I actually meant it.
CHAPTER 18: SOFIA
She betrayed me. I knew that I was a fool to trust Ingrid, but I did… I gave her another chance and she blew it. I couldn’t understand her.
I found the garden through, the secret passageways Ingrid had told me about. I thought that I was free when I reached open air, only to find Aiden waiting for me.
“Ingrid told me you’d try to escape,” he said through gritted teeth.
I wanted to tell him that it was Ingrid who showed me the way, but I had the inkling that he might’ve already known that. Why would she give me the means to escape only to rat me out to Aiden on the night of my escape? Aiden grabbed me by the arm and practically dragged me to my room. I sat back on the couch inside my living room, watching as Aiden paced the floor in front of me, flaming mad.
“I trusted you, Sofia,” he said.
“Since when?” I practically spat the words out. “You’re keeping me prisoner here, Aiden. I want to go back to Derek.”
“Forget him, Sofia! As long as I am alive, you and him will never be together!”
Tears were brimming my eyes as I shook my head. “You don’t understand what you’re saying. You don’t know how impossible it is for me to forget Derek. We belong together. You don’t know what’s at stake as long as you keep us apart.”
“If he wanted to be with you, Sofia, why isn’t he here? Why did he leave? If he thought that it was better for you to be together than apart, why then is he not making a move to get back to you?”
He was preying on my deepest fears and doubts, but I couldn’t let him. I knew what I had with Derek was real. If he wasn’t coming to me, then there was a damned good reason why and I wasn’t about to sit there and doubt everything we had, because he wasn’t coming through for me the way I had wanted him to. I stared up at my father, not knowing what to say in answer to his questions.
“Well?” he pried, perhaps thinking that he gained some ground with me.
“I believe in Derek in a way I could never bring myself to believe in you.”
“What did that man feed you to make you so obsessed with him?” His words were cutting like a knife, but he didn’t seem to care. “Is it the fact that you seemed to have already gulped gallons of his blood or is it because you’ve already willingly fed him gallons of yours? He is immortal, Sofia. How could you ever be together? Unless…” His eyes widened with shock and accusation. “You’ve thought about it, haven’t you? You’ve considered getting turned.”
I ground my teeth with the pressure I was feeling from my father. Exhausted by everything that was happening and consumed by my desire to be with Derek, I spat the truth out before I could bite my tongue. “Yes. I have. Not only have I considered it, I have been turned. Multiple times. Derek tried to turn me when he was still here with me, and yet, here I am…still human.”
Aiden’s eyes widened with horror as he tried to process what I had just told him.
“Don’t look so surprised, Father. It’s not like you didn’t know.” I couldn’t hide the spite in my voice. “You knew that the reason I was so sick after Camilla left was because as a child, she gave me to Borys Maslen. He tried to turn me when I was nine years old so that I could be his forever, but he failed. Claudia tried to turn me back at The Oasis, but she failed. Derek tried to turn me. He, too, failed. So don’t worry, Father. You never have to worry about me becoming one of the creatures you’re relentlessly trying to rid the planet of.”
Aiden looked horrified, then it became clear to me that he knew nothing about what I was talking about—about me being immune.
I creased my brows as we both stood at a standstill that seemed to last for eternity. “You didn’t know…” I eventually said.
“It’s impossible.” He shook his head. “How could that be true? How could anyone be immune from the curse?”
He was looking at me like I was some sort of rare specimen that he accidentally stumbled upon. I began to wonder what implications came with the news that I had just revealed.
“Sofia… You’re immune from being a vampire? How is that possible?”
“Perhaps there’s a cure…” I found myself voicing out the thought that’d been circling my mind ever since Derek failed to turn me. Images of the confused look on his face when he realized that I could never be one of his kind. I fought the urge to give in to the doubts I felt about him leaving. Did he leave because he realized that I could never be immortal? Did he give up on us? The thoughts were too painful to continue mulling over. I shifted my focus back to Aiden. “What if there’s a cure? I escaped vampirism… Maybe Derek can too.”
Aiden shook his head, brushing away my musings. “No. There’s no cure. Curses don’t have cures.” His voice choked and I could swear that a part of him wished that there indeed was a cure, but he was stubborn in his resolve as a hunter. “Stop this, Sofia. Stop buying into all these delusions that you can be with that bastard.”
This time, it was my turn to be stubborn and firm. “No, Aiden. I think there’s a cure and trust me when I say I’m never going to stop until I find it. If it’s the only way we can be together, then so be it. Derek will become immune too.”
CHAPTER 19: DEREK
I stared at Corrine for a couple of seconds, my mind reeling. Don’t you think I want that? Don’t you think I want Sofia here with me? But there was no way I could bring Sofia back. I didn’t even know where hunter headquarters was.
“I want her here. You know that,” I reiterated to Corrine, “but right now, I need to get The Shade back into shape…starting with this lockout. I need the humans back at their posts before the island crumbles.”
“And what if Felix and his men randomly begin attacking people again?”
“I’ll post guards over the Vale and all the other establishments to make sure nobody hurts the humans.”
Corrine scoffed at this. “You’re going to post vampires to stand guard over humans? Do you really think they’ll agree to that?”
“They won’t have a choice. I’m their king.”
“They have a choice to join your father and Felix in rebellion. Besides, if you have the guards and knights posted mainly at the Vale, how are you going to guard the Crimson Fortress, which we cannot, under any circumstances, allow your father’s men to occupy?”