“Ibrahim! Ibrahim!” I yelled as I ran through the woods.
Eventually I passed the spot where they were working on the renovations and the warlock came hurrying toward me.
I laid Xavier’s body down on the dirt path and Ibrahim bent over him.
“Corrine!” he shouted. “I’m going to need your help with this one.”
“Good grief,” Corrine murmured, taking in Xavier’s appearance.
“Please!” I gasped, falling to my knees. “Just tell me you can save him. Just say the words, I beg of you!”
But neither of them said anything to me. I closed my eyes. It was too painful to watch them struggle to save him. I just wanted to open my eyes again once they’d fixed him.
I heard Corrine calling more witches over to assist them. More than twenty minutes must have passed, with half a dozen witches muttering chants at the same time. The hope I had for his survival was slipping away from me by the second.
But then I reminded myself, I know my friend. And I know that he’s a survivor. So half an hour later, when he came to and sat up, part of me wasn’t surprised.
He looked around with a bewildered expression on his face. I rushed to him and grabbed his shoulders, pulling him into a tight embrace.
“Thank heavens,” I whispered. “How the hell did you end up in that submarine?”
“I-I…” He rubbed his eyes as if trying to clear his mind. “I crawled. My Elder left me for Sofia… it left me lying inside the temple. Somehow, I managed to crawl there undetected.”
As soon as he had regained enough balance to stand on his own two feet, he asked anxiously, “Where’s Vivienne?”
“She’s alive and on the island. I was just looking for her, in fact.”
And then he sped off into the darkness of the woods without another word. Trusting that Xavier would find Vivienne soon enough, I was eager to return to Sofia, to my new family.
She was where I had left her, in the clearing outside the Cells. She sat in a circle with Aiden, Ashley and Abby. Kyle, Ian and Anna also sat nearby along with two other couples; Cameron and Liana, and Gavin and Zinnia.
I’d noted Yuri and Claudia’s absence ever since we’d arrived back on the island. Though I didn’t need to put much thought into where they might be. Although our new Residences weren’t ready yet, I knew that any enclosed area would be more than suitable for their needs.
On seeing me approach, Abby shrieked with laughter. “Hello, Mr. Derek! I know what you and Sofia did…”
“Tell me, Miss Abby. What did we do?” Although I spoke to Abby, I looked at Sofia, a suggestive smile forming on my lips.
“You gave each other babies!” She pointed to the twins who were both resting in Aiden’s arms.
Sofia giggled and her face flushed, not quite as bright as it would have if she were still a human, but exceptionally bright for a vampire.
“Huh, really? Is that what happened now?” I sat down next to Sofia and pulled her between my legs, snaking my arms around her waist and holding her tight against my chest. “And is there anything wrong with that, Miss Abby?”
Sofia gripped my knee, begging me to stop encouraging Abby in front of everyone.
“Well, that depends how you did it, Mister. Did you pray to angels or”—Abby winked—“did you kiss her belly button?”
Everyone in the group roared with laughter.
“Oh dear, I kissed her belly button. Am I in trouble with you, Miss Abby?”
“Yes!” she squealed, wagging a finger at me. “Because that’s the gross one!”
“Oh dear, dear, dear,” I muttered, just loud enough for Sofia to hear. “Because I might just want to kiss her belly button again.”
Sofia shushed me, still giggling. I pressed my lips against the back of her cold neck and stood up, lifting her up with me. I held her hand and said to the others, “We’ll see you in a bit.”
Then I walked her over to a quiet spot in the woods, away from the construction sounds of wood clanking and glass chinking. I led her to a tree and pressed her against it. I caught her lips with mine and kissed her, tasting her coldness in my mouth.
“And now?” I looked down into her eyes, a serious expression falling over my face. “How will I ever kiss your lovely belly button again?”
She giggled, then touched my cheek and said, “More like, how am I going to breastfeed our babies while I’m a vampire? I don’t want them to grow up without ever having their mother’s milk. And how will I build sandcastles with them?”
“And what will happen when I’m an old man? You’ll want to swap me for a younger model,” I teased.
“But seriously, Derek.” She stopped laughing. “What are we going to do? I can’t remain a vampire.”
I stepped back from her a little and sighed. “I don’t know. My greatest fear is losing you again.”
“Well, the cure worked on both you and Kyle. Why shouldn’t it work on me? We’ve no evidence that I’m any different a vampire than you or Kyle were. Yes, I was turned in Cruor, and yes, I was an immune… but the whole point is that my immunity was broken down and I became normal. That’s how I was turned in the first place. And it’s the same disease. Plus, we have our immune, Anna. She won’t mind giving me some of her blood.”
The thought of Sofia undergoing the same torture I had made me ache inside. “The pain is excruciating. Unlike anything you can imagine. I don’t… I just don’t know if I can handle putting you through that,” I said.
“Well, Mr. Derek, you’re just going to have to toughen up if you ever want to kiss my belly button again.” She lifted my chin up so that I was facing her. She kissed my cheek and said, “Look, I’ve already been to hell and back. Believe me when I say that one more burn isn’t going to make a lot of difference.”
I grinned but couldn’t deny that her words hurt at the same time. “I guess not,” I said. “I haven’t exactly done a good job at keeping you safe from harm.”
“Oh, don’t go into this whole self-blame thing again. I knew what I was getting myself into when I married you.” She pulled my head down toward her and kissed me again. “Now, if it’s all right with you, I’d like to get this over with.”
Chapter 42: Derek
Aiden protested at first, but Sofia persuaded him. We left the twins with him and walked with Anna toward the Pit, the one tiny area of the island where the sun shone through. Others wanted to accompany us, but Sofia refused them all. She wanted only Anna and myself.