Dark Overlord New Horizon

by I. T. Lucas

  Damn. The therapist might be an empath or a telepath, and to fool her, Wendy needed to go deeper into her lies.

  Not a problem. All she had to do was to turn them into truths in her head.

  “I was scared. I didn’t know who you people were. You kept us locked up in here, didn’t allow us access to phones, and put guards on us. What was I supposed to think? That you would let me go if I asked nicely?”

  Vanessa smiled. “We were right to do that, though. Kian suspected from the very beginning that one of you might be a mole, and that’s why we kept you away from phones and didn’t let you out.”

  “I’m not a mole. I just want to get out of here and go back to the program.”

  The therapist shifted, so she was facing Wendy directly. “Mey told me that you love the outdoors. Is that true, or did you just use it as an excuse to get away from the cabin?”

  “It’s true. I love the mountains, just not getting up there. Those narrow roads were scary.”

  “I know what you mean. They scare me too. But if you love the outdoors, it must be difficult for you to be underground.”

  “I hate it.”

  “And yet you want to go back to the program, which is located in an underground facility the size of a small city.”

  Wendy shrugged. “That’s a small price to pay for security. As I said, my number one priority is having a well-paying job and a secure future. Everything else is secondary.”

  Vanessa arched a brow. “Even love?”

  “Love is overrated. It leads people to make bad decisions that can ruin the rest of their lives.”

  “Do you know someone like that?”

  “My mother. Not that I know her. She left when I was a baby.”

  “What was her bad decision?”

  Wendy rolled her eyes. “Marrying my father, of course, and her second mistake was having a baby with him.”

  “If you can’t remember her, how do you know that marrying your father was the bad decision? Maybe she had other issues that you were not aware of?”

  “Perhaps. I don’t know. She became addicted to drugs, and then she left. I think that she escaped into the drugs first and only then gathered enough courage to run.”

  “Do you resent her for it?”

  Wendy rolled her eyes. “What do you think? Of course I do.”

  “Every person reacts differently. You seem to understand her reasons, which is very mature of you.”

  “I know what her reasons were, but she should have taken me with her instead of leaving me to be raised by a monster.”

  “Now we are getting somewhere. Was your father abusive?”

  Wendy nodded. “He’s a good-looking guy, and everyone thinks that he is so charming, but when no one is looking, he turns into a monster. He must have made her life so intolerable that she turned to drugs to numb the pain and then just left. But she should have taken me. If she couldn’t have taken care of me herself, she could have dropped me off at an orphanage. That would have been better than growing up with him.”

  Her mother should have called her older brother, and he would have helped her or at least taken Wendy and raised her himself. Her uncle had said so after she’d joined him in the program.

  But he hadn’t known about the abuse. He hadn’t even known what happened to his sister. She hadn’t kept in touch, and after leaving Wendy, she’d disappeared.

  Her mother had probably died from an overdose soon after leaving. That was most likely why she had never come back for her baby girl.

  “Perhaps that is true,” Vanessa said. “But you can’t know that for sure. Maybe your father’s inner monster didn’t come out until after she’d left. Perhaps she had other reasons for running.”

  “Like what? Hooking up with another jerk that she fell in love with? That could be. Her decision-making process was fucked up.”

  “You have every right to be angry at your mother and at your father. They have both failed you. But that doesn’t mean that every person you care about is going to do the same.”

  “This is never going to happen to me again. I won’t let myself care for anyone enough to give a damn when they let me down.”

  31

  Kian

  “Come in, Vanessa.” Kian motioned for the therapist to take a seat. “I assume that your meeting with our little mole was illuminating?”

  Vanessa was a busy lady. Coming over to his office instead of heading back to the sanctuary and giving him an update in person instead of over the phone meant that she had something important she wanted to discuss with him.

  “It was, but that’s not why I decided to spend the night in the village. It’s because of Vlad. Jackson told me that he is not in a good place, and I thought that I’d stop by his house and have a chat with him.” She smiled. “That kid is like a son to me.”

  “I’m surprised that he is taking it so hard. He barely knows the girl.”

  Vanessa lifted a brow. “How long did it take you to fall for Syssi?”

  “That’s different. We were fated.”

  “Maybe Vlad and Wendy are fated as well.”

  Kian rose to his feet and walked over to the fridge. “If they are, Vlad has my sympathy. I detest liars.” He pulled a beer out. “Can I offer you something to drink?” He stepped aside so she could see the contents of the fridge.

  “I’ll take a Perrier.”

  After handing her the bottle, Kian sat on the other guest chair. “So, what have you learned?”

  “It was just a friendly talk, not a therapy session.” She twisted the cap off. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to share with you what I’ve learned.”

  “Obviously.”

  It was just semantics, but it was important to Vanessa to make the distinction.

  “I know that you are busy, so I’ll make it brief. When Wendy was just a baby, her mother left. She was raised by an abusive father, and she doesn’t trust anyone. She sees the program as a safe haven that will protect her from all of life’s troubles. It provides her with a place to live, pays her a very generous salary, and she probably sees herself climbing the organizational ladder and staying on for the duration. She is willing to sacrifice everything for this perceived safety.”

  “She is young and naive. There is no such thing as guaranteed safety, not even for government employees. That program might shut down for any number of reasons. There could be budget cuts, someone might discover the shady things the director is doing, the director might pass away, and so on.”

  “My thoughts exactly, but I didn’t point it out to her. She was too riled up to listen to reason, but I will bring it up next time, with your permission, of course.”

  “Why do you need my permission?”

  “I was getting to that. I have an idea for how to approach this situation, but naturally, it needs your approval.”

  “Go on.”

  “I checked with Bowen, and he says that Wendy is susceptible to thralling. He had no problem erasing the keep’s location from her head, and he verified that she had no recollection of where it was. We can test it further by erasing small memories.”

  “Where are you going with this?”

  “When Wendy realizes that her future would be much more secure with the clan than it could ever be with the program, she’ll no longer want to go back. She likes Vlad, and she doesn’t like hurting him, but she believes that she’ll be throwing her future away if she lets herself fall for him.”

  “If he was her fated mate, nothing else would have mattered.”

  Vanessa smiled. “Every person is different, Kian, and Wendy carries around baggage that would topple an elephant. She is clinging desperately to the only security she’s ever had.”

  “What do you suggest we do with her?”

  “Give her and Vlad another chance. Wendy loves nature, and she loves the mountains. I think we should send her and Vlad to our cabin, along with Ingrid and Richard and a couple of Guardians. It will provide a completely different environment from the
one she grew up in and from the paranormal program. It might help her see the world in a different light.”

  “Are you going to visit her there? I’m not a therapist, but I can’t see a lifetime of baggage getting cured by fresh mountain air.”

  “Of course not. I can have Skype sessions with her. But fresh mountain air combined with Vlad’s love might be the magic potion that Wendy needs.”

  “You’ll need to talk it over with Vlad. I doubt that he’s willing to give Wendy another chance.”

  “That’s why I’m heading to his place next. But I wanted to get your tentative approval first.”

  Cradling the unopened beer in his hands, Kian leaned forward. “Normally, I wouldn’t have minded giving Wendy another chance. But two issues give me pause. She managed to fool Edna, and that’s very troubling. I don’t think I could ever trust her. And the second issue is exposing Vlad to more heartache. If he gives her another chance and she disappoints him again, he’ll be crushed.”

  Vanessa sighed. “But at least he won’t live with what-ifs. He’ll have closure.”

  “And what about Edna?”

  “I have a theory about that, but I need more time with Wendy to be sure. It might be a coping mechanism that she’s developed.”

  “Like a split personality?” Kian popped the cap off the beer and lifted the bottle to his lips.

  Vanessa shook her head. “It would have to be more than that to fool Edna.”

  “Do you have a hypothesis?”

  “I talked with Edna, and from what she’s described, I suspect that Wendy flooded her own psyche with painful memories to distract her. The things that Wendy let Edna see convinced her that she knew the girl’s reasons for leaving the program, and since the next layer was all about suffering, Edna didn’t go digging deeper. She was sure that what she had seen was enough.”

  “That sounds like a very clever technique for someone as young as Wendy.”

  “Don’t forget that she’d spent months in the company of other paranormals, and she also got training on how to protect herself from mind invasions. She knew exactly what to do.”

  “Fascinating.” A light bulb went off in Kian’s head. “If little Wendy can protect her mind from getting invaded, then maybe there is a way to block Kalugal’s compulsion?”

  Vanessa smiled indulgently. “It’s not the same thing. Wendy is susceptible to thralling and shrouding like most humans. What I suspect she did was to throw a mental smokescreen over her emotions. That’s not going to help you against Kalugal.”

  “There must be a way.”

  “I’m sure there is. You can train your mind to resist, but it will take time and a lot of practice, and we don’t have anyone who can teach it.”

  “What about Lokan?”

  “He can compel humans, not immortals. In order to train your mind to resist compulsion, you need someone with that ability to keep attacking you with it. It’s like developing a mental muscle. You need resistance to grow it.”

  “Perhaps I can ask Annani, but that’s a long-term solution. Right now, I need to come up with a way to communicate with Kalugal while shielding myself from his compulsion.”

  “Easy. Compulsion is transferred through sound waves, so you can do the same thing that the Guardians in the blockade did. Put in earplugs and communicate with Kalugal via text.”

  Kian should have thought of that before, but he knew why he hadn’t.

  It was his damn pride.

  To tell Kalugal that from now on they would only communicate through text was like admitting his inferiority, which Kian loathed to do.

  Except, it seemed that there was no better option.

  32

  Vlad

  “Hello, Vlad. I’m glad that I caught you home.” Jackson’s mom walked in and put her purse on the counter.

  “Hi, Vanessa. Can I offer you a cup of coffee?” his mom asked.

  “Thank you. I could use a little boost.”

  His mother didn’t look surprised by Vanessa’s visit. Had she asked the therapist to come over and talk to him?

  Everyone was blowing this incident out of proportion. So a girl he used to like had betrayed his trust.

  Big deal.

  It happened all the time. Maybe not on such a grand scale, but whatever. It wasn’t as if they had been in a relationship. Vlad had known Wendy for a total of four days. He’d get over it.

  When the coffee was served, Vanessa and his mother chitchatted for several minutes, but he knew they were just trying to ease up into the real reason for Vanessa’s visit.

  “I went to see Wendy earlier.” Jackson’s mom put her coffee cup down and turned to him. “We had a long chat, and I think I can help her. Or rather we can help her together.”

  “With what?”

  “Wendy thinks that the only safe place for her is in the program. She doesn’t trust people. She’s afraid to form emotional connections because she expects everyone to let her down, and the program provides her with the security she’s never had before.”

  There was nothing in what Vanessa had said that made him want to forgive Wendy, let alone help her. “Why are you telling me that? If she was so happy there, let her go back to the program.”

  “I don’t think she was happy. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have jumped on the opportunity to escape. Later, she got scared and decided that it was a mistake.”

  Ever since he’d returned to the village, Vlad had been thinking a lot about Wendy’s motives for betraying her friends, and what Vanessa had suggested was one of the scenarios that he had come up with. But it hadn’t been the only one or the best. The one he’d eventually settled on was much more sinister than that.

  “Or Wendy might have tagged along because she was a mole, and the first chance she got, she called her boss and told him where he could find her friends. She’d been planning this for a long time, pretending to like me so she could manipulate me. Why would you want to help someone like that?”

  Vanessa nodded. “That had occurred to me as well. But even if that’s true, her motives are still the same. Her loyalty to the program comes from a place of fear. That’s the only home she knows, and that’s where she thinks she belongs. It’s her safety net. That’s an illusion, of course, but that’s what she believes. And because of things that happened in her past, she is willing to sacrifice everything for that false sense of security.”

  Vlad tried to imagine himself in Wendy’s shoes. The clan was his home, his family, and his safety net. Would he give all of that up for a girl? Even one whom he loved?

  He wasn’t sure.

  A guy like him would have a hard time surviving on his own in the human world, but that was because he looked like a damn vampire. Wendy was a pretty girl who could blend in anywhere.

  Except, she might have felt like an outcast on the inside, and that was what mattered.

  “How are we going to help her?” he heard himself asking.

  Vanessa rewarded him with a bright smile. “I’m so glad that you found it in your heart to forgive her, and that you are willing to give her another chance.”

  He shook his head. “I’m willing to help Wendy. I didn’t say that I forgave her.”

  “I understand. We will take it one step at a time. First thing we need to do is get Wendy out of the prison cell in the keep’s underground. She’s wilting in there, all alone, with nothing to do but watch television all day long. I convinced Kian to let us use the clan’s cabin. It’s an isolated location, so Wendy will have nowhere to run, but she will be surrounded by nature, which I believe will be therapeutic for her. You, Richard, and hopefully Ingrid will go with her, along with a couple of Guardians, of course.”

  Vlad wasn’t sold on the idea. “I’ve already missed several classes, and also shifts in the bakery. I can’t just pick up and go.”

  “I can write you a doctor’s note for your teachers, and I can talk to your boss about rescheduling your shifts.” She leaned toward him and winked. “He owes me a favor or two.�
�

  “When and how long?”

  “Let’s start with the weekend and see how it works. If, after that, you still don’t want anything to do with Wendy, we will send her back to the program.”

  That hadn’t been part of the deal. “I don’t want to be responsible for her future. It’s up to her to decide what she wants to do, and you and Kian can decide if you want to trust her.”

  Vanessa leaned even closer. “Let’s cut to the chase, Vlad. Do you have feelings for Wendy?”

  “I had. But then she used me and made a fool out of me.”

  “I think that they are still there, but you’ve been hurt, so you shoved them into a corner and built a wall around them to block them.”

  Unfortunately, Vanessa was right.

  “They can stay there until they shrivel and die.”

  “Or maybe they can come out and be given a new life. What if you and Wendy are fated for each other? Do you want to pass on this opportunity and have someone else attempt her induction?”

  She couldn’t have shocked him more if she had told him that he’d been elected President, and a limo was waiting outside to take him to the White House.

  “Is that what it's all about?” his mother asked. “You think that Wendy is the one for Vlad?”

  Vanessa nodded. “I’m not talking as a psychologist, and this is not my professional opinion. I’m talking as your friend, Stella, and as Vlad’s honorary aunt. Given the way things have been going since Amanda found Syssi, the Fates have been working overtime to find mates for us. I believe that it’s Vlad’s turn to find his happily ever after.”

  33

  Jacki

  Atzil wasn’t happy to share the kitchen. “I’ve been cooking for everyone since the very beginning, and I haven’t heard any complaints.” He cast a sidelong glance at Phinas. “Right?”

  Phinas lifted his hands in a peace sign. “I’m not complaining.”

  “It’s not about you.” Jacki put her hand on Atzil’s bulging bicep. The guy was built like a pro-wrestler and had the bearing of a drill sergeant with a buzz cut to match. “It’s about me. I will go nuts with nothing to do. I offered to do the laundry or wash the dishes, but Kalugal wouldn’t have it. Cooking for him, Phinas, and Rufsur was the only thing he agreed to.” She leaned closer. “But I can also be your kitchen helper. He doesn’t need to know. I can peel and cut and clean pots. I will make your life easier.”