Page 174 of Dark Souls

Uncle was right. Luka was fucking her!

“Took you long enough.” I lifted the necklace out of the box and walking back towards him. “And yeah, I was fucking him because he’s my soulmate. And you and your uncle are going to pay for what you’ve done to him.”

Hector threw his head back and roared with laughter. I arched an eyebrow at his reaction, waiting patiently until he’d finished.

“Soulmate? Please. That monster doesn’t have a soul. He can’t love anything. He’s too fucking broken. We made sure of it. Don’t you get it yet, Princess? He rejected you. He left you. And he’s about to be killed for good. Don’t bother going to all this effort for him when he doesn’t give a single flying fuck about you.”

The restraint I’d had to control for hours snapped. In a flash, I’d removed my blade from my leather sleeve and stabbed it in his chest, ensuring I missed any vital organs and twisted. He roared, the sound vibrating off the walls in the house as I ripped it out of him and watched the blood trickle down his torso. The satisfaction didn’t even touch the sides. I needed this man to suffer.

“Where’s Luka?”

He panted, shaking his head. I stabbed him again. Stepping back to give him a second to catch his breath and come to his senses, he lifted his head and looked me directly in the eyes.

“I don’t know.”

Damn, he was telling the truth.

I held up the necklace. “This is Hana’s sigil, isn’t it? The one that controls her demon’s soul? Where is she?”

He closed his eyes, squeezing them shut, and I dived at him, placing my blade at his throat as my other hand yanked his head back by his mohawk. “Open your eyes or I will slice your eyelids off so you can’t ever close them again.”

“You’re going to kill me, anyway. I’m not telling you a thing.”

Ronnie entered the room with a twisted expression I’d never seen before. He looked dangerous, lethal and blind with rage. It was enough for me to step back from Wesley and lower my blade. “Ronnie, what’s–”

“WHERE IS SHE?” Ronnie roared, bulldozing into Wesley’s body and knocking the chair to the ground. His hands wrapped around his throat, squeezing before he sent multiple punches into his face, only to go back to strangling him again. “You sick fuck! What have you done to her? WHERE IS SHE?”

“Ronnie!” I screamed, terrified he was about to kill our only source of information. I dived onto his back, wrapping my arm around his own throat as I tried to tear him off Wesley. He was so strong but after a struggle, I finally shoved him away. His eyes were the deepest shade of crimson, demanding Wesley’s blood as he glared at him over my shoulder. I kept pushing at his chest, forcing him out of the room until we were standing in the hallway.

“Get yourself under control, Ronnie! I will not allow you to fuck this up for me! He may be the only chance I have of finding Luka so I won’t allow you to kill him. Do you hear me?” I shouted as Ronnie started pacing the length of the hallway, his hands running over his shaved head. “This is my soulmate’s life we are trying to save!”

“And mine!” Ronnie bellowed, glaring at me with so much pain in his eyes. I froze.

“What?”

“Hana is my soulmate,” he choked on the words, crouching on the floor as I stared at him in shock. How? What? Hana was Ronnie’s soulmate? “I had a feeling when I saw her picture.” He pulled out Luka’s polaroid photo that he’d been carrying around in his pocket. “I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. But as soon as I smelt her blood, I knew for certain. I can smell her everywhere in his room. I’ll kill him. I’m going to fucking kill him for what he’s been doing to her!”

He attempted to get past me again, and I slammed my hands into his chest, shoving him back with all my strength. “Ronnie. No. He is the only person who knows where she is. You can’t kill him. Not yet.”

“He’s been torturing her, Ilaria! He’s been…” He couldn’t finish the sentence, turning to slam his fist into a wall instead. A lump lodged in my throat at what he was insinuating. I closed my eyes, wishing it wasn’t true but knowing it more than likely was.

“Where?” I asked quietly, needing to see whatever had shaken Ronnie to his core.

He pointed up the stairs. “His bedroom. I… I can’t go up there again. I can’t see it again.”

“Okay.” I stepped up to him, running my hand down his arm. “Okay. I’ll be right back. Watch him Ronnie, but don’t kill him. You want to find Hana? You can’t kill him, do you understand?”

He nodded, hissing through gritted teeth as he leaned his forehead against the wall. I raced up the stairs, searching all the bedrooms until the one that was most potent with Wesley’s scent called to me. Stepping inside, I paused to take in the mess. Ronnie had clearly been ransacking the room from the discarded drawers and open wardrobe that had clothes sprawled across the floor and an open wooden trunk that contained sex toys, such as bondage ropes, gags, whips, knives and vibrators.

There were polaroid pictures of women strapped to the bed in all sorts of positions, gagged and tied, some looking as though they were into it, but others seemed to be barely conscious. Red hair caught my attention and I pulled the photo from the pile. There was no doubt it was Hana, naked and tied to the bed. Cuts adorned her skin and she had a silk tie over her eyes.

I moved my gaze to the contents of the open bedside drawer. There were multiple syringes and medical bottles. Lifting the clear liquid up, I read the label.Fuck.He’d been drugging them so they couldn’t fight back. Muscle relaxants. These extremely high doses were illegal and could only be purchased on the supernatural black market, which, of course, being part ofThe Underground, Wesley had access to.

Shaking, I left the room, the red haze clouding my judgment as Rue came to the surface wanting revenge for every woman he’d assaulted but, mostly, for Hana. For my sister. She is my family now. And no one touches my family and gets away with it.

Ronnie lifted his bloodshot eyes to me as I slowly descended the stairs, studying my stony expression. I walked past him into the living room, where Wesley had regained consciousness and was spitting blood onto the floor.

“Ronnie. Untie him,” I commanded as Ronnie entered behind me. Wesley’s eyes bounced between us with terror at the deadly looks on our faces. Fear. Finally.

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