Page 46 of Dark Souls

He marched into the house and closed the door behind him as I shifted Hana to my hip.

“I don’t want to kill people, Luka. But why don’t they like us?” Her little voice, full of sadness about her future, tugged at my heart. I lifted her chin to look into my eyes.

“Then you never will. There are ways around our fate, little one. Sometimes the world is not kind but that does not mean you don’t have to be.”

“Will you always protect me? Forever?”

“Never doubt it, Hana. Never doubt it.”

I bolted upright, sweat covering my body as I shuddered in the aftermath of that memory. Those were always the worst. Memories of her. A reminder of my biggest failures.

Fucking sleep. Sleeping was my trigger. It was the only time my subconscious could push through the concrete walls I’d built around my past to keep the crippling guilt and pain at bay. Those impenetrable walls trapped the boy from those memories inside so he could hide himself away, where I could keep him protected from the pain. But the cracks were forming. The memories and nightmares were becoming more persistent every time I closed my fucking eyes.

As the self-torture lingered for a few more seconds like a nasty infection, I slammed my hand to my chest, wanting to rip out my own fucking heart as I squeezed my eyes tightly. And then it ended just as abruptly. It was as if someone had wiped my system clean. Pressed the reboot button on my mind and my soul. It was gone. The memory and the guilt that came with it. I felt empty. Awful, rotting emptiness. But that was the price you paid for switching off your connection to your human side, a cruel pit of darkness inside you that only grows and infects itself down to your bones. I was slowly rotting from the inside out and the longer I suppressed, the worse it was getting. But I made that decision a long time ago. It was a matter of survival. The mistakes and horrors of my past and the ruthless crimes of my present didn’t matter when I felt nothing. I could keep going. And I had to keep going. I had no other choice.

Glancing over at the motel’s clock, I cursed loudly when I realised I’d been passed out for most of the day and the sun had already set. The witches’ ritual last night must have gone on longer than I expected it to and there was only so much my body could physically take with no sleep until it just gave out and forced me to rest.

Scrambling across the hard bed, I grabbed my top from the chair and threw it on over my head. I’d fallen asleep in my ripped jeans and there was no time to shower if I wanted to make sure I caught sight of the princess before the night was over. It wasn’t like I planned on letting her see me, anyway.

Grabbing the keys for the rental car, I slammed the motel door behind me and made my way across the car park. Two elderly men were sitting silently on worn, rusty chairs out on their front porches, watching the world moving around them. A single bulb swayed in the breeze above their heads, casting a glow across their stoic faces as they watched me suspiciously. They clearly had nothing better to do. The thought of making them my next meal crossed my mind. They were just sitting there like gormless statues, waiting for death to take them from this hellhole. I could do them a solid and be their grim reaper. Maybe later. I had a more important place to be.

The car alarm beeped as the headlights flashed and I glanced up to meet their stares, pulling the map I’d printed off for directions to Elk Lake Resort.

“What’s with your eyes, boy?” one shouted across the parking lot. “Ain’t Halloween for another week or two.”

I smirked, allowing my red eyes to blaze like a furnace. “It’s always Halloween where I come from.”

“And where’s that?” the other shouted.

“Hell.”

I climbed into the driver’s seat, leaving them shaking their heads and muttering about the younger youth and their quirks. Little did they know, I’d lived at least triple their lifetime and my eyes were the natural colour of a blood-thirsting vampire who no longer gave a shit about hiding that fact, even in front of humans. It was almost comical that even when they were staring evil directly in the face; they refused to believe it to be true. They put my red eyes down to contacts to go with my edgy, punk look instead of accepting the possibility that I was someone who shouldn’t exist in their world.

That agitation and strange restlessness that had been following me around all week clawed at me painfully as I stepped on the gas and drove like a fucking maniac towards the resort. I didn’t know why I felt the obsessive need to see this girl with my own eyes. I knew she was alive so Heathen hadn’t harmed her. The royals all seemed to continue with whatever the fuck they did with no suspicion about Heathen or The Underground. She was still out there, living her life according to her social media. Not that I had been compulsively checking what she was up to at every opportunity or anything. So, I shouldn’t be doing this but I couldn’t stop myself either.

I huffed, my fingers gripping the steering wheel so firmly the leather squeaked. This girl was driving me crazy, and I didn’t like it one bit. I knew the sensible thing was to turn this car around and forget she existed. But the problem was, I wasn’t a sensible person. I was impulsive. Reckless. And forgetting she existed felt near impossible. So maybe I needed to see her. Needed to get whatever the fuck this was out of my system, so I could go back to not giving a shit about anything or anyone. It was safer that way.

The sign for the resort came into view and I turned into the car park. I frowned at the silence and darkness that greeted me. All the lights were off in the reception and there were only two parked cars. This felt wrong. A place like this should overflow with vacationers on a weekend.

Climbing out of the car, I approached the locked reception building, rotating my keys around my finger. I stopped in front of a large poster that was stuck in the window.

Closed for the weekend. Private event. Sorry for any inconvenience.

In the distance, I could hear faint laughter. Women. A bunch of them. She was here. I could sense it. Falling into the shadows of the forest, I walked the perimeter of the electric fencing until I could find the perfect spot to jump it without causing any alarm to the private party happening beyond. I kept to the thick woodland, hidden by the veil of darkness until I reached the lake at the centre of the resort. Leaning against a tree, I spotted the group on the other side of the large oval reservoir, sitting around a campfire. The dancing amber flames were the only lick of light around them, apart from the iridescent moon above. They were too far away to register any of their faces, but judging by their shapely figures, they were all female and all supernatural. Shit. I knew I couldn’t risk going any closer without one of them sensing me. But I couldn’t see her from here. And I needed to see her like I needed my next breath. Fuck knows why, because it was starting to piss me off.

Suddenly, the shortest and most petite figure in the group moved away from them, marching with purpose towards the lake. I narrowed my eyes. White hair and pale skin shone like a precious pearl in a sea of coral under the moon’s reflection. I stood taller. It was her. Without a doubt. And she was heading this way.

Before I had time to react, her body blurred as she used her vampire speed to race up to the wooden jetty only a short distance away from me. She had her back to me, her long, silky hair cascading down her exposed spine all the way to a perfect, round ass. She was completely naked apart from a black lace thong. I held my breath as my cock reacted to the sight of her. When she pulled the tiny material down her legs and stepped out of it, I had to fight back a groan. Shit. This was not good. I was getting to see a lot more of her than I intended and it was making it harder and harder to stick to my plan.

“Bunch of perverts!” she shouted with laughter in her voice. Her tone was feminine but laced with so much feistiness that it awoke some raw, primal want inside me. The sound of a splash caused me to lose the inner war I was having to stick to the shadows, and I instinctively took a step forward because she was out of my sight. A fact that bothered me more than it should have. When she broke the surface and informed the group that she was fine and they should leave her to it, the uncomfortable sensation in my chest eased a little. I watched, mesmerised as she glided on her back through the water gracefully, her eyes closed and small, perky tits visible on the surface. Ah fuck, were those little silver bars through her nipples? My kryptonite.

She. Was. Fucking. Unbelievable.

I knew she was beautiful from her pictures online but they didn’t do justice to the real thing.

Suddenly, she dived into the blackness and my nostrils flared when she didn’t come back up straight away. I waited impatiently. Time became my enemy. And when she still hadn’t resurfaced, I glanced over at the group of women who had gone back to the campfire and continued their celebrations, instant rage manifesting that no one was checking on her. Was she in trouble?

Even though I shouldn’t have cared, I zoomed up to the edge of the jetty and crouched down. My eyes scanned the stillness of the inky water. Fuck’s sake. I really, really didn’t want to dive in there. But the itch crawling across my skin suggested that I just might if she didn’t appear soon.

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