A Shade of Blood (A Shade of Vampire 2)

CHAPTER 36: DEREK

When my feet landed on one of the boulders outside the fortress, the way Sofia’s slender form was trembling in my arms was the first thing that registered on my mind.

Her arms clung tight around me, both her hands gripping clumps of my hair. Her face was nuzzled against my neck, her erratic breathing hot against my skin. I leaned my head backwards to get a better look at her face and found her eyes shut tight with terror. She was biting on her lip so hard, I was afraid she might draw blood.

As if everything about you isn’t already temptation enough… The last thing I need is to get another whiff of your blood.

I couldn’t help but smile at how badly her knees were shaking as I placed her on her feet. She opened her eyes, her breaths raspy, as she took in her surroundings. When she saw the smile on my face, she let go of her death hold on my hair and pushed me on the shoulder with one hand. I chuckled, amused by how terrified she looked. That seemed to annoy her.

“Are you crazy?! If you want to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff, you can’t just go do it and take me along for the ride!”

Her outburst only served to amuse me further. “First of all,” I pointed at the wall, “that’s not a cliff. Second, didn’t I tell you I was going to take you to my sanctuary? The leap was a shortcut. Third, you’re alive, aren’t you?”

“Barely!” Her rosy red lips formed into a pout as she crossed her arms over her stomach, her hands clinging to her elbows. Her eyes moist, she looked like she was about to cry. She glared at me. “Stop laughing. I’m still mad at you.”

I made an attempt to keep a straight face if only to appease her. It was never my intention to make light of the emotional outburst she threw at me back at the woods. Truth be told, the encounter was still gnawing at me.

However, I took one look at the crimson blush on her cheeks and the way she was hugging herself as if it would somehow help ward off whatever fears were terrorizing her, and I just couldn’t help myself. It was too precious a sight not to at least grin at. She caught sight of the smile I was trying to keep from my face and slapped her palm over my arm – something annoyed teenage girls seemed to enjoy doing. I tried to hold back a chuckle as I glared at her. This time, however, her mouth twitched. It was easy to see that she was trying hard not to smile. She rolled her eyes and then there it was… She gave in. Lighting up her face was that radiant smile of hers.

I took a few seconds to stare. I wondered if she knew the effect her smile had on me. I didn’t realize how much I missed seeing that momentary flicker of delight on her face whenever she looked at me until I was once again privileged to witness it. We locked eyes for a split second before she stomped her foot over the stone ledge we were standing on. Agitation marred her face as she muttered a rebuke more to herself than to me.

“I’m supposed to be mad at you.”

“You can get mad again later. Plenty of time for that. For now, come with me.” I held the hand she used to assault me and began to assist her as we navigated past the jagged boulders. “The lighthouse isn’t far from here.”

“The lighthouse?” Despite her attempts to stay irritated, I could hear the curiosity in her voice.

“It’s the only establishment on the island located outside the fortress. Apart from me, I think only Vivienne knows it still exists.”

I jumped down a particularly high boulder onto the rocky path below. I held Sofia by the waist and helped her down. I was grateful that the full moon was giving enough illumination for her to see where we were going. Living on an island with no mornings did have its unique set of disadvantages.

As her feet once again settled on the ground, she gave me an odd look. Sympathetic. Then a small smile appeared on her lips. Affectionate.

I swallowed hard, wondering what it was that she saw in me. How can you look at me that way, Sofia? I shifted my gaze forward, focused on the trail ahead. Her hold on my hand tightened as we moved forward on a narrow stony path that was much easier to walk on than the slippery boulders we left behind. I could only guess what was going through her mind.

“It would be much easier if you just sped us right to your lighthouse you know,” she whispered. “Since you’re so fond of shortcuts…”

“And miss out on this?”

“This?”

I squeezed her hand, enjoying the warmth it exuded. I then looked at her and gave her a short, pointed nod. “This.”

That smile. That blush. The things you do to me. The things you make me do.

We continued the walk in silence. It didn’t take long for us to reach the lighthouse. The sight of it made me ache with all the memories linked to it.

I woke up clinging to a plank of wood. Recollections of the explosions, the burning fire, the screams and the chaos revisited my mind. The ship was gone. The last thing I remembered was the look of horror in my sister’s eyes before someone knocked me unconscious and threw me overboard.

The sea was much calmer, rocking me in its waves as if it were trying to soothe me for all the lives it swallowed the night before. I gulped at the implication. The night before. I looked at the horizon and shuddered. The sun will rise soon.

I scoped my surroundings and saw it. A lighthouse among jagged boulders. The only shelter that could shield me from the burning sun. It was at least a mile’s swim. I didn’t have much time. I pushed away the plank that was keeping me afloat, hurriedly making my way to the shore. By the time I reached it, the first rays of dawn were beginning to show and I could immediately feel its weakening effect on me.

I was about to speed toward the lighthouse when I heard it. A whimper followed by a loud, chilling growl. Despite my need to immediately find shelter before the sun could rob me of all my defenses, I couldn’t ignore the urge to follow the sound. Behind a large rock was an semi-unconscious woman slowly coming to her senses. Just a few steps away from her was a black panther, ready to devour her.

Instinct took over. I lunged for the beast before it could pounce on the woman. The panther’s teeth sunk into my biceps and tore out my flesh. I screamed in pain. The sun was hampering my abilities to heal. I had to finish the fight soon or I would lose both my life and the stranger’s. Blood flowed from the panther’s teeth as its sharp claws tore through my chest. With a growl of my own, I pushed against its chest and ripped its heart out. Standing over the beast’s lifeless form, I threw its heart onto the ground and faced the stranger.

She stared at me with unveiled hatred – something that surprised me considering I just saved her life. I pushed away any doubts I had regarding her. I didn’t have time to make introductions or figure out why she was looking me with so much anger. The sun was rising and I had to shelter myself with darkness. I sped towards the lighthouse, leaving her by the shore. I soon reached the top of the lighthouse. After pulling heavy drapes over its windows, I sought refuge in the octagonal room’s most shadowy corners.

The wounds the panther inflicted on me still weren’t healing. Blood still covered my clothes and my hands. I trembled as I wondered how long my body would recover from the harm even the smallest of the sun’s rays did to a creature of darkness like me.

I barely heard the footsteps that slowly approached me. Tentative footsteps.

“You’re a vampire,” a sultry, female voice spoke.

“Yes. I am.” I hated to admit the truth. I was a hunter – the best one they ever had. Now, I became their hunted and in their hatred of the creature that I’d become, they destroyed my family.

She stopped in front of me and lifted her hand toward me. She was holding something in her hand. A wooden stake. She placed its pointed end against my heart. I looked up, straight into her eyes. Big brown ones, peering through long thick lashes. She was an exotic beauty, olive-skinned, beautiful heart-shaped face, full lips, long wavy brown hair…

“You’re a hunter.” I said. It was rhetoric. I wondered what was keeping her from driving the stake right through my heart. Was it because I just saved her life from that panther? She didn’t even seem to be grateful for it back at the shore.

“You’re cursed.”

“That I am.” I scoffed.

She pushed the stake forward, just enough to break my skin and draw blood. I saw bewilderment in her eyes.

“You just killed a panther with your bare hands…” she spoke. “What’s keeping you from killing me?”

“I’ve never killed a human being in my life. I’m not about to start today. If your conscience can take ending my life, then go ahead and be done with it.”

I wondered what was keeping her from killing me. Back when I was a hunter, I wouldn’t have given it a moment’s thought before ending a vampire’s life – and I ended many. I saw them as cursed, remorseless, wicked creatures who took life without inhibition – the same way one of their kind took my mother’s life. I saw vampires as immortals dead to their conscience. I never thought they were capable of emotion until I became one of them.

I looked into this young woman’s brown eyes and wondered what all the vampires I murdered felt when they looked into my eyes. Did they feel as I felt at that moment? Did they anticipate the moment the stake would drive through their heart? Were they begging to be freed from their accursed immortality?

It felt like an eternity before our eyes unlocked and she sank into the ground, pulling the stake from my chest. She watched as the wound caused by her stake healed.

“I’m not a hunter,” she admitted.

I smirked. “I can see that. If you were a hunter, I’d be dead by now.”

“You’re not what they say you are, not what I expect you to be.”

I couldn’t find a proper response to that statement, so I introduced myself instead. “I’m Derek Novak.”

She stared at me for a couple of minutes before finally deciding that I deserved a name to call her by.

“You can call me Cora.”

The lighthouse became my refuge through all the terror and bloodshed that happened in that forsaken island in its first hundred years. The people who got to enter it were the people I trusted enough to completely let into my life. Only two had made it within its walls. Cora and Vivienne.

That night, a third person was about to enter my sanctuary. She was the first person I allowed in by choice. As I gently laid a hand on the small of Sofia’s back, guiding her up the winding staircase that would lead to its topmost room, I realized that I was something that I hadn’t been in a very long time: terrified.