still be a critique. Perfect didn’t exist, no matter how hard I tried to be.

I slouched down on the thick cream carpet with my back against the wall and stared at all the materialistic things I owned. Beautiful things. Things that brought me joy. Did they, though? Maybe once. Maybe when I was young and na?ve enough to believe that every new bag, every new pair of shoes or designer outfit was a symbol of my parents’ love. If I wanted to spend time with them, they distracted me with a new toy. I earned a good grade at school; they bought me a new handbag. If I learned a new spell or won in a physical fight during fitness class, they bought me a new car. Anything I wanted, I got. I was the definition of a spoiled rich kid. Look up the term and my immaculately made-up face and long hair extensions would be right next to it, along with the plastic surgery my mum had demanded I get to make me more alluring. Cost didn’t matter. Only how it would make me look. And I wanted to look good for them. Be good for them. Every gift was a message; well done, darling. Until it wasn’t. Until that message became darker and more twisted; prove your worth.

I was raised to expect the world without having to give anything back. My parents meticulously designed everything in my life to flaunt our lavish lifestyle. I have known nothing but the best. I knew I should be grateful for all that I had. I’m not sure when or how it happened, but at some point, none of it meant anything to me. See, I really was a spoiled brat. Because just like I was never enough for my parents, this life was starting to feel like it wasn’t enough for me. And what the fuck do I do with that? When you can have anything in the world, but you have no interest in acquiring any more stuff? Because that’s exactly what it was. Stuff. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t affection. It wasn’t even kindness. It meant nothing. Yet, it was all I had.

My phone buzzed between my legs and I picked it up off the floor to see a text from Leif Anderson. I exhaled as I opened it.

Lia! Babe! Where are you? Fancy a late-night rendezvous? Just the two of us this time ;) No psycho sister appearances, I promise.

I dropped my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. No. The last thing I wanted to do was hang out with a drunken warlock who was depressed and only saw me as good for one thing, just like everyone else. Hooking up. I wasn’t a slut. As much as people liked to believe I was. I didn’t even have my first kiss until I was eighteen. But just like everything else in my life, my love life wasn’t dictated by me but by my parents. Ilaria had every right to her feelings because they were valid. My parents were obsessed with me marrying into an influential and powerful family. And who was more influential or powerful than the royals? No one.

I sighed, typing out a quick reply.

Sure. Where shall we meet?

I’m in Soho. Had a wild night but ready to get out of here. I’ll wait for you in the main car park outside of Yayas. You know it?

On my way. :)

This would be the second time I picked up Leif from a drunken night out. Clearly, I really had nothing better to do. I stood up, grabbed a dress off the hanger and a pair of matching shoes and walked back into my room to dress. Sitting down at my vanity table, which was littered with high-end makeup brands and perfume bottles, I set to work on making my blue eyes pop and my lips look even fuller with the help of pink lipstick. Just as I pouted at my reflection in the mirror, my bedroom door swung open, and my mother came bounding in, casually tossing her fur coat on my bed and carrying with her the scent of fresh peonies and jasmine.

“Have the maids been here already? This early?” she asked, glancing from my perfectly neat bed to me.

I didn’t speak, allowing my silence to be the only answer I was willing to give as she narrowed her eyes. She lifted her chin as she walked up behind me, placing her hands on my shoulders. Her long nails dug into my skin with a pinch that bordered on pain.

“Have you only just come home?” I asked, focusing on my face in the mirror and touching up my mascara.

“Yes. I am exhausted. There is a spell that I am working on that requires a lot of my attention right now. So do not start with me and your neediness, Evangelia. I do not have the energy for it.”

I had to bite my tongue not to remind her that this was the first time I had seen her in three days and that most of her time spent at the coven she leads in Devon or with my father was taking up her energy, not her estranged daughter she graced with her presence every so often.

“Sorry, mother.”

She lifted her hands off my shoulders and tugged my hair out of its ponytail, raking her fingers through it and pulling apart the knots. I winced when she tugged much harder than she needed, but I knew better than to complain. That only ever made it last longer and for her to pull harder.

“Where are you going so early?”

“Leif texted. He wants me to pick him up. He’s drunk. Again.”

Her fingers paused in my hair as she stared at me, a slow, calculating smile creeping up her face. “He messaged you?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

She yanked my hair aggressively, forcing my head back. “Enough of that tone with me, young lady.” Her fingers softened, stroking down my silky blonde locks. “That is good. Promising. We are finally getting somewhere. We all know it has taken forever, and I was beginning to lose hope that anyone would want you.”

I stared at the lipstick in my hand, fighting the sad emotions and pushing them down, deep beneath layers of self-loathing, insecurity and numbness. Leif didn’t want me. He was hurting and going through a shit time and I made myself available to him because my dad told me too. That’s all it was. Just like every other time they’d demanded I try to seduce the men of that family. Raiden when he became a professor. Lorcan and Leif countless times during the years at the academy. But Neve and Ilaria had always been there, like the fucking cockblocks they were. I tried to befriend them at the start, but they were tight. Like sisters. And they wouldn’t let me into their trusted circle, which made it all the more infuriating when that new girl, Sienna, was welcomed in with open arms. The constant rejections and the disappointment from my parents hacked away at my self-esteem for years, turning me into this. A girl who didn’t even know herself anymore, let alone like herself. I couldn’t take my anger out on the people who caused me the most pain with their manipulation and harsh words. So I took it out on everyone else instead. I became a mean girl. I became a horrible person. But I didn’t want to be. Not anymore. Since we graduated, I’ve realised just how pointless and insignificant all of this was. What was the point when none of it made me happy?

“What if I don’t go?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper as I rotated the lipstick in my hand.

My mother’s hands froze in my hair but this time, not in delighted surprise but in annoyance. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would you not go? You need to make him fall in love with you, Evangelia. Leif has always been the best choice, as he is the least likely to find a fated mate being a warlock. And he is vulnerable right now. We must take advantage of that. Be the person he needs and relies on.”

“It just seems… cruel.” My whole body tensed in fear of her reaction. Arguing with her had never gone well in the past. But I was so sick of all of this. “It’s cruel to pretend. I like Leif. He’s actually nice to me. I don’t want to use him.”

“Don’t be weak-minded as well as pathetic, Evangelia. What is your purpose if you do not have to do your duty and advance this family up the social ladder?”

What was my purpose? Tears stung behind my eyes, but I couldn’t be sure if it was from her words or the aggressiveness of each stroke of the hairbrush she sent repeatedly flying down my hair.

“We have given you everything, have we not? Anything you have ever desired has been yours. Your father and I have worked to the bone and made so many sacrifices to give you this life and when we ask one little thing of you, you refuse us?”

“It’s just… what about my soulmate? I don’t want to be in a relationship when he finds me. And I want what you and father have.”

“Don’t be na?ve, child. Do you know how long it took your father and me to find each other? You are still so young. And who is to say that your soulmate is even looking for you? He may be dead, for all we know. Then what are you waiting for? You wish to be alone all your life? Cast aside like a good-for-nothing whore? Because your father and I will not support you forever, you know.” She waved her hand around my room. “All this… it could be taken away from you in the blink of an eye, and what will you be left with? Nothing. You are a mediocre witch and a typical vampire. You couldn’t even win a fight against that fae hybrid, Sienna.”

“She is royalty! And a fae with four elements! I never stood a chance.” I couldn’t help but defend myself, but of course, I regretted it immediately as fire blazed in my mother’s unsettling eyes.

“More excuses. It is all we hear from you. We had such high hopes when you were born that you would have your father’s drive and ambition and my magical talents and brains, but all we have is a pretty face. So you make the most of what you are given. It is time for you to stop living in a fairytale and find your own security. Do something useful for once in your goddamn life.”

Her voice was rising to that furious screech that sent tremors of fear through me. I shook my head quickly, but I already knew it was too late. She was losing her temper and there was no way back from it. Yet, I still tried to calm her.

“I’m sorry. You’re right–”

She yanked me up by my hair, causing me to cry out. Spinning me towards her, she placed her hand around my jaw and I felt my veins filling with poison, turning them black as they climbed up my face. The agony was blinding.

“You will meet with Leif and you will do everything in your power to make him fall in love with you. Do you understand?” she hissed, her magic overpowering every cell in my body as I slowly nodded, just wanting it to end.

She shoved me back by my face and I crashed down onto my bed, gasping for air.

“Good. Call me later. Let me know how it goes. I’ll be gone for a few days but the maids and chef are available for whatever you need.” She moved across the room, yanking her fur coat out from under me.

“Will father be here?” I asked quietly, because I hated being alone in this vast house and he was the only one that pretended to give a crap about me.

“I doubt it. Your father is a busy man. You know this. I advise you to make sure you have something positive to tell him when he returns. He may even buy you that new watch you wanted.”

She slammed the door behind her and I sank back into my bed, curling into a ball as small as that woman made me feel and wished so badly for a different life.

The sun was rising as I pulled up in the empty car park and turned off the engine of my Porsche. I leaned forward over my steering wheel, searching for any sign of Leif, but only concrete walls were in sight. Diving into my bag that was in the passenger footwell, I rummaged around for my phone to call him when the passenger door whipped open and a blur of a body swept into my car. A forceful hand grabbed my hair and, faster than I could comprehend, my head was slammed forwards into the steering wheel and my arm was twisted behind my back. I hissed between my fangs as my vampire side emerged as a form of defence, but I stilled when I realised just who was pinning me in place with insane strength for such a small woman.

“Ilaria?” I frowned, struggling against her grip, which only made her twist my arm to the point of breakage as I cried out.

“Did you know?” she hissed. Her normal pink eyes were a deep shade of crimson as she stared into mine. I had never seen the girl so terrifying and that’s saying something. Every time she looked at me, she had a face of thunder, but this was something else entirely.

“Did I know what?” I growled, attempting to lift my head, which only caused her to slam it back down and cause a throbbing pain to rocket through my temple.

“About the Demonski Upirs your parents have held captive for years?”

“What the fuck are you talking about, you lunatic? Get off me!” The girl had lost her fricking mind. What even were Demonski Upirs?

A few seconds later, she broke eye contact, flung herself away from me, and positioned herself as far from me as possible in the car. She ran her hands down her face as I sat up and stared at her, wondering what the fuck I could do to get away from this psycho chick. She’d always put the fear of life into me, since my first day at the Academy, and I’d watched her take out ten final year vampires in a training session. She was only twelve.

“Where’s Leif?” I asked, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice as my eyes darted around the car park.

“Not coming. It was me who texted you. I lied. It is the psycho sister you have to deal with.”

“If this is about Leif… look, we haven’t even done anything more than kiss.”

“It’s not about Leif.” She turned to face me in her chair, her vicious eyes flicking down to where my hand was resting on the button to free myself from this car and bolt out of there as fast as I could. She smirked. “Try it, Lia. Run and I will chase you down. You won’t get ten feet before I have you at my mercy. And right now, that is something I don’t have much of. Mercy.”

“What do you want?” I asked, defeated. She was right. I couldn’t outrun her. I moved my hand back to the steering wheel.

“To save both our soulmates from your parents.” What the hell was she talking about? Before I could open my mouth to ask, she shoved a phone in my hand with a video. “Watch that.”

With a trembling finger, I pressed play and watched the image of a man appear. A man whose face I had never forgotten. Hayes Cohen. I don’t know what it was, shock or fear, but I threw the phone back at her, holding my hands up as panic consumed me.

“What is this? I don’t understand. That man is dead!”

I knew he was dead because, after my mother grabbed the note he’d given me from my hand and I’d spent the next week dreaming of him and wondering what it said, I finally sneaked out to the village and found his house. His mother was there. When I asked if I could talk to him, she broke down in tears and told me he was dead. He died in a wolf attack. I cried myself to sleep for months and I had no idea why. It felt like I had lost someone important. Someone special before I even had the chance to know him. I told myself I was overreacting. I met him once for five minutes. Yet, the grief I felt was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. It hardened me more than I cared to admit.

“He’s not dead, Lia.” Ilaria’s voice had softened somewhat as she stared at my trembling lips. “He’s alive. Just watch the video.”

She handed it back to me, and it took every ounce of courage I possessed to press play once more. Tears filled my eyes as his face came back into view, nearly identical to how I had remembered him every night since that day, except he looked much thinner and less vibrant. His eyes were red and not those stunning blue gems that sparkled when had he smiled at me. His hair was longer and more unkempt, but it was definitely him.

When the video had finished, I continued to stare, unable to form a single word as silent tears rolled down my cheeks and fell onto the phone. My hand gripped it tightly, holding onto the only piece of Hayes Cohen that existed in my mind. My soulmate. He was my soulmate. Mine. And… and… my own parents did this to him? To me? I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted so badly to feel disbelief or rage at the accusation but I just… couldn’t. Because as much as I tried to believe my parents loved me in their own way, I’m not sure they ever really did. Not as much as they loved their ambition. Their money.

“I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”

I blinked, lifted my face and wiped the tears from my face with the sleeve of my jacket. “Are you?”

Ilaria frowned deeply, that cold glare back in her eyes. “I may not like you, Lia. But I wouldn’t wish on anyone what they’ve done to you and Hayes. That’s just… cruel.”

I let out an exhausted laugh and shook my head at her choice of words. “Yeah. That’s my parents. Cruel.”

“They have my mate too,” Ilaria added, removing her gaze from me and watching the beginnings of the sun’s rays peeking over the horizon. “And I am running out of time to save him.”

“Why?” I shook my head, gripping the steering wheel in my fists. “I don’t understand. They captured Hayes to keep us apart. That doesn’t surprise me as much as it should. But why do they have your mate?”

“I am only telling you this because I’ve read your mind and I know you had no idea about any of this. I am hoping that you and I might actually be able to work together.” She continued telling me about who her mate was and how he came to be in my father’s possession. It didn’t feel real. Any of it. Like she was telling a story about some fictional characters with the same names as my parents. How did I not know about any of this? How had they hidden this secret life they were living from me for twenty-one years? I felt like a complete fool.

“My father has always worn a silver chain around his neck with a pendant. He never takes it off,” I said, feeling like I was having an out-of-body experience, watching myself sitting in this car with the vampire princess. I wasn’t sure how to feel or which emotion to deal with first. Shock, I guess.

“That is Luka’s sigil. That is what he uses to control Heathen. Did you know your father owned The Underground? ”

“No!” I said, staring into her eyes so she could see I was telling the truth. I had nothing to hide from her and at that moment, I was actually grateful that my parents had kept me out of their twisted secret lives. “God, no!”

“How did you think your father made his millions then, Lia?”

“I… I don’t know. I just thought Arius paid him really, really well.”

Ilaria scoffed. “How did you know about it?” She fixed me with her fierce glare, distrusting and guarded. “That night at the club. You were the one who told me about The Underground . You knew it was behind those curtains. How?”

“My cousin. Hector. He told me he was a member once. I asked questions, but he refused to tell me much about it.”

“Had the pleasure of meeting that asshole last night. He had Luka’s sister captive.”

“Is he…” I swallowed when I saw the deadly look in her eyes.

“Dead? Best kill I’ve ever made. So far…”

I nodded, hiding how terrified I was of her at that moment. “Good. I hated him. He was an asshole.” It was true. Hector was a piece of shit. But my father had taken him in when my aunt died and practically raised him like his son. He’d given that knob a lot more attention than he’d ever given me. I always thought it was because he was a man. I shook my head before pressing my forehead against my steering wheel. “I feel like such an idiot. My whole family is evil.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Ilaria grumbled, folding her arms across her chest. “But if you are looking for sympathy, you won’t find it here.”

“I’m not looking for sympathy,” I blurted. It was the last thing I wanted. “Hayes was wrong. So are my parents. He is the one who is too good for me. It’s not the other way around. I’ve done nothing to deserve him. He’s suffered for years because of me. How can I ever make that right?”

“You can’t,” Ilaria said sternly, staring at my face when I turned to look at her. “You can never give him back the years he’s lost. But you can give him the future he deserves. You can change. Be better. Do better. Be the person he deserves.”

“How?” I whispered.

“You start by picking a side. I’m taking your parents down, Lia. With or without your help. I know they are your parents, but after everything they have done to my mate and to yours, I won’t let them get away with it. So, you need to pick a side. You are either with me… or against me. What will it be?”