I bit my lip as I stared at him. I wanted so badly to ask him how he ended up at the Shade, how long he’d been there, what he’d been through, but I still wasn’t sure I was ready to hear about it all, so I just began blabbering about the sun room instead.
“Derek told me that he hadn’t seen sunlight in five hundred years. I could swear he missed it, so that’s where I got the idea, and…”
Ben withdrew his hand from the mural he was touching and admiring. It was as if the mention of Derek being involved in the creative process suddenly made the mural unappealing.
“So you did this for him?” He asked incredulously.
“Well, yeah…” I admitted. “That - and I also missed the sun.” I tried to use a perkier tone to lighten the mood. I didn’t like where the conversation was going.
“How could you do anything for him? For any of their kind?” His tone was accusing and intense. “You’re his slave, Sofia. How could you live with that?”
I didn’t have the answers to the questions he was throwing my way. What could I possibly say to him? That Derek was different? That he wasn’t like the others? All I knew was that over the past weeks that I’d been there, Derek had begun to mean the world to me. Even after what he did earlier, and no matter how hurt and confused I was by it, I still had trouble seeing Derek in a negative light. Not after everything we’d been through. How could I even begin to explain this to Ben? I wrapped my arms around Ben’s waist from behind, hoping to take his thoughts away from the vampires just as much as I wanted to take my thoughts away from Derek.
“Let’s just forget about them for now, can we please? I missed you so much.”
“I can’t just forget, Sophie. You have no idea what that bitch Claudia put me through.”
There was an edge to his tone. Jaded. Broken. Cynical. There was no sorrow left. Just pure hatred. Completely unlike the happy-go-lucky Ben I used to know. He turned around to face me, his blue eyes blazing with bitterness and spite.
“I never would’ve thought that it would be you – the girl Claudia’s been harping on about, the human who stole the vampire prince’s heart. You couldn’t possibly understand how much it crushes me to see that you were taken captive too, that their kind can ruin you any way they please. And after everything, it almost seems like you’ve fallen in love with him.”
I swallowed hard. Fallen in love? With Derek? I couldn’t lie to myself. I knew I was in danger of falling for him, but whether that had happened already… whether I’d actually fallen for him I still wasn’t sure of. I felt as if I didn’t need to defend whatever it was that I had with Derek to Ben, nor did I want to, so I focused on Ben instead. I knew that there was no escaping where this conversation was going. I heaved a sigh gearing myself up for the worst.
“What happened to you, Ben? How did you get here? What has she been doing to you?”
There was a long pause before Ben heaved a sigh and began to explain. “You didn’t return to the villa the night of your birthday. I was worried sick. I waited for you and when dawn came and you still weren’t around, I started looking for you. That’s when she found me. She took me to her penthouse and I’d been there since. This was the first time she’d allowed me out after I tried to escape.”
My stomach was in knots, as I ran through my mind what pain his attempted escape might have brought him. I had no idea how lucky I was to be with Derek.
“You…you tried to escape? What happened?”
A bitter smile formed on his face. “See for yourself.”
He pulled off his white woolen shirt.
I gasped at the sight, tears spilling from my eyes, as I clamped a palm over my mouth.
His upper torso was practically covered in scars as cut after cut marred his body. I trembled even as I ran a finger over one of them.
“How were you able to survive this, Ben?”
“That’s the last round of torture that you see. She used a dagger to cut me, deep enough to scar, but shallow enough not to cause internal damage. The first two rounds of torture, she beat me up to a bloody pulp and then made me drink her blood so I could heal so she could torture me again.”
It took everything I had to keep myself from vomiting. Tears were dripping down my cheeks, horrified by what he had to go through.
“These creatures are evil savages, Sofia. All of them. They don’t have a conscience just as much as they don’t have a life. You might think that this prince of theirs has a heart in him somewhere, but he doesn’t, Sofia. No matter how he’s taken care of you, he’s still a vampire. And whenever he lays his eyes on you, all he sees is a beautiful young woman he can sink his teeth into.”
And yet… he hasn’t. No matter how tempted he was, he never gave in. I looked up at my best friend, wanting to agree with him, but still finding my inner conscience standing in defense of Derek. It made me feel guilty, because after all Ben had been through, it felt like he deserved to have me on his side on this, but all I could think of was the smile on Derek’s face and the way he looked at me when he motioned to kiss me. No matter how I tried to recall, the times that I could consider negative about my captor, I found that I didn’t have it in me to see Derek as a savage… simply because that wasn’t what he was.
“I can’t blame you for thinking that. Claudia certainly is,” was the compromise I could come up with to appease my best friend.
“But you think your prince isn’t?”
“Derek has his flaws, but he’s far from being a savage.”
Ben responded by cupping my face with his large hands and planting a kiss over my forehead.
“You’re wrong, Sofia, and for your sake, I hope we could find a way out of here before his true colors come out.”
“Well, well, well…what do we have here?”
As if the thoughts Ben was laying on me weren’t enough of a burden to bear, I now had to hear the blood-curdling sound of Lucas’ voice.
“You’re one naughty girl, Sofia. I hate it enough when I see Derek touch you, but now this?”
Before I could even start formulating a response, Lucas had both Ben and I backed up against a wall, his powerful hands keeping us both in place by our necks. Lucas’ glare settled on Ben.
“If it isn’t Claudia’s slave… Weren’t you the one serving us during those pleasurable rendezvous that I spent with your mistress?”
Ben struggled vainly against Lucas’ grasp. However, we both knew that there wasn’t much he could do to harm Lucas.
“Welcome to the Pavilion, boy,” Lucas grinned, showing amusement over Ben’s failure to get away from him. “First lesson you ought to learn is that you never touch what’s mine. Even though my brother still thinks that he owns her, Sofia is mine.”
Ben spat on his face. “Sofia is neither yours nor your brother’s. She belongs with me.”
I shot a surprised look his way, not quite knowing what to make of that statement. I didn’t have much time to mull over what he just said though, because infuriated by Ben’s insolence, Lucas growled and hurled Ben to the other side of the room. Ben’s head hit the wall and he fell to the ground unconscious. I let out a scream and tried to rush towards Ben, but Lucas’ cold grip held me back.
Lucas’ manic glare focused on me. “I think it’s time I got what I want from you. It’s been long enough. Don’t you agree, Sofia?”
CHAPTER 26: DEREK
What have I done? After that stunt I pulled with her, I might as well have just delivered her to that boy on a silver platter.
From the moment I left Sofia trembling in my bed, I’d done nothing but chastise myself for what I did up to the very point I found myself wandering back to the penthouse, feeling like I’d just lost Sofia. I couldn’t believe myself. I actually accused her of being with Lucas, whom I was certain was the person tormenting her over the past weeks, out of my jealousy over this friend of hers. I walked all around the Blood Shade, hoping to clear my mind, but not succeeding in achieving that goal at all. If anything, I was more confused t
han ever, because during my walk and the time I spent thinking, only made me paranoid enough to think up every scenario possible upon my return. I was actually gearing myself up to stop myself from ripping someone’s head off in case I found Sofia sleeping with this friend of hers.
Get a grip, Derek. I kept telling myself. I was being irrational. Sofia said the boy was her best friend. I believed her. Then I’d remember how she looked at him… how I was certain that she never looked at me that way before and my paranoia would once again kick in. There’s no way that boy is ‘just a friend’.
I only returned to the Pavilion after I felt I was ready for the worst possible scenario upon reaching the penthouse, but nothing could’ve prepared me for what I found upon my return. The first thing I noticed was Sam and Kyle waking up from unconsciousness on the living room floor.
“What happened?!” I yelled, though I already had a clear enough idea of what occurred there.
“Sun…room,” was all Sam managed to say. “Ben’s…there…too.”
My gut clenched. I actually felt betrayed that Sofia would be with any other person in the sun room who wasn’t me. I forced my jealousy aside, knowing that something was wrong and that I had to get my head on straight, but there was no way to prepare myself to see Ben’s unconscious form on the ground and hear Sofia’s whimpers as she tried in vain to push my brother away from her.
Lucas had her up a wall, naked from the waist up, as his teeth sank into her neck, his hands freely groping her body, obviously enjoying the sensations the feel of her provided as he greedily drank her blood.
I lost all sense of control as I attacked my brother, making a huge crack on the wall when I pushed him into it.
Lucas actually had the gall to laugh. I punched him in the face with such great force, I half-expected his neck to crack from the way his face swung violently to the side.
I was sure that he had gone completely mad based on the wild expression on his face. I was wrong.
He knew exactly what he was doing. “I can’t let you have her, brother,” he spat at me – a mixture of her blood and his own. “I will lose everything the moment she becomes completely yours.”
I didn’t understand what he was saying. I didn’t want to. I just wanted to end him, end this bitter rivalry we’d had for so many years. It was clear that I was far more powerful than he was, because his struggles to get away from me didn’t do him any good. I retrieved the wooden stake I kept on my person all the time.
“Is that the wooden stake? The same one you kept from all those years of being a shadow hunter?”
Lucas showed no fear. I knew that he knew me well enough to know how important family was to me, but he grossly underestimated how important Sofia had become to me. After all that time I spent weighing who mattered more to me – my brother or Sofia, at that moment, the choice was crystal clear: I had every intention of stabbing that stake through his heart – if only to protect the woman I loved.
I caught my own thoughts. I tensed at the realization. The woman I loved. That’s how I saw Sofia. Now that Lucas had tasted her blood, he would always be after her, though I was certain that he’d been after her since the night of the attack. I had no doubt in my mind that it was him who hurt Sofia and killed Gwen. I hated that I was too much of a coward to face him. This was my fault.
I raised the stake and targeted my brother’s heart.
The smirk on his face disappeared when he realized I had every intention of killing him. He had simply gone too far. He actually cowered in fear when I made the motion to stab him. Relief washed over his face when someone stood to his defense.
“Derek, no…”
At first, I thought it was Vivienne, but it wasn’t. I would know Sofia’s soft voice anytime I heard it.
“You’re not safe from him,” I hissed through gritted teeth.
“I never was.” She panted.
I could tell from the way she spoke that she was conflicted, most likely debating against her own reasons for keeping me from driving that stake into Lucas’ heart.
“Then why should he live?! He has to die!”
Sofia’s answer reminded me why I adored her so much.
“If you kill your own brother, Derek, you might never be able to forgive me. Or worse than that, you might never be able to forgive yourself.”
She knew me – all sides of me – but she never treated me like a creature of the dark. When she looked at me, it felt as if she still saw someone capable of light.
I dropped the stake and loosened my hold on my brother. He lost no time in taking advantage of what he most likely perceived as a momentary lapse of sanity and rushed out of the room. He hasn’t changed at all. Lucas was a coward and a bully. He never did stand up to those who were more powerful than him, but he found enjoyment in preying on the weak.
That was why I was certain that as long as she was at the Blood Shade, Sofia would never be safe.
Lucas would stalk her and hunt her like he would an animal. He wouldn’t relent until he’d had his fill of her. Unless I killed him.
I flinched when I felt her soft hand brush up my arm. I turned around and forced myself to look at her. She tossed the pieces left of her night shift over herself to try and cover up her bare upper torso. I ripped off my shirt immediately and pulled it over her head. I once again made a cut on my palm and made her drink my blood. It was at that moment that I realized that her friend was already awake, watching us – specifically me – with untrusting eyes.
I ignored him, and waited for Sofia’s wounds to heal, my eyes fixed particularly on Lucas’ bite marks on her neck. “I’m so sorry, Sofia. I failed you again.”
She looked so pale and weak from the attack, as she shook her head. “No, Derek. You saved me… again.”
“Sofia…did he rape you?” I couldn’t look into her eyes when I asked the dreaded question.
The question obviously broke her heart and I hated that I had to ask it. She shook her head.
“No. He didn’t,” she assured me.
However, I could tell somehow that he had done everything but. It sickened me that I could be related to such a monster.
“You have to go, Sofia.”
At first, there was shock in her eyes, then there was just confusion.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll let you leave the Blood Shade.” I’ll let you leave me was actually what I wanted to say.
I wanted her to tell me that she’d rather stay, that she trusted me enough to protect her. She didn’t. It crushed me when what she did instead was embrace me and say, “Thank you.”
CHAPTER 27: SOFIA
I wanted to take the girls with me and insisted on it. Derek wouldn’t hear of it. In fact, he simply ignored me. He wouldn’t even look at me. But he looked at Ben and said, “Protect her.”
Ben just looked at him incredulously as if to say that he didn’t need to be told to do that. It was easy to see that Ben didn’t really like Derek and saw no reason to be grateful for what he was doing.
I saw differently. I knew how much Derek was risking by helping us escape. He was severely compromising the safety of everyone at the Shade by letting us go. He was giving his kind a reason to question his rule. I feared for him – so much so that I found myself debating if I even wanted to leave.
What he told Ben next tore me apart inside.
“Make sure she gets home safe.”
Home. I told him that he’d begun to feel like home, and at that moment, I knew I was lying to myself if I was trying to convince myself that by leaving the Blood Shade, I’d be going back home. At that point, I wasn’t sure where home was anymore, but it didn’t change the fact that both mine and Ben’s lives were in severe danger by staying there. Mine because of Lucas’ determination to have me. Ben’s because of his connection to me…and Claudia.
So, the escape went on as planned.
It became apparent that Derek knew the Blood Shade quite well. He knew where to go and what to do in orde
r to remain hidden. Considering how Corrine had already told him about my LLI, that too was a risk. He knew that I would remember every single detail of my escape. It meant that should I ever return to the Blood Shade, I would be well acquainted with the road to escape, even in the dark. With every step I took nearer to the port where Derek already secured a ride for us that would return us to the beach from where we were first stolen, I realized how much I didn’t want to go. Not because I suddenly found a special spot in my heart for the Blood Shade, but because I didn’t want to be anywhere where he wasn’t.
I hated that he wouldn’t even look at me. When the port came into sight, I’d had enough. Ben was holding my hand and Derek was trailing behind us, making sure no one was following. I stopped walking, hoping that Derek would bump into me. He didn’t. As always, he was aware of my every move.
Ben pulled on my hand. His face fell when I wriggled my hand away from his grasp. “I need to talk to Derek,” was all the explanation that I gave him.
Ben didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded, giving Derek a glare before moving forward – a safe distance away from us.
I turned around to face Derek. I wanted him to look at me. He looked away. “Don’t be this way, Derek.”
“What way?”
“Distant.”
“Why not? That’s what you’ll be once you leave the Shade.”
It was the first time I realized that once I left, it was goodbye forever. It wasn’t like I could just go online and video chat with him.
“That’s exactly why I can’t bear this, Derek.” I held back a sob. “We’ve been through too much… I’d like to think that we’d grown to mean a lot to each other.”
This was such an understatement. And I hated how I sounded so formal. At that moment, it felt like he meant everything to me and with all my heart, I wished that he felt the same. I tried hard to hold back the tears as I continued my attempt to speak out loud what was eating me away inside.
“To part this way… barely even talking, barely even looking at each other… I don’t know how to handle it. I can’t bear it.”
A Shade Of Vampire (The Mate) Page 11
