Page 71 of Dark Souls

Therapy

S itting on the ledge of the castle roof with an arm hanging over one bent knee, I stared out into the distance, waiting for the first of the morning’s rays to trickle over the horizon. I leaned my shoulder against one of the gothic spires and tried once again to search for a feeling, a sense of relief or joy, that my nightmare was over. The hate and anger still lingered, even after Mitchell’s death and knowing Belladonna was going to pay for her crimes. And I was tired of it. Sick of only feeling angry all the fucking time.

The only genuine moments of peace were when I was consumed by Ilaria. Whether I was holding her, fucking her, drinking her, it didn’t matter. She was my salvation. And she was an open book with me. Through our bond, I felt her constantly pouring all her emotions into me, letting me feel how happy, loved and safe she felt. But that wasn’t fair. Because what was I giving her in return? She knew I loved her, desired her and I’d do anything for her. But she also knew she was my only source for feeling anything other than rage in this life. I knew she would never ask for more, but that didn’t mean she didn’t deserve it.

So there I was. Sitting alone while the rest of the world slept peacefully, waiting for the sun to rise, hoping I might feel something on my first true day of freedom.

The ground was coated in a ghostly fog as if it too was holding its breath and waiting for the darkness to lift because of the sun’s warm greeting. I narrowed my eyes as the sun started creeping over the landscape, dropping my arms to my sides and pressing my hands to the cold roof tiles until my skin ached, eager to feel its first touch across my face. How many years had I longed for this moment? To watch a new day begin, knowing I was free to bask in its reassuring warmth because I wasn’t bound to remain inside the very house that had always been my prison.

Pale gold spilt over the shimmering mist and crawled slowly up the height of the castle. I closed my eyes when it finally reached my face and waited for a moment of liberation to work its magic. To make me feel… grateful? Happy? Hopeful? But I felt… nothing. I opened my eyes and stared directly at the sun as if it had just broken an unspoken promise between us. All it left me with was the faint recognition that this should have meant something. That it should have woken life inside of me.

‘You know what you need to do, Luka? Turn your humanity back on,’ Heathen spoke like the devil on my shoulder.

‘It’s not as easy as you think. There is a trigger. My lack of humanity is connected to something but I don’t know what.’

‘I’m here now. I won’t let you lose yourself to depression or the shit that you think will happen.’

I worked my jaw, feeling defensive and annoyed. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t. He wasn’t there. Not through all of it.

‘I was there through the worst bits. I was there when Alatar cut off our father’s head. I was there when they tied our brother to the house and watched him burn. I was there when they tortured you, trying to make you shift. I was there when we killed our mo–’

‘Shut the fuck up!’ I roared at him, squeezing my eyes closed. My lack of humanity was a choice because it repressed and dulled all those memories. I didn’t need him to remind me of why I did it in the first place.

A shuffling noise pulled my attention away, and I peered down as Ilaria’s beautiful face looked up from her attic window.

“There you are.” She smiled, a sight more breathtaking than the sunrise itself. She effortlessly climbed onto the roof and sat beside me, wrapping her small arms around my bicep and rested her chin on my shoulder. I turned to look at her, still only wearing my shirt, with no make-up and uncombed hair. Enchanting in every way. “What are you doing up here?”

“I couldn’t sleep.” That was a lie. I slept. I passed out on that bed yesterday, missed dinner with her family and slept all the way through until 4am. It was the best I had slept for centuries. “I mean, I did sleep. But I woke up early, and I wanted to try something.”

“Oh, yeah?”

I swallowed, lifting my hands off the tiles and clasping them together in my lap. “It was stupid. It didn’t work.”

“What didn’t?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Luka.” She lifted her hand to my face and gently turned my jaw, forcing me to meet her pink eyes. I could never say no to those eyes and she knew it. “Talk to me.”

I sighed and lifted my hand to point at the sun and then down to the castle grounds below that were showing more visibility as the blanket of mist was surrendering under its warmth. “The world is mocking me. Even the fog feels the sun’s effect more than I do. I may physically feel it on my face, but I don’t feel it. This was meant to mean more. But it just doesn’t.”

She remained silent for a few moments, moving her gaze to the horizon that lit up her flawless skin and sparkling eyes, magnifying her beauty as if she was under a lens.

“I know I should feel more. Heathen does. Heathen is elated to be free. He’s beside himself with happiness. I feel your emotions through our bond. I see Hana’s joy and contentment in the new life she has. Mitchell and Wesley are dead. Belladonna is as good as dead. I’m free from that house, from that life. I have you. We have a future together, which is something I never envisioned. And I know I should feel more.”

“What you feel is enough, Luka. I know you think you aren’t giving enough of yourself to me, but you are wrong. You give me more than I ever expected you to under the circumstances. You have already opened up so much since I first met you at that lake. You may not have noticed it, but you have. You let me in and learned to trust me.”

I scratched the back of my head and then clicked my neck to the side. “I tried to push you away. To stop you from dragging yourself down into my darkness. So many times. Even at the end when I killed Ronnie. You wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

She scoffed. “But… you knew I wouldn’t.”

My lips tugged into a sideways smirk. “I knew you wouldn’t.”

She chewed at her bottom lip and looked away, deep in thought.

“What is it?”

“Do you want to turn your humanity back on?”

I ran my hand down my face. “The answer to that is complicated.” She waited patiently but kept her gaze on me. “Yes, because I want to be more of a real person for you. I want Hana to have her brother back. I want to sit in the sun and feel even a small taste of the happiness it should bring to me. But also, no. Because what if it doesn’t make me happy? What if turning it back on makes me miserable, depressed and so fucking dark that I can’t even feel the joy of you anymore? Because grief, pain, and guilt are things that really change a person, love. And I’ve had a lifetime of it. I don’t know who I’ll be.”

Ilaria nodded. I could feel her fighting her own emotions. Sad emotions. I stared at her face, hating that I caused them. That familiar anger roiled up inside me.

“Belladonna said something last night that I knew was bullshit, but it still hit a nerve.”

I inhaled deeply, grinding my jaw. “I shouldn’t have let you go alone. What did she say?”

“No, it was right that you weren’t there. It would have only made her worse and more psychotic if you had been. Her obsession with hurting you needs to be starved and the only way to do that is to cut off all contact with you.”

“What the fuck did she say, Ilaria?” I growled.

Sighing deeply, she lifted her head. “She said that even me giving you my soul wasn’t enough. That you will never turn your humanity back on because you will never feel safe.”

A cold, dead look cast over my eyes. I knew it because Ilaria immediately placed her hands on me to calm me somewhat. She was right to, because I was seconds away from zooming down into that cellar and killing the fucking bitch myself.

“Don’t worry, I cut out her tongue.”

That gave me pause. I turned to look at my mate, who gave me a small smile of malice.

“She can’t say shit now.”

“Good,” I huffed, still feeling pissed as hell, but at least knowing she couldn’t manipulate Ilaria with her poisonous words anymore was a slight consolation. “Love, don’t ever fucking doubt that giving us your soul wasn’t enough. You saved my fucking life by just being you. Turning my humanity on isn’t as black and white as it might seem. There’s a trigger, but I don’t know what it is.”

“Is it linked to your mum?” she asked softly. “Isn’t that the moment you turned it off? When you had to–”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Do you know who might help you find some answers? Only if you want to find them, of course.”

“Who?”

“My grandma, Alina.” I licked my lips and pulled out the key from my jeans pocket. The key she had given me to one of her meeting rooms. “The key is enchanted. All you have to do is rub it, and you’ll be transported to the room she’s saved for you. It’s a way for her clients to find solitude or help when they need it most without having to physically ask for it.”

I bobbed my head. “That’s pretty cool.”

Lifting my gaze to meet hers, I saw a flicker of my future in her eyes. But that future was tainted with a big fucking question mark. I knew what I wanted, but I wasn’t sure if I would ever get to a place where I could have it. But I had to try.

I leaned forwards and gave her a kiss on the lips. When I pulled back, I held the key up between us before I could change my mind and rubbed it between my fingers.

“No time like the present.”

“How are you doing, Luka?” Alina asked as she sat opposite me in a cream armchair.

I’d let myself into the ‘meeting room’ with the key and found myself alone in what was supposed to be an oasis of tranquillity but felt more like a form of hell. The walls were painted in earthy tones, complemented by the ridiculous amount of leafy plants hanging from crocheted pots to match the greenery of the forest outside the windows. A waterfall feature in the corner produced what I guessed was supposed to be a soothing sound. Plush armchairs draped with fleece blankets and oversized pillows were the room’s centrepieces, with a large oval sheepskin rug between them. The room smelt of lavender or some shit. I took one look around and was about to bolt, when the door clicked open and Alina appeared with a kind smile on her face.

Then I was trapped.

“Fine, I guess.” I flicked my thumbs together on my lap, looking everywhere but in her eyes. I realised I didn’t ever really look people in the eyes (except Ilaria) unless I wanted to intimidate them. And when I really didn’t want to intimidate them, I tried to focus on everything else instead of their faces. “So, uh, how does this work?”

“What do you mean?” she replied softly, sitting with one leg over the other in a relaxed position.

“This.” I waved my hand around the room. “Therapy. Because, right now, I don’t think this is going to work for me.”

“You don’t like the room.” She didn’t say it as a question, as if she was already expecting this reaction.

“The room’s… fine.”

“It’s okay.” She laughed easily. “Ilaria doesn’t like my rooms either. She actually asked me to paint a room entirely black with only candles, books and dead flowers in vases for her sessions.”

I smirked at that. “That sounds like Ilaria. And did you?”

“No.” Alina shook her head slowly with a smile. “Her personal spaces are all like that. That is where she retreats to be alone and isolate herself. Yes, she finds comfort in that kind of environment, but sometimes, people need to be supported to put themselves in situations where they don’t always feel comfortable. Normally, it’s those situations that help us to grow the most.”

I moved my gaze around the room again. My eyes were drawn back to the water feature and its incessant trickling sound. I clicked my neck to the side, fighting my irritation. It reminded me of the sound of dripping water from the Knowlton cellars and the cave.

“Is the water fountain bothering you? I can turn it off if you prefer?”

“Thanks.” I nodded, and she stood up, unplugged the thing and returned to her chair, still fucking smiling.

“Therapy is whatever you want it to be, Luka. This is your time. We can sit in silence if that is what you need, or we can talk casually about anything or nothing. Or we go deeper. It’s completely up to you.”

I shuffled in the soft chair, sinking lower into the cushions. I hated this. But I had to remind myself what I was here for and why I was putting myself through this torture. I didn’t come here to sit in silence with my fucked up thoughts nor did I come to discuss the weather.

“Go deeper.”

Alina nodded. “Okay. Shall we start with the reason you are here? What do you envision getting out of our sessions?”

I rubbed my jaw, avoiding her eyes again. “I want to be better. Good. But I don’t know how to be.”

“And in your mind, what constitutes as good or better?”

I met her green eyes and stared hard. Was she serious? She didn’t flinch or glance away from my blazing glare, which I respected. “Anything but what I am.”

“And what are you?”

I moved in my chair again, feeling so fucking uncomfortable. My skin was itching and the need to escape this room, this conversation with a complete stranger, was making my agitation heighten.

Sensing whatever I was projecting, Alina lifted her hand. “We can stop if you like. Take some time.”

“No,” I snapped, then closed my eyes. Come on, Luka, you fucking prick. It’s just talking. I was grateful that Heathen had made himself scarce, sensing that I needed space to do this alone. “Sorry. Um, I guess I’m the opposite of good. I’ve done some fucked up shit in my past, and I guess, I still do. I’ve killed a lot of people. Too many to remember. I’ve tortured people. I’ve created fucked up events to entertain members of The Underground . I, uh, I guess people view me as a monster.”

“Do you think you are a monster, Luka?”

I swallowed, staring down at my hands. “Yes.”

“Why? Because you’ve killed people? People who probably deserved it?” Alina questioned, tilting her head to the side. “I’ve killed people too. They deserved it. Do you think I’m a monster?”

“No.” I shook my head.

“You were blackmailed and manipulated into committing most of those crimes. Is that right?”

“I guess.”

“But you still think you are a monster?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I killed my family.” The words flew out of my mouth before I even knew what I had said. The silence only heightened the shock in the room. I couldn’t lift my head and look at her.

“You didn’t kill your family, Luka. The Knowltons killed your family.”

I shook my head. “The Knowltons only found us because of me. I led them straight to us. My father and brother died because of me. And my m–” I closed my eyes, feeling that familiar pang of anger and hatred for myself resurfacing. “And I killed my mama with my bare hands. That makes me a monster. Everything was my fault.”

“And is that why you don’t believe you deserve to be happy?”

I inhaled deeply. “Yes.”

“Is that why you turned your humanity off? Because you knew you could never feel happiness again without it?”

I stared at her. Damn, she was good. “Possibly. I don’t really remember much from before or how I felt.”

“Do you want to remember?”

“No.”

“What about the good memories?”

I turned my head away from her and pressed my fangs into my lower lip and dug my nails into my palms, wanting to cause myself some form of pain.

“They are even harder. I suppress them all.”

“Memories are all we have of loved ones that have passed, Luka. The good, the bad, the hard. But they are ours. Special because no one can take them from us. The memories you have of your family are yours alone and a precious reminder of the people they were, the love they had for you and the love you had for them. Maybe you see them as suppressed, but actually, you are protecting them. You keep them safe until you can find joy in them again.”

“That’s a very optimistic view, but I am not an optimistic person. I’m pretty sure they are suppressed because it is my method of survival.”

“Maybe it was, once. But I don’t think so anymore.”

It was my turn to ask the questions. “Why not?”

“Are you still trying to survive? Or are you trying to live?”

I sat and thought about that for a while. I wasn’t sure when the shift exactly happened, but I knew it had. Most probably the day I realised Ilaria was mine.

“I want to live.”

Alina smiled brightly. “And what does that look like to you? Close your eyes, imagine your future. What does living look like?”

Humouring her, I leaned the nape of my neck back on the chair and closed my eyes. I tried to imagine my future with Ilaria, being a part of this family, having my own one day. But I just couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see anything. I sat up, huffing and running a hand through my hair. “I can’t see my future.”

“That’s okay. These things take time,” Alina reassured me, but I could feel my frustration with myself growing again. “You seem angry, Luka. It’s okay to be angry, but instead of holding it inside, tell me what is making you feel this way.”

I stood up and started pacing the room. Alina stayed in her position, calm and relaxed, as she watched me.

“How can I give her a future when I can’t even imagine one for myself?” I shouted, my voice rising with each word. “I’ve been in and out of captivity, confinement and torture since I was twenty fucking years old. Even that small percentage of my life before I was on the run. My future has never been mine. I’ve never allowed myself to even contemplate one, because whenever I did, I only saw pain and brutality and death. The world doesn’t just change overnight. I might have the royals support, but Belladonna was right about one thing. People will come for me. Which means they will come for her too. And kids?” I paused, swallowing hard and shaking my head. “I can’t. I can’t give them this life. It would be the most fucking selfish thing I ever do. And I won’t. I saw the burden that weighed heavily on my father’s shoulders. He loved us. But he pitied us too. He felt so much guilt for the life we had.”

Alina was quiet throughout my rant and I slumped back down in the chair, hanging my head in my hands. We sat in silence, both of us digesting all that had been shared. It may not have been a lot, but it felt fucking huge. I’d said some things I had only ever shared with Ilaria and some things that I hadn’t even admitted to myself out loud before.

“Does Ilaria know how you feel about having children?”

I shook my head. I felt sick.

“Luka.” Alina’s voice was soft, so sincere and kind that it made me fight memories of my mother saying my name the exact same way. “You are right. The world cannot change overnight. But it can change. Christ, who would have thought that vampires and werewolves would be civil with each other, let alone friends and cross-mating? Who thought that hybrids would become some of the most respected and influential supernaturals in the human realm? Opinions can change and so can people. In fact, I guarantee most of the next generation of supernaturals won’t even know anything about Demonski Upirs. Barely anyone will have even met one before you. You have a chance to rewrite your own history here, Luka. You can’t change your past, but you can ensure it doesn’t ruin your future. And you do have a future. You may not envision it yet, but it is there. Your future is safe, Luka.”

I lifted my head and looked into her eyes. Your future is safe.

“My future has never been safe. I have never felt safe. Not since…” I stopped myself, unsure where I was going with this. I could feel a memory niggling in the back of my mind, trying to break free. Had I ever felt safe? Even as a child, we were always on the run. Yet, I knew I had felt it at some point. That sense of safety.

“Not since?” Alina questioned patiently. “Shall we try to go back to that time, Luka? To a moment when you felt safe?”

I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. My stomach twisted itself in knots and I fought every cell in my body telling me to stop this, to stop prying into a place that would only cause me unnecessary pain. But I had to try. “Okay.”

“Allow your mind the freedom to be still. To think of nothing. Just listen to my voice. You are safe here, Luka. You are here in this room with me and no one is going to hurt you here. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“You are safe,” she repeated. I found myself reciting it in my own mind. “Breathe in. You are safe. Breathe out. You are safe.”

My mind cleared and my muscles relaxed. I focused on the one thing I knew how to do. Breathe.

“Tell me, Luka. Tell me about a time when you remember feeling safe.”

My back slammed into the ground as my legs whipped out from underneath me. I groaned, rolling onto my stomach and lifting myself to my hands and knees.

“Get up. Never show hesitation, or it will be the end of you,” my father shouted in Serbian as he paced the edge of the lawn, watching Zoran and me as we took part in our daily combat sessions that he insisted we had.

Zoran stared down at me, his red eyes glaring in challenge. The look was the same as my father had; a determination to make sure I could defend myself. But it wasn’t a fair fight. Zoran had years on me. I was only fifteen. He’s stronger. Faster. And I never fucking won.

He stepped forward, offering me his hand. I took it. In a quick attack, I twisted his arm behind his back and lifted him, putting enough pressure that the bone snapped. Zoran laughed like the maniac he was, and I let him go, staring in alarm.

“Good. That’s more like it, son,” Father praised me. “That’s enough for today.” Father walked away, heading back inside the house.

I marched straight up to Zoran, staring at his unnaturally crooked arm, and immediately apologised.

He grabbed me by the throat and lifted me so my feet were dangling off the floor, choking me as my face turned red. “Never apologise, Luka.” He dropped me, letting me fall into the mud once more. “Next time, break two.”

Once again, he held out his hand (the arm that wasn’t broken) and hauled me to my feet with a wicked smirk on his face. “Come on, let’s hunt. Ambro? is starving.”

He walked off into the forest, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Mama feeding Hana at the table through the kitchen window. Father took a seat beside them and kissed Hana’s head. I ran after Zoran, knowing that I could not leave him to hunt alone. We must always hunt in pairs. Father’s rule.

“Wait. Don’t you think you should wait until you have healed to hunt?” I asked, slowing down to a jog to keep up with his long strides.

“Do you think in a real fight, a slayer would wait for your arm to heal before attacking again?” he responded, not glancing at me but focusing on the dense trees ahead in search of his prey. “Learning to fight when injured is even more important than learning to fight in general.”

We travelled miles, scrambling up the mountains. We came across a deer which we killed and fed from, but it wasn’t enough. We needed at least two more to keep our demons sustained because they weren’t human organs. Suddenly, an arrow zoomed past my head. I spun around and saw a man quickly duck behind a tree.

Zoran grabbed me by the shirt and yanked me down to the ground behind a bush.

“Slayers,” he hissed. He allowed his demon to share control with him, and I quickly did the same. More wooden arrows came flying over our heads. “At least four. I’ll take the left. You take the right.”

I nodded, about to zoom away, when he grabbed me with his good arm again and looked into my eyes. “Don’t hesitate. Never surrender.”

I promised him, and he patted my chest before darting over the bush and ripping the closest slayer to pieces in seconds. This would be my first real fight. The adrenaline pumped through my body and ignited a fire inside me. I shot towards the tree where an arrow came from and tore the man to the ground, pinning his body down with my own. The talons on my wings dug into the ground around us as I leaned down and bit into his neck, ripping his artery open aggressively.

From out of nowhere, a heavy net of chains fell on top of me, trapping me and the dead slayer beneath it. My wings thrashed wildly as I tried to escape it, but with every touch, my wings burned and so did my skin. I screamed in pain.

“Luka!” I heard my brother somewhere in the distance, but I can’t see anything through my blind panic. It felt like an eternity before he reached me, but I knew it was seconds. He grabbed the heavy chain with his bare hands, and I watched as his flesh started to sizzle and burn. He roared, ripping it off me with all his might and I crawled out from under it. Releasing his grip, he fell to his knees, breathing hard as I lay on my back, staring up at the sky.

“What was that?”

“It was silver they had heated with hellfire. Are you okay?” he asked after a few seconds and I sat up, checking my back over my shoulder. There were a few burn marks zig-zagging across it from the chains and a few of my feathers were a little frazzled. I nodded and turned to look at him. My eyes grew.

His broken arm looked even worse. He had cuts all over his body and face. Both his hands were an angry red with burned flesh as bits of skin hung off them. I looked around the area and saw at least eight dead bodies. Eight. I only took out one. I felt like a failure.

Dropping my head in my hands and bending my knees, I apologised profusely, fighting back tears.

Zoran sat beside me, threw his broken arm over my shoulder with a wince and pulled me into him. He let me be upset. He let me get it all out of my system before we headed home. When I was done, he said, “You did good. You killed one. We are no match for hellfire. There was nothing you could have done under that net.”

“I should have checked behind me. I should have watched my back.”

“But you didn’t need to. You had me watching your back for you.” He smirked, nudging my shoulder with his. “And that is why we hunt in pairs. It’s okay to need a little help sometimes, Lukas.”

“You don’t need any help,” I grunted, hanging my head.

He chuckled darkly. “I fucking did. And guess who always had my back?”

“Father?” I guessed, knowing how close they were.

He nodded. “That’s the way it goes. He was my teacher, my protector, my defender. And I am yours, just like you will be Hana’s. I always feel safe when he is around. If you don’t feel safe, that is my fault, brother. Not yours.”

“I feel safe when you’re around,” I admitted. He nodded in approval and stood up, staring at all the bodies.

“At least we will eat well tonight.”

My eyes snapped open, and I sat up straight, wheezing. I felt an intense ache in my chest from reliving that memory and an acute sense of loss. My eyes met Alina’s.

“Thank you for sharing that with me. That must have been hard, but I am so proud of you. You did really well.”

I swallowed thickly and slouched back in the chair, wiping the beads of sweat off my forehead.

“I think we should leave it there for today.”

I blinked at her, still trying to process that memory and the feelings it provoked. But when I tried to think of it again, I couldn’t. My mind had gone completely blank. The feelings of loss, love, pain but also happiness dwindled away into the abyss, and I was left with nothing.

“No. I… I want to remember,” I blurted, my mind made up. “I want to turn my humanity back on. Help me do it.”

Alina leaned forwards and smiled. “Only you can do that, Luka. But I think with a few more sessions, you will figure out how. We can pick back up tomorrow when you’ve had some rest and processed. You really did amazingly well, Luka. Well done.”

She stood up, and I wanted to scream at her to sit back down, but I refrained. I suddenly felt exhausted. I settled down on the sofa and closed my eyes. I felt Alina standing nearby. She said nothing but just patted my shoulder on her way out. As soon as the door locked, I fell into another dreamless sleep.