A Castle of Sand

by Bella Forrest

  “You guess?” I asked.

  “Well, no…I really am…sorry…”

  “Have you never apologized to a human before?” I raised a brow, amused by the sight of Derek being so uncomfortable.

  “Of course I have…” Derek widened his eyes at me defensively.

  “Well, what do you have to say to that?” I turned my head toward Gavin.

  “Uhh…I’m supposed to say something?” Gavin frowned.

  “Do you accept his apology?” I shrugged my shoulders in emphasis.

  “Do I have a choice not to?” The redhead boy grimaced. He looked just about as comfortable with accepting Derek’s apology as Derek was when making his. “What have you done to him?” he mouthed at me.

  I chuckled. “You two are ridiculous.”

  “Fine. I accept the apology. This is so weird.”

  Derek nodded in agreement. He then peered at me through his long, dark lashes. “I was hoping to have a word with Sofia. In private.”

  My gut clenched. How was I going to stay alone with Derek and not give in to the urge of blurting out everything I knew? Talking to Corrine suddenly seemed like the most desirable recourse at the moment. “I’d love that, Derek.” I grabbed Gavin’s arm when he began to turn to leave. “But I have to go talk to Corrine. I miss you…it’s just…”

  “When are you going to stop avoiding me, Sofia?”

  “I’m not avoiding…”

  “Yes, you are.” Even Gavin breathed the words out.

  I glared at my so-called friend. How dare you. Traitor.

  I faced Derek, both loving and hating the longing that I saw in his eyes. “Spend time with Gavin here. You two get to know each other.” I shoved Gavin forward. “I won’t be with Corrine too long.” I gave Derek a lingering look. “I’ll spend time with you right after. I promise.”

  “Let me take you there.” Derek volunteered.

  “No.” I shook my head. “I’d rather go alone. I need the long walk to think things through.”

  I knew I was tearing him apart. I felt the same way, but too much was going on—more than I could handle and being around him was the last thing I needed at that moment. “I’ll be back, Derek. Wait for me.”

  I left the guys to bond, finding their discomfort and awkwardness around each other rather amusing. Still, the amusement couldn’t erase weightier thoughts burdening my every waking thought.

  A culling. A revolt. A prophecy.

  A sandcastle on the verge of collapsing.

  Chapter 26: Derek

  I shifted my gaze from Sofia’s hurried, disappearing form to Gavin, who obviously had no idea what to do with the situation Sofia had just pushed both of us into. She definitely knows how to drive me crazy.

  “Would you rather be alone waiting for her?” he asked, sounding quite hopeful that I would say yes.

  “No.” I walked forward before nodding toward the direction of the dining area. “I think Sofia’s right. You’re getting quite close to her. Perhaps it’s best we have a talk.”

  He visibly gulped—something I found strange considering how defiant and confident he was around me before. Does he have something to hide now?

  “All right…” He nodded.

  We headed to the round dark wood table and I sat on one velvet-cushioned chair while he sat on another right across the table from me.

  “So what exactly does a Natural like me and a prince of The Shade like you talk about?”

  I was impressed by his guts to open up the conversation himself. “The only common ground we have right now, I believe, is Sofia.”

  “And you want to talk about her?”

  “I want to understand her.”

  “Well then, you’re asking the wrong person. Sofia is a mystery to me just as she is to everyone else. It’s like she has this thing about her that no one can really peg but you just get this unnatural urge to protect her and keep her safe. Like you’ll lose something precious if anything happens to her.”

  I stared at him, knowing fully well what he was talking about. “She’s special, isn’t she?” was all I could think of to say.

  “After seeing her calm you down the way she did, I’d have to say I agree.”

  “Sofia was right. You are very blunt and honest. Almost guileless. I can assume you’d be very straightforward with me if I asked you to, can’t I?”

  “It depends.” He shrugged. “Do you promise not to kill me in case you don’t like what you hear?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Considering that you were going to kill me earlier today, I think I need a better word of assurance than just a maybe.”

  “Fine. I won’t kill you, but do tell me…what do the humans really think about my relationship with Sofia?” I gave my question some thought, wondering if I even wanted to hear the answer to it. “What do you think?”

  “Why does it matter what I, or anyone else, think?”

  “It matters to me…because I think it matters to her.”

  “Okay then…honestly? Nobody here believes that what you have with Sofia will last.”

  I shook my head in disgust. “I hate hearing that. I’m so tired of everyone saying that—including her! You’re wrong…all of you…what we have should last.”

  “Will it? When she’s a wrinkled eighty-year-old woman and you’re still looking like that…will you still love her?”

  I opened my mouth to answer with a confident “Yes” but was distracted by a guard showing up by the door. It was one of Felix’s men.

  “The king summons you to the dome, your highness.”

  I rose to my feet, surprised that my father would call for me. I turned my eyes toward Gavin. I felt a strange sense of dread. “If she returns before me, tell Sofia that I’ll be back.”

  Gavin nodded. “Sure.”

  Every fiber of my being told me not to go, but I was already in enough trouble with my father. I didn’t want to irk him any further. I really should’ve just listened to my gut feeling.

  I was about to find out how grossly I had underestimated Gregor Novak.

  Chapter 27: Sofia

  I made myself comfortable in the red loveseat that Corrine had in her study. She was looking through some books when I arrived, black-rimmed glasses over the bridge of her nose as she looked up what was likely to be some ancient spell for another one of her projects.

  “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?” she asked as she shut the book she was holding and gave me her full attention.

  For the next ten minutes, I poured my heart out to her—my concerns over my relationship with Derek, the culling, the revolt…I told her everything, not withholding a single detail, giving her my complete trust.

  “I have no idea what I’m going to do, Corrine. The culling is wrong. How could the witch before you have just stood there and done nothing? Is there anything you can do to stop this? I mean, if these people go on with a revolt, they’re done for! It’s suicide…”

  Corrine patiently laid her palms over the top of the wooden desk she was seated behind. “There are some things you can’t change here at The Shade, Sofia. One of them is that the vampires need to feed on human blood. Take that away from them and everything falls apart.”

  “So it’s okay for them to massacre the weak and the defenseless?” I spat out.

  “Can you think of a better alternative?”

  I stared at Corrine with utter disbelief. “Well, yeah! Force the vampires to live on animal blood!”

  “Trust me, Sofia. That would cause more chaos than you can possibly wrap your mind around, but if that’s what has to happen.” She shrugged. “Then so be it.”

  I couldn’t understand her nonchalance. We were practically talking about genocide and she was just sitting there talking as if life didn’t matter. “I can’t believe it. Doesn’t life matter to anyone here at The Shade?”

  “It’s going to be over soon, Sofia,” was the only assurance I got from the witch.

  I stood from my seat and began p
acing the marble floor. “What does that even mean?” I muttered through gritted teeth.

  I could feel Corrine’s eyes on me as I paced the floor anxiously. I didn’t bother to hide my irritation from her. My heart broke just thinking of what a culling could mean for the people I’d begun to care about.

  “Do you have any idea why I’m here, Sofia?”

  I paused to glance her way. “Yeah. They took you from your university, because the last witch was about to pass away. They need you to keep the protective spell over the island going.”

  She chuckled dryly. “I could leave this island anytime I want. Derek knows that. You know that. Why do you think I don’t?”

  “I always assumed it’s because you want to look after the humans of The Shade, but considering how apathetic you are over this whole culling business, I’m not so sure anymore…” I was surprised by my own bluntness. Perhaps Gavin has begun to rub off on me.

  “That’s one reason, yes. I’ve tried to do my part in making the lives of the Naturals a bit more comfortable. As for the Migrates, there wasn’t much I could do for them. They were trapped prey inside a den of beasts from the moment they stepped onto the island. You weren’t supposed to survive, Sofia. You were supposed to get killed like everyone else. Derek Novak’s nature dictated that he suck the blood right out of you from the first moment he laid eyes on you, but he didn’t. Why is that?”

  I pursed my lips, unable to come up with an answer. I recalled the conversation I had with Vivienne when she risked her life—and lost it to the hunters—just to get me back to The Shade.

  “Derek thought he’d already fulfilled the prophecy when we established The Shade. The island, he thought, was our true sanctuary. Cora knew otherwise. She knew that he wasn’t done, so without his knowledge, she tacked on an end to her spell. Derek was to wake once it was time to find the girl who would help him fulfill his destiny. It was Corrine who signaled that he was about to wake and she made it very clear that the girls taken on a certain night were to be reserved for him.” Vivienne said.

  “My birthday…” I threw the words out there, remembering the way I felt that night.

  “Yes…your birthday…” she said the words as if she found it amazing that Lucas abducted me and brought me to The Shade on that particular day. “Derek hadn’t fed on human blood for four centuries. You couldn’t possibly understand how difficult it was for him not to feed on you. When he slammed you against that pillar, I thought you were done for. But he spared you. I don’t know what you told him, but you got to him in a way no other person was ever able to. Not our father or our brother or me or even Cora was able to get through to him the way you did…”

  The conversation I was having with Corrine felt eerily similar to that conversation I had with Vivienne at the coffee shop near the stadium where Ben was having his championship football game. I remembered how I felt back then, how confused I was when Vivienne looked me in the eye and told me that I wasn’t just a pawn present at The Shade to keep the board moving. I was “the queen.”

  I looked at Corrine and answered her question. “I’m the girl meant to help him fulfill the prophecy.” That was the moment I snapped out of my denial and actually embraced that what Vivienne told me at the coffee shop could actually be real.

  “Exactly.” Corrine nodded. “I am the final witch, Sofia. After me, there will be no other. The prophecy has to be fulfilled in my lifetime, or The Shade will no longer have anyone from my lineage powerful enough to keep it protected. I chose to be here because I want to watch it all unfold. To be honest, I doubted the prophecy. I doubted that Derek could bring the prophecy to completion. He seemed too far gone in darkness—like Claudia and Lucas, Felix and Gregor—vampires who have lost all touch of their humanity and conscience. I took one look at Derek’s sleeping form when I first came here at The Shade and I scoffed. I saw so much darkness in him. I convinced myself that Cora believed what she wanted to believe about him because of her famed unrequited love for Derek…”

  I frowned at that statement. Cora was in love with Derek?

  “After I saw the way Derek was with you, however,” Corrine continued, “I had to believe that there was still goodness in him. He wasn’t too far gone.” She must’ve noticed the glazed look on my eyes, because she furrowed her brows and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “I just had no idea…Cora and Derek?”

  “I thought you knew. Derek was the love of Cora’s life. Everything she did for The Shade was out of her love for him. He never did quite return her love though—not the way she wanted to at least. He protected her. She was his best friend, but no…he never loved her, not the way he loved you.”

  My heart broke for Cora, and yet to be once again assured that I was the love of Derek’s life was something that made my spirits soar.

  “For a time, Cora thought that she was the woman who would help him fulfill the prophecy. It took years before she realized and accepted that she wasn’t and that his heart would never be hers. I think you already know this, Sofia, but Derek has been with countless women throughout his lifetime, but he never did fall in love until you came along.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but no words came out. How was a girl to respond to a revelation like that? To my relief, it seemed I didn’t need to come up with a reply, because within seconds of her finishing her last statement, Corrine’s brown eyes grew wide with utter panic as she stood on her feet, her hands clutching the edge of the desk until her knuckles grew a pale white.

  “Corrine?” I asked, my concern immediate.

  She swallowed hard. “Something’s wrong. Something is very, very wrong…”

  Before I could even react, a blow to my head knocked me unconscious and everything that surrounded me succumbed to darkness—a phenomenon that seemed inevitable in a place like The Shade.

  Chapter 28: Derek

  Over the past five hundred years, my father had already given me many reasons to hate him, but I never did quite hate him as much as I did that night.

  I was intrigued to say the least. I was no fool. I was gearing myself up for a fight—an argument at the least—once I reached the dome, but what greeted me was something that was far beyond my expectations.

  The moment I walked through the large oak doors of The Shade, multiple tranquilizer rifles—the same ones used by hunters—were fired at me before six guards jumped at me to chain me up and restrain me from fighting back. I was still able to severely maim one of the guards who attacked me, but I was outnumbered and weakened by the suppression serums the tranquilizer darts injected into my system. It was the same serum used to inhibit a vampire’s healing abilities—the same one used on Claudia when she was whipped for her defiance toward me. The serum also worked to suppress a vampire’s strength.

  Five chains were placed on me—my neck was shackled, my wrists and my ankles. The five guards who jumped on me were holding the other ends of the chains, all of them pulling on opposite directions. It felt like they were trying to tear me apart. The guard I was able to take down was still writhing in pain on the ground, severely wounded, as he clutched a chain that I figured must’ve been for my waist. I knew them. Felix’s men.

  I glared at my father. “What’s going on?” I hissed as I tried to fight against the restraints.

  Seated on his throne, my father smirked at me. “How the mighty have fallen…this is just a father giving his son a lesson in humility,” he said as he leaned back and crossed his legs, wicked glee evident in his eyes.

  “Do you really think you can kill me without the rest of the Elite destroying you for it?” I spat at him.

  “Kill you? There are worse ways to make you suffer than just end your life, son.”

  I pulled against the chains, mainly to gauge just how strong the guards were. I couldn’t remember seeing any of them at the training grounds. I wondered then if Felix had been doing training of his own. The guards were strong, perhaps the best he had.

  My father rose from his seat
and began walking down the balcony to the stand where I was restrained.

  I glared at him as he approached. “What do you want?”

  “A trusted source of mine revealed to me that some of the Naturals are planning to incite a revolt. The key people are being arrested as we speak. We don’t want them to get in our way once we conduct the culling tomorrow.”

  My stomach turned. Tomorrow?! How could I have not known that? “No one told me that plans have been finalized for the culling!”

  “Not many knew. We couldn’t risk you and those whom we know are loyal to you finding out about the plans and getting in our way. Considering how you’re practically bordering on treason on behalf of that human of yours, it’s hard to trust you, son. You understand, right?”

  I once again pulled at the chains. The guard holding down the chain on my right wrist budged. I smirked, noting a weakness. I shifted my glare back to my father. “I have nothing to do with the revolt. Why restrain me here when you need military force to conduct the culling and take down the inciters of the revolt?”

  “Because I doubt you would do anything to punish one of the key people leading the revolt.”

  Realization dawned on me. Sofia. All I could do was scream as I pulled on my restraints, making all five of the guards holding me down tense as they tried to keep hold of the chains. “I swear if you do anything to harm her…” Several curses flew from my lips. “No! What are you going to do to her?!”

  “Give her the punishment any rebel deserves. Make an example of the little fool. They’re all being hauled to the town square, where they will receive fifty lashes each.”

  I remembered the way Claudia’s back looked after receiving thirty lashes. Despite the suppression serum inhibiting her ability to heal, a vampire was still much more capable of taking that much pain. “There’s no way she’s going to survive that many lashes!”