I’d just finished a rather tough fight with one of the best fighters we had—Xavier Vaughn—when a familiar face showed up at the training grounds.
Ashley. I hadn’t dared visit her since her turning, but I’d kept up-to-date with her through Kyle and Sam. It was strange seeing her and not getting that intense craving to feed on her. She looked incredible as a vampire, her brown eyes having a far more brilliant sheen than they used to.
“Hey, baby vampire,” I greeted her, ignoring the irritated look on her face.
“New harem girls, Derek? Really?”
Xavier, while still trying to catch his breath from our fight, raised a brow at her. He usually skipped formalities and called me by name, but as far as he and the rest of the citizens of The Shade were concerned, a new vampire had no business calling me by name.
I gestured toward Xavier to tell him that it was alright. “Let’s take a walk, shall we, Ashley?”
“Why can’t we have the conversation right here?” She animatedly planted her hands on her hips, her long blonde ponytail sashaying with her every move.
Xavier’s eyes grew wide with interest as he whispered, “Feisty girl…”
Ashley squinted her eyes at him. “I heard that.”
She was causing a commotion and the other trainees were now gathering around. I chuckled dryly as I turned around to leave.
“Where are you going?!” She ran after me.
“Somewhere we can talk without you getting yourself killed.”
Her face paled, realizing how much trouble she’d gotten herself into only moments ago. “Oh shoot…I keep on forgetting that you’re some sort of legendary royalty here at the Shade.”
“You’re a vampire now. You can’t forget that.”
We began to walk through the forest, aimlessly traveling along the stony terrain, past the giant redwoods that filled the island.
“You didn’t even bother to check on me,” she said with a pout after a long silence. It was a reminder that in spite of her newfound immortality, she still was a seventeen-year-old teenager. “I mean, I can understand if you don’t, but Sofia?”
“Didn’t either Kyle or Sam tell you that I forbade her to go see you?”
“Well, yeah…they did, but since when did you forbidding Sofia to do something keep her from doing it?”
I changed the subject. “So is it what you thought it would be…being a vampire?”
“Let’s just say that I wished I had listened to you the night of my turning.”
I bowed my head, truly feeling sorry for her.
“Did you choose to be turned?” she asked.
I shook my head. “My father turned me. He took me by surprise. He did the same thing to Vivienne. As for Lucas…well, I never really got the complete story about how my father managed to turn him.”
“Does the craving ever disappear?”
I let out a dry laugh. “No, Ashley. It’s in your nature to be a predator now. You need to learn control. It’s possible. Vivienne did it. She never once drank human blood. Ever.”
“And she just lived on animal blood? I can’t stand it! Compared to human blood…”
I grabbed her by the wrist in surprise. “You’ve had human blood?”
“Yes…I…”
“You’ve killed.”
She shook her head, her eyes showing how nervous she was. “No. I drank blood from the chilling chambers.”
The mention of the chambers only reminded me of the culling and the reason behind Sofia’s avoidance of me.
“There isn’t enough left to sustain The Shade…we consume too much blood. There are too many of us now. The Naturals are in constant danger of a vampire losing it and going after them, but we can’t go on with the abductions either…”
“And yet there are still three girls in your harem now.”
“I didn’t want that. I had them sent to Sofia to help her out in The Catacombs. I haven’t seen them since.”
“So you haven’t been seeing Sofia?”
My silence was enough of an answer.
“Why?”
I told Ashley about the culling, about why I thought it was necessary. “If I let the culling happen, do you think Sofia will ever be able to forgive me?”
Ashley was quiet for quite some time as we walked on. “She’s been able to forgive you for a lot. I don’t even think she’ll blame you, but I think it will definitely wreck her. Gwen’s death was something that she took quite heavily. For months, she had to spend every day having those psychological treatments with Corrine in order to get through that. Imagine what a murder of that scale would do to her.”
“If I stop the culling, what happens? How do we survive?”
Ashley grew silent once again. As we walked on, she eventually admitted, “I don’t think I can live on animal blood, Derek.”
My jaw clenched. “I don’t know if I can either.”
We continued to walk in silence, allowing ourselves to mull over what was about to come and what we ought to do about it. It didn’t take long before we bumped into Cameron and Liana, holding hands. Liana was laughing over something Cameron whispered in her ear.
I always did envy the couple from the moment I met them. Both of them had been turned not long after Liana gave birth to their second child—a daughter. Their firstborn was a son. They spent the first decades of their lives as vampires securing a future for their children, while still being away from them. They couldn’t risk losing control around the kids, so they had to leave the children with trusted friends. To that day, they still knew and kept track of their children’s descendants spanning centuries upon centuries of beautiful, loving families.
Whenever I saw Cameron and Liana together, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would’ve been like to fall in love before I had become what I was.
If Sofia would just agree to become a vampire, we could be like them.
I shook the thought away. I once again chastised myself for still entertaining the notion. I shifted my focus back to the couple whom we were quickly approaching.
Liana’s face broke into a smile at the sight of us. Still, I didn’t miss the hint of concern in her eyes. Even Cameron was looking at me worriedly. They were two of our family’s closest friends and most loyal allies. Next to Sofia and Vivienne, they knew me better than most vampires at The Shade.
“So this is the newest addition to our coven…” Cameron eyed Ashley knowingly. “How do you find being a bloodsucker so far?’