A Shade of Vampire 9: A Bond of Blood (14 page)

W
hen I opened my eyes
, I was standing on top of a sharp rock. This bare island was perhaps only a few thousand square feet. The moon and stars were the only source of light. A dark figure stood near the edge, his back facing me.

Mona was gone. I reached into my pocket and squeezed my phone.

As I made my way toward him, he whirled around. His eyes widened in shock. “Rose?” His voice was hoarse.

Cautiously, I closed the distance between us until I was standing just a few feet away from him. Now I could see him better.

My eyes fell on his bare torso. The only clothes he had on were pants. I wondered what Caleb had been doing when Mona had stolen him away.

I was having trouble speaking. My throat felt painful.

“What are you doing here?” He still seemed too shocked to see me to suspect I could be behind it.

“I asked the witch to bring you here,” I said, steeling myself for his response.

But he barely reacted. He just stood staring at me in confusion.

“You lied to me about stealing Anna. Why?”

He leapt the remaining distance between us and gripped my shoulders. “Tell the witch to take me back, now,” he growled.

Not until I find closure.

He gripped my jaw, his other hand reaching for the back of my neck. “You’re in no position to be making demands of me, girl,” he said.

He was so close, I felt his cool breath against my skin. I reached for his hands and pulled against them. “Oh, I think I am,” I said softly. “You’re stuck on this island until I call for the witch.”

He breathed out sharply and released me. He turned his back on me and ran to the edge of the water. “What does it even matter?” he snapped.

Now it was my turn to snap. “As much as this may have all been a game to you, it wasn’t for me.” My cheeks burned with embarrassment for having admitted this in front of him.

He paced up and down, staring out at the ocean.

“Stellan stole Anna,” I continued. “So why did you say that you stole her? Caleb, please. I promise I won’t keep you long if you’ll just tell me the truth.”

“Yes, Stellan stole her,” he said. “But as far as the world is concerned, I did. I wouldn’t be here now if I’d said that it wasn’t my idea all along.”

“So you didn’t come to our island intending to steal Anna?”

“Of course not.” He scowled. “You saw me snap Stellan’s neck. And I never would have set foot on the island had it not been for your stubbornness.” He paused and heaved a sigh. He stopped pacing and turned his back on me again. “I never should have kissed you,” he muttered.

Holding my breath, I walked up behind him cautiously until I was standing next to him at the edge of the rock. The sea roared all around us, its rough waves spraying our skin.

I swallowed hard.

I’d thought I’d find relief and closure in knowing for sure what had happened. That it would help me move on and stop thinking about him like a loser. But now my stomach just felt even more knotted, knowing that he was innocent. Knowing that all along he had indeed been protecting me.

Before all this had happened, I’d harbored some hope in the back of my mind that maybe one day—if he managed to escape Annora—he’d come to stay with us in The Shade. Now, that could never be the case.

Even if Mona was able to cut his bonds to Annora, even I wasn’t naive enough to think that I could persuade my father that he was innocent. Not after all my father had witnessed with his own eyes. He wouldn’t believe me before, and he certainly wouldn’t now. Caleb had already sealed his own fate in the eyes of my parents and the rest of The Shade.

“I repeat my question,” he said, breaking through the silence. “What difference does it make?”

I stared down at the dark waters licking the edge of the rocks. I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out.

He was right, of course. But my actions, it seemed, weren’t based on what made sense anymore. Rather, they were based on the restlessness eating me away inside. I’d left my brain in The Shade. I knew that already.

“You’re right,” I murmured, “It doesn’t make a difference. I just suppose, even if the whole world believes your lie, at least I know…” My voice trailed off.

A gust of wind showered us with spray. I looked out once again at the churning black monster surrounding us. We seemed so insignificant on this tiny cluster of rocks. The vastness could swallow us up, and very little would change in the world.

My eyes fixed on two clumps of sea flora, colliding with each other in the waves before being torn apart just as suddenly.

“I want to return,” Caleb said.

“Of course,” I whispered.

I stood up and reached into my pocket for the phone. My hand trembling, I flipped it open and dialed Mona’s number.

The witch picked up after a few rings.

“We’re done,” I said.

Even now, Caleb avoided eye contact.

I wanted to reach out to him. I wanted him to hold me in his arms just one last time. Feel his hand in my hair, his palm touching the side of my face. I wanted to kiss his cold cheek. But I held myself back. I knew that it would just make things more painful in the long term, just as his kiss had.

Caleb was right. We never should have shared that kiss.

Mona appeared on a rock a few feet away from us.

I looked at her, biting back the pain.

“Please take Caleb back first,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady. “I’ll wait here for you.”

Mona walked briskly over to Caleb and placed a hand on his shoulder.

It killed me that even during those final seconds, he was still looking anywhere but at me.

And then he was gone.

T
hat’s it
.

I dare a tsunami to try and stop me asking that woman out on a date today.

My muscles were still begging for rest after the ordeal I’d been through, but I washed and changed into clean clothes. I hurried out of my penthouse and began scouring the island for Adelle.

When I was trapped in that dungeon, I’d sworn this would be the first thing I did when I got out. The experience had made me realize that even as a vampire, one could never take life for granted. On more than one occasion I’d believed that we would all perish in that castle at the hands of Annora.

Even though the safety of our island hung in the balance now that Annora knew its location, I sensed that if I didn’t ask Adelle now, I might regret it for the rest of my life.

It was time to realize that there never would be a perfect moment. It would only continue to elude me each time I decided to wait for it.

My first stop was the school. I scanned the classrooms and offices. But the whole place was empty except for two caretakers cleaning up in the dining hall.

I searched every corner of the Vale, asking people for her whereabouts as I went along, but nobody seemed to know. I checked the witch’s residence— a large cabin built into the side of the one of The Shade’s mountains—and then visited the Sanctuary. Neither Corrine nor Ibrahim had seen her.

By this time, I was beginning to worry. I wondered if something could have happened during my absence.

But continuing to go round in circles on the island was useless. I admitted defeat for the time being and decided to check back later. I walked back through the woods toward my apartment.

And that was when I heard it.

Adelle’s laughter. It was unmistakeable to my ears. Rich, musical, it called to me like a siren.

I followed the sound of her voice through the bushes for about half a mile until I reached the border of the lake… the same lake where I’d first tried to ask her out on a date. My eyes travelled further toward the direction of her voice and settled on the boathouse. The same boathouse we’d stood in together.

I saw her auburn hair through the window.

Then I heard a second laugh. A male laugh.

My heart skipped a beat. I ducked behind a bush and approached more cautiously, trying not to make a sound as I neared the open entrance of the boat house.

I saw her, dazzling as always in a short summer dress, her long hair streaming down her shoulders.

She sat against the wall of the boathouse. In the arms of Eli Lazaroff.

Disappointment gripped my chest, jealousy squeezing my heart.

Well, a tsunami wasn’t required. Just the island’s resident bachelor.

A
shley
and I sat in deck chairs beneath the shade of a wide umbrella. We were on the one stretch of beach on the island where the sun was allowed to shine. The beach was always crowded with the younger generation of humans at the weekend. Ashley was reading a book, while I was pretending to mark some of the juniors’ homework.

My seat was directly in line with the sea where Ben was taking a swim. I kept looking up whenever he stood up, beads of water dripping from his dark hair onto his chiseled torso.

I hadn’t spoken to him much since we’d returned to the island. Not that I’d really expected to. So much had been going on, we’d barely had a chance to catch a breath.

I hoped that our excursion to the cave had helped bridge the gap a little between Ben and I. Although we’d both grown up together, he felt like a stranger. Truth be told, I felt the same about many others on the island.

I’d grown used to living my life in the shadow of my family’s death. It was hard to look anyone in the eye without them feeling pity for me. Even Sofia. She still got teary sometimes when she talked to me. Perhaps it was my fault for looking so much like my brother. Like Sofia, most people on the island tried to be sensitive about it, but I always detected sympathy in their eyes.

I’d grown so sick and tired of people treating me like I was fragile. They didn’t know that this damaged me more than if they’d just behaved normally. This made it take longer to heal.

Eventually, I’d gotten fed up with it. I’d just retreated into my work. That was why, although I’d lived most of my life on the island, many of my peers felt like strangers. I’d distracted myself with study, and then once I was qualified under the tuition of the witches, I’d begun teaching others.

People assumed my retreating into myself meant that I was even more broken and sensitive than they had previously imagined. It was easier to just avoid people and let them think what they wanted. I spent time with children because they were too young to pity me. Most of the younger generation didn’t know about my past.

Then when tragedy had struck again on the island, with Anna disappearing, we’d all been touched by the mayhem. I’d been forced out of my shell as we all had to do what was needed.

And when I’d ended up teaming up with Ben… I’d realized that I’d been attracted to him for a while now. I’d just not admitted it to myself.

My mind drifted back to the hours we’d spent alone in the submarine.

After I’d told him how I felt about my past, he’d treated me like any other person his age. It wasn’t something that other people found easy. Nobody was blatant about my misfortune any more, but it was these subtle undercurrents of behavior—their softened tone, the way they looked into my eyes as I talked, the way they looked for excuses to brush my shoulder—that I’d become hypersensitive to.

But Ben hadn’t displayed any of these. He’d passed my test. I felt like I could let go with him, and I said things I wouldn’t normally say. I felt… free with him.

Looking at him swimming around in the sea now, I was embarrassed to feel butterflies swell in my stomach.

It would have been a lie to say that I wasn’t attracted to Ben Novak. There wasn’t a girl on the island who wasn’t. He was undeniably the best-looking guy of the younger generation on the island. But he was also smart, brave and kind. And despite his age, he was an old-fashioned gentleman that any girl couldn’t help but swoon over.

I knew there were too many other girls on the island swooning for his attention for me to have a chance. I was just boring school-teacher Abigail. At least, that was the persona I’d put out into the world.

People didn’t know that, inside, I was bursting with life.

I wanted to run through the meadows at midnight. Climb the highest tree. Go for a swim during a storm. I wanted someone to laugh with. More than anything, I wanted someone to treat me as their equal, and not like I was a china doll.

Throughout the years, Shadow had been the closest I had to this. I’d grown up with him and he never pitied me. When I wanted to unleash some energy, I’d take him for a long walk on the beach. I’d howl into the wind along with him, and play with him in the waves.

He probably still was the vampire on the island I felt closest to, despite him being a slobbering dog. At least, up until those hours I’d spent alone with Ben in the submarine…

A group of four girls in bikinis made their way toward Ben in the water.

I sighed, smiling bitterly and averting my eyes back to my papers.

“You all right, Abby?” Ashley asked, looking up from her book.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “I’m fine.”

I buried my head back in homework for the next hour and didn’t look up again until footsteps approached.

My heart raced as I looked up to see Ben approaching. He wore swim shorts and now a damp cotton shirt that clung to his abs. He looked down at me and smiled. I put down my pen and papers down and sat up straighter, returning his smile.

“Hi, Abby.”

“Hi, Ben.”

He reached his hands into his shorts pocket, then looked down at his feet as he kicked the sand. “Do… do you want to go for a walk with me?”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure.”

His gorgeous green eyes left me breathless. He reached out his hand and I gripped it. He pulled me up. I brushed down my beach dress, knocking away the sand.

“See you later, Abby,” Ashley said, giving me a wink.

I rolled my eyes at her.

As I left the beach alone with Ben, I caught sight of a group of girls scowling at me. I grinned to myself.

I wasn’t sure why Ben had asked me to walk with him. But something told me that this was going to beat my usual afternoon walk with Shadow.