CHAPTER 11: SOFIA
Run, Sofia. I kept telling myself to go on, to flee. I figured that at some point, I’d reach something – anything to give me a clue on how I could escape the Blood Shade. And so I continued, stumbling through the darkness of the forest.
I knew I had no escape plan and the likelihood of actually leaving the island was practically non-existent. But I had to take my chance the moment I saw it. I couldn’t afford to hang around while Derek decided exactly what he wanted to keep me for.
I thought of Ben and what he would do given my situation. Knowing how impulsive my best friend was, I figured to escape while he could was probably what he would’ve done. That really was all the encouragement that I needed. So when I woke up that morning – and found the sky to be as dark as it was the night before – I realized that waiting for daylight to escape was pointless.
I got off the bed as quietly as I could – I had no idea where Derek was, but if he was in the chambers closest to mine, I figured he’d hear every single noise that I made, so I took care in making none. I slipped out of the slippers I found in the large wardrobe inside the bedroom. I figured I’d make less noise with bare feet.
I rummaged through the closet, which I discovered mostly contained women’s clothes. It made my stomach turn as I wondered why. The idea that the room next to Derek’s was specifically meant for a woman – and what that woman could possibly be intended for – made me sick. Whatever reasons these vampires had for taking us, what they were doing was terrible. I wasn’t just going to sit there and be the victim.
I tried to look for jeans or something comfortable to run in, but found none. My hands sifted through dozens of silken gowns, cocktail dresses, skirts and lingerie.
Eventually I found a pair of denim shorts and a black hoodie two sizes too large for me. I frowned, noting how out-of-place the outfit was considering the rest of the contents of the wardrobe. I shrugged it off and was just thankful that I didn’t have run through a dark forest in a cocktail dress. It was the best I could come up with and I figured it should be enough. I slipped the clothes on as quickly as I could. I knew there was no time to waste. The further I got without anybody noticing I was gone, the better off I’d be.
Satisfied with my outfit, I snuck outside the room, carrying the rubber slippers I had with one hand, careful to close the door as noiselessly as I could. I made my way toward one of the glass-covered walkways connecting the corridor to the guest room to another wing of the penthouse.
Standing in the walkway, I saw one of the girls I was with walking through the walkway parallel to where I was standing, all the way to the wing on the opposite side. She was the one whose hand I held when we were first brought in front of Derek. I couldn’t remember her name. My hopes lifted. If she was there, perhaps Derek was also. I thought for a moment if I should include the other girls in my escape. I wanted to, but I figured it would be a case of the blind leading the blind. My best chance of helping them was to escape and expose the Blood Shade to the rest of the world. Surely someone would help me save the people brought into this coven as slaves.
I didn’t spend too much time musing over this and instead, focused on how on earth I was going to get back to the ground. I looked outside and smiled faintly with relief. I saw a lift not too far away. That must be it. I pulled the black hoodie over my head and made my way to the lift. It didn’t take long before my feet were back on the solid ground. It was almost too good to be true, but no one seemed to be around to keep watch over me, so I just slipped the slippers on and made a run toward the direction opposite the Vale, the town center. I figured that north of the Vale were the Cells, east of it was the Sanctuary, while on the west side was the Pavilion. If I made a run for it in the direction away from the Vale, further to the west, I just had to reach an exit sooner or later.
Where there’s a way in, there must be a way out.
I was so wrong. After what felt like hours of staggering through the dark trees, with the rubber slippers blistering my feet and getting completely battered by the sharp twigs and stones, every muscle in my body aching and scratches all over my body due to branches I hit or bushes I stumbled into considering the severe lack of lighting, I finally reached a clearing leading out of what almost seemed like an endless forest.
But what I saw made my heart sink. It was a wall so tall and seemingly so thick, I was surprised no one’s ever noticed the Blood Shade on a map before. This will give the Wall of China a run for its money. I frowned. How I planned to get past that wall, I had no clue, and the fact that I had no idea whatsoever what was on the other side of it didn’t help either.
I bit my lip, unsure of what to do. I just sank to the ground to my knees, fighting the urge to break down and cry. There was no way I could climb this wall. I could barely even stand up. I was beginning to grow desperate. The thought of returning and facing the consequences of my botched escape was playing tricks on my mind. I was overwhelmed inside by more fears and doubts than I knew how to handle.
Suddenly, I heard a twig snap behind me.
“Well, what do we have here?” Spoke a voice that was a tad too high-pitched for a man.
“Looks like dinner to me,” a deeper, huskier voice replied.
My fists clenched. I was suddenly so aware of how many scratches I had and how blood was oozing through those scrapes. I’d practically turned myself into bait for these creatures.
“What are you doing way out here by the fortress during a night so dark?” Pitchy, with the high-pitched voice, asked.
“Taking a walk. My master said I could,” I bluffed. I could feel my face turning red.
“Really now?” This time, it was Husky speaking. “Did he also ask you to get yourself all bloody and ready to become his breakfast while you’re at it?”
I could feel them drawing closer from behind me. I slowly turned so I could face them. Based on the clothes they were wearing – black garb with red crests worn by the guards escorting us the night before - I assumed both of them were guards, assigned to keep watch of the fortress.
“Who’s your master, lovely little thing?”
Pitchy was right beside me now. He held a clump of my hair within his fingers and took a good long sniff of it.
I was about to tell them that Derek Novak owned me and harming me would be a big mistake, but was interrupted by Husky before I could speak.
“Who cares?” he spoke up. “Anyone who walks past the forest and reaches the fortress is under our mercy. I’m sure her master will thank us for teaching the insolent slave a lesson.” His finger traced one of the scratches on my legs, drawing blood with his protruding claw. He took a whiff of the blood and smiled before tasting it. He smiled.
“Sweet.”
It was Pitchy who seemed apprehensive. “Perhaps we shouldn’t touch her. We don’t know who owns her.” Still, his eyes were on me, his free hand running the length of my arm.
Husky showed no indication of stopping his taste tests of the blood coming out of the scrapes on my body.
I stood there, trying to recall whatever it was I learned from the self-defense lessons Ben had convinced me to take part in. I had no idea if they would work against vampires, but I figured it was worth a shot – if only just to stun them so I could make a run for it. It was wishful thinking, but it was the best I had. I bent down on the ground and swung a leg beneath Husky, making him topple to the ground. I took advantage of Pitchy’s surprise and pushed him away before I began running back to the forest. I barely even took three strides, before both managed to catch up with me, pushing me to the ground.
Pitchy held my arms down, while Husky bent on the ground to hold my feet down.
“That was a big mistake, sugar,” Husky grinned.
Both their fangs came out and I was sure I was about to lose all sanity, considering that it was the third time in the past twenty-four hours that vampires had threatened to suck my blood.
I saw no hope whatsoever and just shut my eyes as both were about to bite. I was expecting to scream in pain upon feeling their fangs dig into whichever part of my body they decided to sink their teeth into.
But, instead, I felt their grip on my wrists and legs suddenly loosen.
I opened my eyes and blinked several times, still trying to get used to seeing in the dark. My eyes lit up when I saw both guards on the ground with Derek looming over them. The moon shone down on him in the clearing. Each of his hands were pinning them to position by their necks.
“Has either one of you tasted her blood?” Derek demanded, the tone of his voice nothing short of menacing.
From behind, the way his shoulders rose with every breath and the way his muscles bulged, told me how he was desperately trying to maintain a grip over his temper.
“Your highness, I-I… I didn’t mean to…” Husky was shaking so badly I could barely make out the words. “I didn’t know…”
What happened next was unlike anything I’d witnessed before. Derek let go of Husky’s neck and without a single moment’s hesitation, dug his claws into Husky’s chest. I could practically hear the sound of flesh breaking as Derek pulled out Husky’s bloody, still beating, heart. My knees weakened and I found myself falling to the ground. I never imagined – even for once in my life – that I would ever see someone literally rip another person’s heart out. I couldn’t even stand watching gory films. Having to see something like that in person felt like far more than I could handle.
Derek now focused on Pitchy who was spitting out profuse apologies. “Be silent.”
Pitchy lost no time in shutting his mouth and sparing us the annoying sound of his voice.
“Never touch what’s mine. Sofia Claremont is mine. Whoever harms her answers to me. Understood?” Derek growled.
Pitchy nodded. “Of course, y-your M-Majesty.”
Derek let go of Pitchy’s throat and the guard lost no time in scampering away from the prince. Derek tossed the then very much dead heart he was holding with his right hand and threw it to the ground. He then wiped Husky’s blood off his hands using the dead guard’s shirt. He rose to his full height and turned, his eyes settling on me. I thought of backing away from him, but saw its futility. He was glaring at me and I found myself fearing his anger.
“Get up, Sofia.”
I lost no time in rising to my feet. I was fully expecting to experience some form of pain. Instead, I found him looking at the length of my legs, concerned by the scratches he saw there. He brought out a dagger he had hidden up his sleeve. I stared at it, wondering if he was going to use it to teach me a lesson of sorts. Instead, he cut through his palm with it.
Despite my fear of him, I stepped forward, momentarily concerned.
“What are you doing?” My eyes were glued to the deep red blood now spilling from his palm – his blood.
“You shouldn’t have done what you did,” was all the response that I got. He lifted his palm, directing it toward my mouth. “Drink.”
My eyes grew wide open as I stared at his bloody palm. I gulped, disgusted.
“I can’t!”
“You will. It will heal your scrapes,” he insisted. “Marching you back to the Residences with all those bloody scratches will only make you a walking target for every vampire we pass by.”
I gave him an incredulous look, wondering if he too wanted to drink my blood at that moment. Tears were beginning to moisten my eyes, but I knew from the look on his face that we weren’t going to leave that spot until I did what he was telling me to do.
“Drink, Sofia,” he repeated – more sternly this time, impatience obvious in the tone of his voice. “My palm will heal in just a couple of seconds. I don’t want to have to cut myself again.”
I once again looked at his palm, unable to believe what I was about to do. I held his wrist with one hand, his fingers with the other. I noticed how his jaw twitched the moment I touched him. I gulped before doing the unthinkable – I began sucking the blood off his palm until his self-inflicted gash closed. I stepped back, the strange taste of his blood overwhelming my taste buds.
“Good,” he said and wiped off the thick red liquid dripping from the corners of my mouth.
I checked the gashes I had on my legs. Just like he said, all of them had gone. I didn’t know whether to be relieved. I still could not wrap my mind around the fact that I just drank blood, a vampire’s blood. I didn’t even think they had their own blood. I was aware of how badly I was trembling.
Derek inched closer to me and brushed his thumb against my cheekbone. “Are you alright?”
I stood, unmoving, my eyes drawn to the guard’s corpse on the ground.
“You killed him,” I said, betraying how stunned I felt. “Just like that… He’s dead.”
Derek heaved a deep sigh, a stoic expression coming over his chiseled face.
“I had to make an example of him. The other guard will make it known to the entire coven that you are not to be harmed because of what I did. You’re safer that way. Besides, he’d tasted your blood. He had to die.”
I still looked at him with a stunned expression on my face.
“He was going to kill you. He’d tasted your blood, Sofia. I doubt he would’ve had enough self-control to keep himself from devouring you completely.” He raised a brow, his mood lightening up a bit. “From the expression on your face as they were both about to sink their teeth into you, I figured you knew that you wouldn’t be able to talk them out of supping on you like you did me.”
Recollections of the previous night flowed through my head. I remembered how conflicted Derek seemed as he raised me up on that pillar ready to sink his teeth into me. There was no conflict of that sort evident in the vampire he just killed.
I found myself intrigued by Derek – even more so than I was before. He was a paradox, a walking contradiction. How he could do such a violent act with no hesitation in one moment and be as gentle as he was with me right afterwards was something that left me completely unnerved.
I could sense his eyes traveling my body from head to foot, then back up.
“You’ve been running for hours, haven’t you?” he concluded.
I almost felt embarrassed to admit it. “It feels like it.”
“Even if you get past the wall, you’re on an island, Sofia. Unless you can swim for miles, past the sharks, and get back to the mainland, there’s no way out of here.” Before I could respond to that, he scooped me up in his arms and in a matter of minutes, we were back at his Penthouse. He carried me to my bedroom and laid me on the ground.
“We’ll have breakfast in a couple of minutes. Get dressed in something other than that,” he looked at my outfit pointedly. It dawned on me that considering the time he’d been asleep, he’d probably never seen a lady wearing a hoodie with shorts before. Considering how my outfit was tattered and worn down after my morning “run”, I saw why it lacked appeal.
Before he turned toward the door, he stopped and asked, “Is there anything you need, Sofia?”
I need to get out of here was I wanted to say. Instead, I shook my head. “No.”
He nodded and headed for the door. He stopped just as he was about to open it. He gave one final warning.
“You will only risk your life trying to escape, Sofia. So let’s make this simple. Don’t ever try again.”