A Shade Of Blood Part 20

"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 sh.o.r.e. 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 sh.o.r.e. 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 sh.o.r.e.

"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 antic.i.p.ate 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.

CHAPTER 37: SOFIA.

I raised the lantern Derek gave me over my head as we continued to climb to the top of the lighthouse. I found myself a bit confused and more than a little surprised. I thought I was imagining things, but I could swear that the hand Derek laid on my back was shaking.

Derek Novak? Nervous? Will wonders never cease?

As we neared our destination, I felt a mixture of dread and antic.i.p.ation. It was obvious that this place held a lot of meaning to Derek and I was excited to find out why, but there was also a sense of foreboding that came with it, as if the lighthouse also housed something dark and disturbing.

I was relieved and out of breath when we finally reached the top of the lighthouse. Derek, who was at my rear the whole time, took the lead during the last few steps. He retrieved a metal skeleton key from his jeans' side pocket and unlocked the arched rosewood door.

His hand was already on the latch that would open the door, but he took several breaths before finally pushing it open.

I sensed his anxiety. "Derek?" I asked as I stepped beside him. "Are you alright?"

I kept my gaze on his face, paying no attention to the room I just stepped into. Considering the unexpected turn of events that welcomed me to The Shade, it was the first time since I got back that I found myself once again struck by his appearance. He towered at least half a foot over me. His hair was as black as night, his skin as pale as snow. His blue eyes changed shades with his mood. This time, they were a deep dark shade of blue as if a storm was brewing in them, with his pupils as the storm's center.

He faced me and gave me one small smile. Bitter. Heartbroken. Disturbed. Afraid. He didn't say anything. He just stepped aside to give me a better view of the room.

The octagonal room had four large windows on every other wall. Each window had heavy red drapes drawn to the sides, allowing us a view of the starry night skies within the lines that defined the island. The strange thing was that from our vantage point, it was clear to see where the night stopped and where the day began. Miles away from us was a bright, sunny day, marking the boundaries where the light cast out by the lighthouse's lantern was wholly unnecessary.

I turned around to find Derek standing at the very center of the room. His eyes were beginning to moisten and I realized then that I'd never actually seen him cry. "Vivienne. She maintained the room all these years."

I took small steps over the hardwood floor as I perused the rest of the room. Framed photos were all over the walls. Unlit candles surrounded the room. A sectional velvet couch was on one side, right in front of a fire place mounted on one windowless wall. A coffee table was set up in front of the couch and over it was a large leather-bound book that looked like it belonged to the fifteenth century.

To me, the room was a well-decorated place that provided the perfect retreat to anyone who wanted to get away from the confines of The Shade. To Derek, however, it looked like the room meant so much more.

I stopped right in front of him and looked up at his face, breath-taken by the intensity of emotion I saw in there. "What is this place, Derek?"

"I told you... it's my sanctuary." One side of his lips curved up into a side smile as he held my hand and led me toward the couch. He sat down and pulled me to sit right beside him. He sat up straight, leaning his elbows over his knees as he took the book on top of the coffee table and placed it on his lap.

"If you're going to stay here, you need to know about The Shade and everything it cost to make it what it is now." He paused, a pensive expression coming over his face. "More than that, I need you to know me. Everything about me."

And that, I realized, was the reason he was so terrified.

CHAPTER 38: DEREK.

I opened the leather-bound book that showed pages upon pages of inked letters written in long handwriting. "These pages contain the chronicles of The Shade's history," I explained. "It is basically a record of how The Shade came to be." I gently closed it and handed it to her. "The book cannot leave the lighthouse, so if you want to read it, you have to come here."

The thought of her reading into the deepest secrets of The Shade made my stomach turn. Just thinking of how she would look at me after reading those pages broke me in a way I didn't even know was possible. A tear ran down my cheek before I could stop it.

"Derek..." She seemed surprised, definitely moved by what she saw on my face. She brushed her soft fingers over my cheekbone, using her thumb to wipe the tear away.

I stared at the book and wondered if I was doing the right thing. I couldn't bear to look at her, so I looked away. "If you think what I did to Ashley was bad, Sofia, you'll find that I've done a lot of worse things to protect my family and The Shade." I returned my gaze to the book on her lap. "Read, Sofia."

She opened the book to the first page. I flinched as she began to read out loud. It felt like we spent hours inside the lighthouse as she read page after page after page, gasping at certain parts, tearing up at others. At some points, she would look up at me a million questions in her eyes, as if wondering how I was able to live with myself having committed such atrocities.

I couldn't live with myself, Sofia. That's why I asked Cora to put me in a sleep that I could never wake up from. I still don't understand why she broke her promise and made me wake up four hundred years later. I wanted to explain myself to Sofia, but I kept my mouth shut through the whole thing.

At times, it was worth watching her reactions as she continued to read. Sometimes, she would pause and stare at me with admiration. Or at least, what I thought was admiration. It felt like I was fooling myself to even entertain the notion that she could admire me after reading about the grisly history of The Shade. The shipwreck, the lighthouse, the caves, First Blood, the slaves, the Wall, the beasts...

When she began reading the thoughts I'd written down about the uprising and the subsequent ma.s.sacre, tears began trickling down her face and she started sobbing. I was convinced at that moment: That's it. I've lost her. She stopped reading and continued to cry quietly, mourning the loss of all those slaves who dared rise up against us.

I sat still, my fingers gently brushing against her hair as I waited for her sobs to subside. When the sound became unbearable, I withdrew my touch. I barely managed to say the words, my own guilt choking me.

"I guess now you know exactly what I am."

I didn't expect the way she responded at all. She took hold of the hand that I drew away from her and pressed its palm over the side of her face, her fingers caressing the back of my hand. "I think I've always known exactly what you are, Derek. The thing is ... I don't think you do."

I had no idea what she meant, but if her touch wasn't already healing balm in itself, her seeming acceptance of me in spite of the monster I believed I was caused me to hope again.

She shut the book and gently tossed it back to its place at the coffee table. "I'm horrified," she admitted. "I can't fully understand how you could have been capable of making those choices..."

My lips twitched at the words. I felt like shrinking under the weight of her stare, knowing that her admonitions were gentle compared to what I deserved to hear from her.

"...but I've seen firsthand that you are better than the choices you sometimes make. I don't think that the man portrayed in those pages is the same man who woke up in my time."

I looked into her eyes and saw sincerity and hope... hope on my behalf that I could still have some good in me. At that moment, I adored her more than I ever did any other woman in my lifetime. I doubt she had any idea what her words did to me when she said, "You can be better than this."

When she leaned closer and her lips touched mine, I couldn't bring myself to believe it. After recovering from the initial shock, however, I responded with gratefulness and pa.s.sion. I held her waist and drew her closer, practically carrying her so I could plant her on my lap as I once again partook of the pleasures those sweet lips of hers provided.

That night, at the lighthouse, everything else faded away in the background and my entire world became Sofia Claremont.

CHAPTER 39: BEN.

I sat rigid over the circular couch, staring at the charismatic, confident gait of the man calling himself Reuben Lincoln. Zinnia was sitting on the same couch I was, a bright curious look in her eyes as she shifted glances between the two men she was with. Reuben, on the other hand, was sitting across me on a leather recliner, his posture relaxed as he leaned against the seat's backrest, his elbows propped up on the recliner's armrests.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, Mr. Hudson," he noted.

"That's because I think I just have." Bitterness was in my voice. That I could still be hurt on her behalf as I stared at the father who abandoned her for eight years was a cold reminder that Sofia still meant more to me than I was comfortable to admit. "You're Aiden Claremont."

I was expecting him to deny it, so I was surprised when a smirk showed on his face and he said, "I figured you would recognize me. You were old enough to remember."

"Remember what? That you abandoned your own daughter?"

Zinnia shifted uncomfortably on her seat. I wondered if she even knew that their revered leader was actually Sofia's father.

"I really don't have to answer to you, Ben." He responded without even batting an eyelid. He retrieved a cigar from the back pocket of his suit and took out a lighter. He was about to light it when he looked at me. "Do you mind?"

"Yes. I mind."

He scoffed. "Good thing I don't really give a rat's a.s.s." He lit the cigar and took a puff. "I was only asking out of courtesy."

"How courteous of you..." I responded through gritted teeth, irritated by his entire demeanor. "So you're Reuben Lincoln now?"

"To the hunters, yes. That's how I'm known. To the rest of the world, I'm still Aiden Claremont."

"Which of the two ident.i.ties is really you?"

"Both" came his immediate response. He gave it a moment's thought. "Neither." He shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"Sofia needed you."

His lips tightened as he placed his cigar on a nearby ash tray. He then glared at me with intensity that I never before saw in Sofia's green eyes. "As I said, I don't need to answer to you, boy. Let's cut to the chase. Why do you want to become a hunter? Why are you here, Mr. Hudson? How did you come to know Eliza? And how was she able to tell you about me?"