A Shade Of Vampire 5: A Blaze Of Sun (10 page)

“I’ll ask Aiden. If he wants to see you, then so be it
.” I nodded, confident that this was the way to go. “If he doesn’t, then I guess you’ll just have to find another way to convince us that you want to change.”

Ingrid gave me a heartbroken smile. “I understand.”

Claudia took a step forward and began to speak on behalf of my mother, but I lifted a hand to stop her. “I know you understand my mother more than I ever will, Claudia, but she’s not the only one who’s broken.”

Claudia closed her mouth and eased herself into Yuri’s arms. There was an electric sense of sadness as we left Ingrid’s cell and began making our way out of
The Catacombs.

“I do believe that she’s sorry, Sofia,” Claudia spoke up.

“I know,” I responded. As much as I wanted to believe Claudia, memories of the hatred in Ingrid’s eyes while we were back in hunter territory made it difficult for me to just believe that Ingrid had changed. “If she truly is sorry, Aiden will be able to tell. He knows her more than any of us do.”

“I think he still loves her
.” Yuri nodded with assurance.

My eyes shot toward the vampire. “How would you know that, Yuri?”

“I’ve been having some talks with Aiden. Whenever Claudia visited Ingrid, I went to see Aiden.”

My face contorted with bewilderment. “Why?” The idea of my father hanging out with a vampire seemed absurd.

“Well, aside from your father being a very smart man capable of a good conversation, he used to love Ingrid. I figured he’d be the best person to ask for advice on how I’m supposed to keep loving this crazy girl right here.” He began messing with Claudia’s hair and got a loud slap on the shoulder from the petite vampire.

“
You really shouldn’t annoy me too much, Yuri,” Claudia warned.

“Oh?” Yuri smirked. “Why’s that?”

“I’m a vampire, you know. I could switch off the love I feel for you any time I want.”

Yuri began laughing. “No, yo
u can’t. If there’s one emotion we vampires can’t switch off, it’s love. Look at Ingrid, no matter how much she tries, she still can’t stop loving Aiden. You said so yourself.”

“Is that true?” I asked. “You can’t switch off love?”

Yuri cast a fond gaze at Claudia. “Believe me, Sofia. I tried for hundreds of years. I never stopped loving Claudia…” Their eyes met and within a few seconds, Yuri made a face. “But I think it’s just because Claudia is part witch... a
witchpire
. I’m pretty sure she cast a spell on me, or something. Otherwise, why on earth would I love her?”

Something told me that they were going to bicker and banter the whole time they were
together, so I bade them goodbye.

Before I was about to leave, Yuri grabbed my arm and looked straight into my eye
s, his face filled with brotherly concern. “Sofia, I know your story. We all watched it unfold. You know The Shade for what it is – all its secrets, all its darkness, all its light, all that’s bad and all that’s good. I’m sure that your experience in this island is of a completely different vein than mine, but I’m hoping you see, just the way that I do, that The Shade is a place of second chances. You gave Derek a lot of chances to redeem himself.” Yuri shrugged. “Maybe your parents deserve the same thing.”

“I’m working on
giving them that chance,” I assured him. I was just about to open my mouth to thank him when Xavier arrived, out of breath.

His eyes focused on me. “I think you’ll want to see this.”

I gulped. The expression on his face was telling me the exact opposite. Whatever it was, I was sure it wasn’t something that I wanted to see.
What on earth just happened?

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Emilia was lying face down on the shore in the exact same spot I had found Cora, centuries ago. Xavier, Ashley and I were headed for the Lighthouse, so we could prepare a surprise date with Sofia that night, when we happened to pass by the young woman.

“Who is she?” Ashley asked
, as she approached the motionless body tentatively.

Xavier knelt in front of the girl and brushed
her hair away from her face. He lifted his eyes toward me to let me know what I already knew. “It’s the original vampire’s daughter.”

I approached
Emilia and found myself gasping at her appearance.

Xavier’s jaw tightened. “She’s not looking well.”

He was right. Emilia’s wet, brown hair was a tangled mess and blood was flowing from her scalp. She was bruised and unconscious, and for some strange reason, I was blaming myself.

Did she not warn you that she would be in trouble if you made her go back to her father?
My stomach churned at the idea that her own father could do this to her.
What kind of a creature is the Elder?
If he was our foe, then we were up against a more powerful creature than we knew how to handle.
How on earth could anyone do this to their own daughter?

“They must’ve used one of those serums that keep vampires from healing,” Xavier began thinking out loud. “Who would do this to her? Aren’t they afraid of her father?”

I scoffed at the question. “Odds are that it’s her father who did this to her.”

Xavier and Ashley exchanged glances, grimacing at the notion.

“What are you going to do with her?” Ashley finally asked.

I stared at Emilia
… I didn’t want to touch her. I didn’t want anything to do with her, but I knew I couldn’t just leave her there.
Don’t make the same mistake you did the last time. Don’t keep Sofia out of it.

I decided right then that Sofia and I were a team and that I should stop making decisions
without her – especially when the decisions involved young women I was extremely attracted to. I directed my glare at Xavier and gave him an express command. “Go get Sofia. I can’t decide what to do with Emilia unless Sofia is involved.”

Xavier nodded and sped off.

Ashley seemed intrigued by my desire to get Sofia in on deciding Emilia’s fate. “Since when do you factor Sofia in when it comes to decisions like this?”

“Since I decided to marry her…” I shrugged a shoulder before looking her directly in the eye. “You do realize that once I marry Sofia, she’s going to be your queen.”

I was sure Ashley wasn’t really seeing the gravity of the situation at hand because she just laughed at my statement. “I actually have to remind myself that you’re king of The Shade, Derek. Most of the time, I look at you and Sofia and just think of a regular high school couple. Only instead of the two of you being prom king and queen, you’re both running an entire kingdom.”

I stared at her, wondering how she could possibly live life like it was a continuous game. I actually breathed an audible sigh of relief when Xavier and Sofia arrived. My gut clenched when I saw how Sofia’s face paled at the sight of Emilia.

“She’s back,” Sofia croaked.

I was about to approach her and pull her into my arms, but I wasn’t able to, because compassion immediately filled her green eyes at the sight of Emilia.

“What happened to her?” Sofia sounded alarmed as she rushed to Emilia’s side. “Dear heavens, who would do this to her? I think she needs blood… It will help her heal…”

My eyes widened with
shock when Sofia raised her wrist in the air as if she were trying to decide if she should feed Emilia her own blood.
Has she gone mad?
“You are
not
going to feed her your blood, Sofia!” I shot my eyes toward Ashley, eager to rid myself of her peskiness. “Go get some blood for Emilia before Sofia gets any ideas.”

Ashley tilted her head to the side. “Animal or human?”

I glared at her and realized that Xavier and Sofia were doing the exact same thing.

“What?” Ashley shrugged. “We’ve all been skimping on our reserves of human blood. Now, we have to feed it to our enemy’s daughter?”

Ever since several rebels in The Shade blew up the Chilling Chambers, where we stored our reserves of human blood, we’d been living mostly on animal blood – taken from the wildlife of The Shade. We also had reserves of human blood – mostly taken from blood donations by the Naturals, but we made sure to use them sparingly.

“
Could you just leave?” I snapped at Ashley.

She
ran off and I found Sofia checking on Emilia. “I think she has a lot of broken bones…” Sofia frowned. “Her body doesn’t look right.” She gazed up at me and Xavier. “Can’t we get her somewhere comfortable?”

“Yo
u’re seriously considering bringing her onto the island?” I asked Sofia, wondering what she thought about Emilia being back after everything I told her.

“All I know right now is that she obviously needs help and that we’re the only ones capable of giving it to her,” Sofia responded.

I couldn’t help but admire her. At that moment, I knew that I’d just fallen more deeply in love with her.
You really are something, Sofia.
When she saw Emilia, Sofia didn’t see a threat. She just saw someone broken and in need of mending.

“Okay then,” I finally agreed.

“Where are we going to take her?” Xavier asked.

We all exchanged glances and though my first instinct was to take Emilia to
The Cells, I knew that Sofia would object. Someone as wounded as Emilia didn’t belong in a prison cell. She needed to be in a hospital. In The Shade, the closest thing we had to a hospital was either The Catacombs – where Emilia definitely did not belong – or The Sanctuary.

I made a decision right there.
With Corrine at The Sanctuary, it’s much safer. At least Corrine can control Emilia in case she tries to do something to harm The Shade.

“Let’s take her to
The Sanctuary.”

A pack of cigarettes tied to a lighter with a rubber band landed on my bed in front of me. I looked toward the direction of the prison cell’s bars and found Yuri there. He was smoking a cigarette. I was grateful for the favor and still bothered by the friendship I was forming with a vampire. I couldn’t help it though. I liked Yuri. He was like the son I never had.

“I told you last time that I’d bring you some, didn’t I?” Yuri said smugly
, before taking another puff from his cigarette.

“Where did you get these?” I asked him, unable to hide my
gratefulness. I was infamous in The Shade for my taste for tobacco.

“Claudia has a bunch of them stacked up in her penthouse,” Yuri told me.

“Have you talked to Sofia about getting me out of here?”

Yuri winced. “Sorry, man. I forgot. It’s been crazy around here. I have been putting a good word or two on your behalf.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Don’t make me regret it, Claremont. I don’t ever want Derek or Sofia to have a reason not to trust me.”

“Thank you.”

“Ingrid is asking to be brought to you…”
He paused. “Actually, make that Camilla. She no longer wants to be called Ingrid.”

I made a face as I lit my cigarette and took a puff. “
What’s her game now?”

“She says that she wants her family back.”

“Right.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or get angry.
How dare she pull that card after everything she put Sofia through…

Yuri looked at me. “If she really is willing to change, would you take her back?”

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to trust Camilla again more than anything, but I couldn’t. Not as long as she was a threat to Sofia. “I think the only way I can ever trust Camilla again is if she gets back into Sofia’s good graces.”

Yuri laughed. “Sucks for Camilla then. Sofia says that the only way she can ever trust Camilla again is if she gets back into
your
good graces. Seems to me like Camilla is screwed if neither of you are willing to take a chance on her once more…”

“Camilla isn’t Claudia, Yuri…”

“What’s the difference between them?” I remember the day Yuri told me Claudia’s tragic story and how they got back together. I could see why he thought that our story was similar to theirs, but it wasn’t.

Claudia
had been a prostitute, just like her mother. She experienced abuse from a cruel man, and was a broken, untrusting creature.

“
You know what broke Claudia, Yuri. You understood the depths of her brokenness. You saw why she was broken firsthand. You admit yourself that you contributed to her brokenness when you used her that first night.”

Yuri’s lips twitched at the recollection of the night Claudia was brought to him in a mask and he found out only after sleeping with her that she was the girl he was in love with.

“You can’t fix something if you don’t know what’s broken.” I grimaced at the thought of Camilla never actually letting me in. She never opened up her past to me. She never allowed me to help her heal. I looked up at the vampire I was having a conversation with. “You had to wait hundreds of years before the woman you love came around. I can’t wait that long. I will never become immortal like you. I don’t ever want to be.”

“The way I see it, Aiden
.” Yuri smirked knowingly. “You are mortal. You only have this one lifetime, a few decades at best, to be with the woman you love and I think that’s what’s bothering you. You still love Camilla – even if you don’t know what broke her. It doesn’t make a difference whether or not you know the reasons behind why a person is broken, Aiden. We’re
all
broken. The question is can you still love her and trust her in spite of that brokenness?”

“I did that for a full decade and still, she left. Camilla left me. She left her daughter.”

“Well, I did it for centuries and still, Claudia left. Love doesn’t have to be returned in order for it to be true, Aiden. When she came crawling back, don’t you think I wanted to make her suffer? I wanted to see her cry upon losing me. I wanted to hurt her like she hurt me. But I chose to love her. I made the choice to forgive her and take her back. Part of me is still afraid that she’ll go back to the way she was, but at least I’ll have this moment in time, this period, when I can say that the woman I love shows me that she loves me in return. Don’t miss out on that, Aiden.”

I stared at Yuri, a man who was turned into a vampire
in his early twenties, which was half my age. I wondered where all the wisdom was coming from, only to remember that Yuri might look young physically, but he was actually giving me centuries’ worth of experience.

I took a long puff from my cigarette, not knowing what to say.

“So what are you going to do?” Yuri asked after a long silence.

I scoffed at the question, “After that long-winded speech of yours, what choice do I have other than to see Camilla?”

Yuri laughed and I realized that as much as I hated to admit it, I actually considered this vampire my friend.