A Shade Of Vampire 5: A Blaze Of Sun (11 page)

I began to hold my breath the moment Aiden entered my cell. Yuri tossed him a wooden stake as he approached – a safety measure.

The vampire winked at me. “Be careful, Camilla. Word is that he’s pretty good with one of those things.”

I smirked, unable to look at Aiden in the eye. “He won’t need it unless the only reason he’s here is to attempt to kill me, Yuri.”

“I don’t think he’s here for that
.” Yuri grinned. “Don’t get yourself into more trouble than you’re already in, Camilla.” Yuri nodded his head at both of us before leaving.

With Yuri gone, I forced myself to look at Aiden. He
crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the stone wall, wooden stake secure in his grip, green eyes glaring at me. “What game are you playing now, Ingrid?” He cocked his head to the side. “Or should I start calling you Camilla like everyone else?”

As far as I was concerned, I had only one chance to get this right, and I wasn’t about to spend it playing games or beating around the bush so I asked Aiden the one question I wanted to hear the answer to.
“Do you still love me, Aiden?”

A muscle on his jaw twitched.
He was quiet for what felt like an eternity as he gave it thought. I was almost sure that the silence meant no. When he spoke up, I wished he’d just kept his silence. “It doesn’t really matter whether I love you or not, Ingrid, because you were right. I love our daughter more.”

He couldn’t have possibly known how much those words stung, but I reeled in my temper and kept my cool. I couldn’t afford to break down.
I knew what the stakes were and I wasn’t going to spoil this one chance that I had. “I guess I deserve that.”

“I will never understand how
, for nine years, you raised someone as strong-spirited and as kindhearted a person as Sofia.”

I swallowed hard, wondering how
many more insults I would have to endure.

“How about you,
Ingrid? Do
you
still love me?”

“If I said yes, would you believe me?”

To my relief, he nodded, “Yes, but you see… that’s where we’re the same. We love something else more. I love Sofia more than I love you. You love power more than you love me.”

The truth was like a splash of cold water and all I could do was hang my head in shame. I couldn’t deny it, because for the past decade, I’d been living controlled by my thirst for power.

“You found yourself powerless the moment Borys Maslen died. You must hate Sofia even more for killing him, don’t you?”

Aiden was making me feel vulnerable. I hated that he seemed to be seeing right through me. I hated knowing that I couldn’t manipulate him, because he knew me far too well.

“Sofia did the right thing. Borys Maslen does not deserve to live and with his demise, you became what you always were, Ingrid. A weakling. You have all this power as a vampire, but then you’re now held captive in an island that is not your own by a coven who has vampires centuries older and far more powerful than you. You gave up your husband and your daughter, your
whole life,
for nothing, Ingrid. I hope you realize that.” He scoffed. “It must kill you to think that after
everything
you gave up, it means
nothing
to be Ingrid Maslen anymore. You’re just as powerless as Ingrid as you were Camilla. Maybe you’re right… Maybe I
should
start calling you Camilla once again… to remind you of everything you lost.”

I was hoping that he was done, that he wasn’t going to continue this diatribe of his, simply because I couldn’t take any more of the truth, so when he opened his mouth in order to speak some more, I couldn’t help but drop my docile act and glare at him. “Enough. I don’t want to hear any more, Aiden. Shut up or I swear you’ll regret it.”

He seemed amused by my change of countenance. “There you go. That’s it,
Camilla
.” He said my human name as if it was a taunt he could use to jab me in the heart whenever he pleased. “Stop pretending that you want to be a wife to her husband and a mother to her daughter. That’s not you. Stop trying to fool us with this docile act you’re trying to put on. You’ve been Ingrid Maslen for too long to convince us that this is real.”

He was taunting me, making a joke out of me, turning me into his entertainment. I wouldn’t have it. I swore a long time ago that I would never allow a man to treat me that way again. Before I could keep myself from doing it, I attacked Aiden. I had him pinned to a wall, ready to bite into his neck, only to find his wooden stake pointed at my heart.

He smiled. “Do it,
Ingrid.
Take a bite. Drink my blood. Make no mistake about it. I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

I looked into his green eyes wondering if he was bluffing, wondering if he could really drive that stake into my heart. Either way, he’d already been stabbing my heart with his words from the moment he arrived at my cell.

Despite all my attempts to keep it from happening, tears began to brim my eyes and stream down my cheeks. I was still in love with Aiden, and it hurt that we had reached this point – this point when we were both willing to hurt each other – even
kill
each other. I still bluffed, poising myself to bite into his neck. I could feel the pointed end of his stake sink into my skin.

I shut my eyes and shook my head. I couldn’t do it
. I could bluff as much as I wanted to, but I knew that I couldn’t possibly drink Aiden’s blood. I could tell that he knew it too. I pulled away from him, hating the way my body was trembling as I backed down.

I could feel his stare
on me as he heaved one breath after another. “Give me one good reason why I should trust you again, Ingrid. Why should I open my heart to you again? Why should I think that Camilla is still somewhere deep inside your bloodthirsty self?”

One good reason.
I tried to hold back the sobs, but I couldn’t. Still, despite the way my body was shaking, I managed to answer his question. “Because you want to, Aiden. You want to trust me. More than that, I
need
you to trust me.”
My life and yours hang in the balance.

He stared at me for what felt like hours, studying me, maybe trying to figure out what I was saying, what my game was.
“Okay, Camilla…” He nodded. “I’ll play whatever game this is. You really want me to trust you? Oh wait…” he mocked me “…not want… you
need
me to trust you. Is that right?”

I didn’t respond. Instead, I just lifted my eyes in order to meet his cold, mocking glare. I would’ve given anything at that moment to once again have him look at me the way he did before I became a vampire.

Aiden began to nod slowly. “Fine. I will trust you on one condition, Camilla.”

“What is it?” I didn’t think he could ask something of me that I couldn’t give. I was desperate enough to add confidently, “I will do anything.”

“Bare yourself completely to me. Tell me about your past. Tell me why you’re so broken. Tell me what you never had the guts to tell me before. Let me in, Camilla. I want to know
everything.
”

I stared at him in horror. He asked of me the one thing I could never give. He was asking me to live out my greatest fear of being discovered for what I really was. He was asking me to relive the horrors of my childhood and revisit my brokenness. I shook my head. “I can’t do that, Aiden. You’re practically asking for my soul.”

“That’s the price of trust, Cam. Openness. Vulnerability. The ability to risk getting hurt. And don’t think for one second that you can lie to me. I know you well enough to know if you’re just giving me some crap story that you made up. Tell me the truth about who you are. The whole truth. Can you do that?”

“What if I can’t?”

“Then I can’t trust you, can I?”

“Aiden, please…”

“I’ve given my condition, Camilla.”

I
shook my head and buried my face in my palms. It felt like defeat. I never felt weaker than I did at that moment.

When I didn’t respond for what felt like an eternity, Aiden nodded and motioned to leave. “Let me know when you’re ready to give in to my condition, Cam.”

Cam… He hasn’t called me that in years… Not since…
I held my breath when he turned his back on me. He was about to call for Yuri when I did the most courageous thing I’d done in years. “Wait…”

Slowly, Aiden turned to face me. His brow rose at me in question.

I nodded, letting him know that I was agreeing to his condition. It was perhaps the most painful night I ever had in years and it took hours. It took many tears. I told him
everything
. He held me. He gave me the comfort that I was deprived of through all those years of abuse at my foster parents’ hands.

I knew that what I was telling him made Claudia’s experience seem like child’s play. My foster parents were violent
, merciless people and growing up with them was a living nightmare. They helped me through high school and even got me a scholarship for college, but nothing came for free around them. Everything had a price and I was often the payment they required. Not money, definitely not gratefulness – me, all of me – my body, my dignity, my very
soul
.

No man had ever stood up for me before. I knew
what it was like to feel helpless and abandoned. Even when I got away from their grasp, I was still haunted by what they put me through. Then came Aiden.

Aiden was the man of my life. I never felt like I deserved him. Surely someone as perfect as him didn’t deserve someone as broken as me,
but he came into my life and he made me feel like I could be whole again. Still, around him, I was pretending. I knew that I was a broken creature, and my full awareness of that reality couldn’t allow even his love to fix me.

I told Aiden what it was like to be married to him, what I felt like around him – how unworthy I was.

That night, Aiden listened. He barely even said any words of comfort. He just held me and let me cry into his shoulder as I told him horror story after horror story of all the terrible things I went through as a child and how it made me the woman I was.

When I finally finished telling him
my story, he kissed me on the forehead and told me that he still loved Camilla and that he always will.

“Your past can never change that,” he assured me.

I gained his trust that night and in doing so, I had to pay the ultimate price. I had to bare my soul to him and let him see all its emptiness – an emptiness that his love and acceptance was able to fill. I knew what that meant. I knew that should I become vulnerable to Aiden –
completely
vulnerable to him – it would make what I had to do even harder than it already was.

He made love to me
– gentle and tender as always – but not lacking in passion. When I woke up next to him, I realized that I was now faced with a new dilemma. Secured by the love Aiden still had for me, I searched myself for any hatred I still harbored toward my daughter and found not a single trace of it left. I no longer wanted to kill Sofia, but I was still forced to.

I sensed her presence the moment she was brought within the vicinity of the island.
Emilia.
My heart began to race and my pulse doubled its pace. I dropped my shearing scissors and bolted out of my greenhouse.

“She can’t be back,” I began
to mumble. “She can’t be here in The Shade.” Following my instincts, I sped towards The Sanctuary and sure enough, I found Xavier gently laying an unconscious Emilia on the bed inside one of the chambers.

Derek and Sofia stood nearby
. Ashley was standing by the bed, holding a packet of blood, which I was certain was meant to heal Emilia. Corrine, on the other hand, was seated on an ottoman by the wall, staring suspiciously at Emilia.

“What’s going on?” I demanded. All eyes turned toward me as I stepped forward. “What is she doing back at the island? At the
The
Sanctuary
of all places?”

“She needs
care, Vivienne…” Sofia explained.

“Then she should get it from her own people, not from us. I don’t trust her.”

“Neither do we, Vivienne,” Derek spoke up, “but what are we going to do with her? She washed up on the shore and she’s beaten to a bloody pulp. We can’t just leave her out to die…”

That’s exactly what we should do.
I knew that I was being ruthless, perhaps even dark and cold, but every fiber of my being wanted Emilia off the island. I turned my eyes toward the witch for help, but Corrine just gave me a shrug in response. I stared at Emilia’s motionless form. I shook my head. “This doesn’t feel right. It’s too much of a coincidence…”

Derek creased his brows at me. “W
hat’s too much of a coincidence?”

As twins, Derek and I always had a strange connection. It’d been there
when we were kids. I had a way of instinctively knowing his dreams or figuring out what was going through his mind at certain points, especially when it was needed.

“You’ve been dreaming about her. You saw her at the exact
same spot you found her, did you not? At the shore near the Lighthouse? You thought she was Cora… The fact that it actually happened, you think it’s just coincidence?”

Derek shifted his weight from one foot to another as if he didn’t remember the dream and it just suddenly became clear to him. “I have to admit that it’s strange.
But it was just a dream.”

I watched Sofia for a reaction.
She looked at Derek in question. “You’ve been dreaming about Cora too?”

Derek shook his head. “No… This one… I remember the dream now. It’s just as Vivienne said. I saw it exactly like this. This was the exact same spot that I found Cora hundreds of years ago. I dreamed about it
, I thought it was Cora who was o
n the beach, but it turned out to be Emilia.”

Sofia nodded, wrinkling her nose in thought.
The idea of my brother being able to tell Sofia these things made me feel better about the situation, but I still could not deny the threat I felt just by seeing Emilia there. I knew that she was a source of power that we couldn’t afford to underestimate.

Xavier, one of my closest friends, stared at me inquisitively. He knew me well enough to know that I wouldn’t be objecting this much if I didn’t feel ill at ease around Emilia. “Maybe it’s better we leave her this way…”
He frowned.

Sofia objected. “We can take her down if she decides to fight against us once she heals. With all four of you vampires and Corrine here, she won’t stand a chance no matter how powerful she is, but we can’t just leave her like this. It’s inhumane.”

I grimaced at the way Sofia called it “inhumane” as if the creature we were talking about was anything close to being human. “She’s not
human,
Sofia.”

“Maybe so, but
I
am, Vivienne, and lest you forget, a part of you is too…”

That silenced me. How could it not? Ever since Sofia became a part of our lives, we seemed to be obsessed with getting our humanity back – humanity that we long ago tried to silence.

Ashley looked from one person to the other, still clutching the bag of human blood in her hand. “Are we going to feed the blood to her or not? It’s not like she’s going to die if we don’t. It will just take her longer to heal, right?”

“I don’t see why we should prolong her agony…” Sofia stood her ground. “It doesn’t seem right.”

I knew her well enough to know what her greatest weakness was her compassion. She seemed to have a never-ending supply of it and although I respected that about her, there were times when we couldn’t afford to let our compassion get us into trouble. That was exactly what that woman was going to bring: trouble.

Still, I was outnumbered and just by the look on Derek’s face, I could tell that he wasn’t
going to abandon Emilia. Not knowing what to do, I stormed out of The Sanctuary. I couldn’t have imagined how big a mistake that was.

I’d barely just walked out the large doors that led outside
The Sanctuary when, as I expected, Xavier came running after me.

“Vivienne! What’s going on?” He held my arm to make me face him. We were already in the gardens outside of the white temple-like structure. “It’s unlike you
to object to helping someone –
anyone
– no matter what you feel about the person, and it’s not like you to just storm off like that. What’s wrong?”

I wasn’t being myse
lf and I knew it. I was known in The Shade as the calm and collected one, as the seer, but after my return from hunter territory, I couldn’t find that cool that I always managed to be in. I was afraid.
Extremely
afraid – in a way I never was before, and I had no idea how to handle it. “You saw how the original vampire killed my father, Xavier.”

The memory of my father’s body, drained of all blood, impaled on a pole in the middle of
The Vale’s town square was forever etched in my mind. None of us had any idea how the original vampire did it, but he was able to kill my father even while Gregor was locked up in The Shade. He left a message – carved into my father’s flesh:
You chose the wrong side.

I loved my father and I knew that he loved me. I knew that he was willing to start anew, to change.
I saw it in his eyes the last time I got to spend time with him. The Elder robbed him of that. I was still mourning the death of my father and my brother, Lucas. I wasn’t about to mourn Derek’s. With Emilia being in the island, I couldn’t shake the feeling that my twin was in grave danger.

“Derek is all I have left, Xavier. I already lost my father and I lost Lucas too… I can’
t afford to lose Derek. I won’t have a reason to live if I lose him. I would rather die.”

Xavier was taken aback and I could tell that he was hurt. I knew he cared about me. “Vivienne, I know you love your family. I admire that about you, but you have to open your eyes and start living for yourself at some point. You have people who care about you and have been loyal to you these past years – not just Derek or Gregor or Lucas. Liana, Sofia, me… We all care what happens to you, but it’s not even about that. There’s a reason you’re alive, a reason
I’m
still alive. You have to keep striving until you’ve fulfilled that reason. Live for
you
, Vivienne, because damn it… you’re worth living for and you’re worth dying for.”

Xavier gently brushed a loose strand of hair
from my face. He leaned over slowly and I was sure he was about to kiss me. I pulled away and shook my head.

“I can’t, Xavier.” I stepped away from him, watching his eyes moisten at my rejection.
“I’m sorry. I just… I need to figure out a way to stop Emilia.”

I turned and ran, not exactly certain where to go. I needed space. I needed time to think. Because
as much as I hated to admit it, Xavier struck a chord so deep, I had to get away from him to keep myself from crying. I lived the past five centuries for my family, and never for myself. Xavier’s words echoed in my head.
Live for you, Vivienne.

I had no idea how to do that, because I really had no idea who I was anymore.
I ran for hours. I ran until my thighs began to throb. I ran and ran and ran until I ended up back at The Sanctuary, ready to stab Emilia with a wooden stake, only to find myself frozen and unable to move the moment I lifted the stake in the air.

Emilia’s eyes shot wide open and a manic smile formed on her lips at the sight of me. “It’s been a
while, Vivienne. It seems like you’re going to be a lot more trouble for me now.”

I creased my brows, wondering what she was talking about. I tried with all my might to stab her with the stake, but
my body wouldn’t budge.

“Don’t bother, Vivienne. You won’t be able to move
.” Emilia sat up on the bed. “After you left, they didn’t give me the blood. They were too alarmed by your reaction so they figured I could still wait another day while they discuss what to do with me. I didn’t need the blood to heal. All I needed was The Sanctuary. This is my temple, is it not? My power as a witch comes from this place.”

I was so confused by what she was telling me. I tried to speak but I couldn’t
even move my lips. Panic was beginning to creep into every bone in my body, but I didn’t have control.
Corrine, where are you?

“You may not recognize my face any longer, but you know me
.” Emilia smiled. “I don’t blame you. I’m a far cry from the image you once knew. I was transformed into the woman of Derek’s wildest dreams, his ultimate ideal. No matter what your prophecies say,
Seer
, Derek does not belong with Sofia. He belongs with me.”

She rose to her feet and began stretching as she walked around the bedroom. I knew
her speaking to me wasn’t a good sign, because if she was confident enough to tell me her deepest secrets, it meant that she was planning to get rid of me.

“I
waited hundreds of years before my transformation was complete. I waited until the time he would wake up and find that he’s supposed to be with me, but then you brought that redheaded spitfire into the island and took everything away from me. You ruined everything, Vivienne. I really should punish you for that.”

Suddenly, I understood what Xavier was trying to tell me earlier. I realized right then and there that I did value my life. I’d always been willing to lose my life for my family and I realized why. I ha
dn’t actually lived it. I didn’t have a life of my own, and at that moment, I desperately wanted to have one, but it seemed Emilia wasn’t going to make that possible.

I was trying to comprehend what she was telling me
. If I could actually move, I was certain that I would be shivering with terror at what she was saying, but I could only watch her, wondering what she had in mind for me.

“It’s a shame I can’t kill you, Vivienne. I love Derek and I know that if I ever harm
his twin, he’ll never be able to forgive me. I can’t have that. I can’t risk losing his love for me.”

Losing his love for you? He doesn’t love you, you crazy bitch.

She brushed her fingers over my cheekbone and the moment her skin touched mine, I saw a vision that revealed to me who Emilia really was. She was no ordinary vampire, and it wasn’t just because she was the original vampire’s daughter. Terror took over as it sank into me how much of a threat she really was to Derek.

“
No, I won’t end your life, Vivienne. But I can always do the next best thing.” She grinned before snapping her fingers.

The sound hadn’t even registered
in my brain yet, when I found myself in my bedroom, lying down in the middle of my bed. Once again, I tried to get out of the bed, but I couldn’t. Instead, I found myself battling the urge to fall asleep, a battle I knew I was about to lose.
What has she done to me?

It didn’t take long for me to figure it out. As I drifted off to
a deep sleep, I knew that she cast the same spell that she placed on my brother four hundred years ago, and right before I lost consciousness, two thoughts circled in my mind…

Will I ever wake up?

Emilia is one of the most powerful witches that ever lived. She is The Shade’s original witch. She is Cora.