Sofia was the one who pulled away from the kiss. I didn’t even realize it until she called me out on it. “Derek…are you crying?”
I tried to hold the tears back, but I couldn’t. At the sight of the blood trickling from her neck and from her wrist, I couldn’t help but break down right in front of her. “How can we stay this way, Sofia?”
“The cure will work.” She nodded, sounding like she was wishing it instead of actually believing it to be true. “When it does, you won’t have to do this anymore.”
Suddenly, it felt like everything I had, everything I wanted, everything I was and could be, hung on this cure—a cure created by the hunters, whom I neither believed in nor trusted. A cure that I doubted could be true, much less possible.
Still, seeing the hopeful expression on my lovely girl’s face, I couldn’t help but adopt her hope. “I pray the cure works.”
“It will, Derek. It will.”
Neither of us missed the lack of conviction in her words. I wanted to believe in the cure as much as she seemed to, but I was afraid to hang my hopes on what could most likely be just some ploy for the hunters to discover The Shade.
“I hope you’re right, Sofia, because if you’re not… I honestly think it will be the end of…” I hesitated, not wanting to hurt her any more than I already had.
“Of what, Derek?” She stepped backward, away from me, so that she could see the expression on my face. She was hurt and I knew it. “You? Us?”
“Everything.”
CHAPTER 38: AIDEN
What the hell is wrong with you, Claremont? You just let your daughter run loose with the most powerful vampire alive—the same vampire you know is craving her blood, the same vampire you just saw attack her.
I glared at the guards standing by the doorway to the caves they brought me to—apparently my daughter’s quarters.
It’s not like I have any choice.
I leaned against the backrest of the recliner situated in her living room. I could hear the clinking of utensils as the girl named Rosa kept herself busy preparing food in the kitchen. She was accompanied by Lily, a widow with two children—who all seemed to have lived at The Shade their whole lives. They’d already prepared a meal earlier that day, one I barely ate due to my anxiety over what was happening to Sofia. I kept pacing the floor, tormented by worst case scenarios regarding what the vampire could possibly be doing to my daughter. At some point, I took a nap, only to wake up and find the place still as dim as night, with Rosa and Lily cooking another meal—dinner she said.
One of Lily’s children approached me. She was introduced to me as Madeline, five years old. She had red hair that reminded me of Sofia’s when she was just about the same age.
Madeline sat on the couch across from mine and stared at me. She was making me highly uncomfortable. “Does the sun ever rise here?” I asked her in a serious tone, hoping to scare her away.
She tilted her head to the side. “What’s the sun?” she asked.
“You know… That big, shining light up in the sky…”
“You mean the moon?” She tilted her head to the side in thought. “Well, Mama rarely ever lets Rob and me out of The Catacombs, but when she does, I get to see the moon and the stars. I love it when the moon smiles.” She gave me one big grin, showing me how she was missing one of her front teeth. “I’ve only seen the moon. No one ever told me about the sun—not even Gavin and he’s out of The Catacombs a lot. The vampires like him.”
“And they don’t like you?” I raised a brow.
“Well, I don’t know. Mama tells me to stay away from them. Ashley seems to like me though and so do Kyle and Sam, but Mama scolds me whenever I play with them. Gavin’s my older brother and he gets to hang out with the vampires all the time—especially after he became friends with Sofia.”
“Madeline, don’t bother our visitor…” Lily reprimanded, trying to pull the little girl away from me. She eyed me warily and smiled. “I’m so sorry, sir. She’s normally not so comfortable around strangers, but she seems to like you a lot.”
“He’s Sofia’s father, Mama. And he’s human…he won’t bite me.”
My heart went out to the five year old and the young mother trying to keep her in check. “How long have you been here, Lily?”
The dark-haired beauty bowed my way. “All my life, sir. I’m a Natural. We were born here. So were my parents and their parents before them.”
“You have a lovely daughter.”
Sadness traced her eyes. “Aye. It’s why I fear for her so much. Loveliness is a dangerous thing to have here, especially for a young girl like her.”
My heart broke. I wanted to offer the young woman consolation, but I knew that I couldn’t offer her salvation even if I had wanted to. Those captured by vampires as slaves were considered dead to us. We annihilated them right along with the coven. If a hunter wanted to bother saving loved ones taken by vampires, they had to find a way to do it on their own accord, at their own risk.
“It’s been a lot better since Sofia came. We never thought she would survive after being caught up in the rebellion, but she did…” Lily smiled at me. “Your daughter saved a lot of lives. That day at the town square when Derek’s father—he used to be our king…”
“Gregor Novak.” I recalled.
Lily nodded. “Yes. Him. He wanted Sofia flogged—right along with my son and several of the other young Naturals who started the revolt. We all thought it would be end of her. Her fragile body couldn’t have taken all those blows. My heart leaped when Derek took the lashes for her. His back was unrecognizable after—could barely tell which part was skin and which part bones… It was an awful sight, but we all knew then that he loved her and that as long as they were together, life here at The Shade would never be the same again. I never thought I’d hear myself saying that I love a vampire, but any vampire who is good in Sofia’s book is good in mine.”
“We like Sofia,” Madeline piped up. “Even my brother, Rob, likes Sofia and he doesn’t like many girls at all. He’s seven, you see. Andrea tried to kiss him and he was mighty angry about that.”
I listened to the two talk on and on about my daughter and her heroic feats on the island. I hung on to their every word, not knowing what to make of what they were telling me. I wasn’t sure I liked hearing how beloved Sofia was at The Shade. Their stories forced me to realize what I was taking from Sofia by forcing her away from the island and away from Derek.