A Shade Of Vampire 5: A Blaze Of Sun (7 page)

“Why the heck not?” Ashley asked, a playful pout forming on her lips. “You and Derek are practically married already.”

We were having lunch at
The Catacombs and I’d just asked the girls what they thought about Derek and me getting married. As expected, unlike my father, both of them were ecstatic, squealing with delight like the teenagers that we were.

“What do you think, Rosa?” I asked.

Rosa smiled, her cheeks taking on a pink blush. “It’s bound to happen, Sofia. Why not now?”

I bit my lip before c
onfessing, “I’m hesitant to be honest…”

Ashley’s eyes widened with surprise. “Why?”

“Our relationship has been struggling lately. I mean, yes, we have our good times… I don’t know if it’s just me, but there’s this gap between us that I can’t quite figure out. It’s almost like Derek is distancing himself from me and… I just… I don’t understand why I feel this way. Perhaps it’s just the familiarity?”

Ashley rolled her eyes and smiled at me. “Well, what did I just say? Didn’t I tell you? You’re like a married couple al
ready… You’re talking like you’ve been married to him for five years and you’re looking for that spark you used to have…”

“Sofia,” Rosa
interrupted. “Whatever your choice is, marry him or don’t marry him, you do know that we’re going to support you, right? Go for what you feel is right…”

Truth
be told, after my conversation with my father, I’d actually already made up my mind. I was just having trouble figuring out how I was going to tell Derek. To my surprise, I saw his well-built form taking several strides toward me. A huge smile was on his handsome face.

“You look like you just won the lottery, Novak,” Ashley piped up.

“Maybe I just did,” Derek quipped before leaning forward and kissing me passionately.

I was so shocked by the
gesture; I just kept my mouth hanging open when our lips finally parted.

This seemed to amuse him, his bright blue eyes twinkling. “Have I told you lately how much I adore you, Sofia Claremont?”

“So, this is you lacking intimacy?” Ashley eyed me questioningly and I found myself blushing.

Derek took the seat next to mine and placed his arm over my shoulder. He then turned a questioning glare at me. “You told her we were lacking intimacy?”

I closed my mouth and bit my lip. “Well, not really… I was just…”

I was expecting him to be offended, but it seemed he was in too light a mood to care. Instead, h
e gave me a naughty look and said, “It doesn’t matter. I can fix that.” He then kissed me once again, leaving me quite breathless, but totally aware of my friends’ hoots and cheers. Derek still had that wide grin on his face as he watched my cheeks redden. “I can’t wait for you to become Mrs. Sofia Novak.”

I was speechless.
What is going on with him?
The way he was acting was making me feel even guiltier about having second thoughts about pushing through with our wedding. “Are you feeling sick, Derek?” I eventually managed to say, as I laid the back of my hand over his forehead to check his temperature.
Chilly as usual.

“I’m fine.” He took
hold of my hand and squeezed tight. “I cleared out the rest of the day. Vivienne is on top of everything. Come with me.”

I glanced at my half-finished plate of food and then at my two girlfriends. Both seemed eager to see me leave with Derek. I honestly couldn’t wait to spend time with him, so I nodded and looked his way. That was all he needed to see before he held me by the waist and told me to hold on to him tight. He then sped his way out of
The Catacombs until we reached the Pavilion.

All of
The Shade’s vampires lived at the Residences, located in the northwest area of the island. The Residences were villas or even huts situated on top of networks of trees. Of the Residences, the most lavish were the homes of the Elite, called the Penthouses. Each penthouse was built on top of giant redwoods and usually reached a span of at least eight redwood trees, depending on the size of the clan occupying the penthouse.

Of all the Elite’s penthouses, however, there were four that occupied twenty redwood trees. These four penthouses w
ere called the Pavilion and home to the Novaks, The Shade’s royalty. Since Gregor and Lucas Novak’s deaths, their penthouses had been given to Cameron and Liana Hendry and Eli and Yuri Lazaroff as a reward for their loyal service to the Novaks and The Shade throughout the centuries.

It was to the Pavilion that Derek brought me
. Its wide veranda was home to a view that never failed to take my breath away. As we stared at the magnificent view of the island, illuminated by the moon’s soft light, Derek pulled my back against his chest, his hands rubbing against my waist and my hips.

“I love your warmth,” he whispered, his voice husky with emotion. “I love you, Sofia.”

I wondered what was going through his mind and what could’ve brought about this mood of his. I didn’t want to ask, afraid that it might spoil the moment, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss away.

“I love you too. You know that, don’t you?”

I could feel him nod, his lips pressing against the back of my head.

I couldn’t help but smile as a wave of nostalgia came over me. “We’ve been through a lot, haven’t we?” I
found myself asking, memories in The Shade – both good and bad – suddenly replaying through my mind. One memory in particular came at the forefront.
The Sun Room.

During my first months in
The Shade, I was mostly known as Derek’s favorite slave. For my own protection, I wasn’t allowed to leave his penthouse unguarded. Of course, the girls and I found ourselves bored out of our minds so I took on a pet project. Derek allowed me to turn one of the rooms in his penthouse to whatever I wanted to make of it.

I turned it into the Sun Room. The memory of the first time he saw it was still fresh on my mind.

“So you did this?” He looked around the room, a mural of a beautiful sandy beach painted on one wall, large mirrors on the other walls to make the room brighter and reflect the light projected by the recessed LED lights on the ceiling and the walls.  At the center of the ceiling was a sunroof, mostly composed of LED lights over a glass window, creating the illusion of sunlight streaming through the room.

We chose
lawn furniture that would create the feeling of being outdoors.

I smiled at Derek. “It wasn’t just me. Vivienne was more than happy to get us everything we needed. The girls and Sam and Kyle helped too. I guess it’s not just you who misses sunlight, so thanks for giving me the idea.”

To my surprise, he gently pulled me against him. He took my arms and laid them over his shoulders and around his neck. He then held my waist and led me to a slow dance.

“There’s no music,” I reminded him.

He grinned. “In my head, Sofia, there’s always music.”

I found the thought funny. “That must be interesting. It’s like you always come with your own background music.”

He nodded, smiling down at me. “Exactly.”

He then pulled me closer and placed a soft kiss over my forehead. His kiss then fell on my cheek, then to the corner of my lips. I knew he was going to kiss me
, and if I were to be honest with myself, I wanted it to happen, but I pulled away.

“I’m sorry...
I… I can’t.”

I was expecting him to ask why or assert himself and insist.

Instead, he just nodded and looked away from me. “I understand.”

Derek
could have demanded that kiss from me, but he waited – the same way he waited for me to be ready to get engaged to him, the same way he was waiting to marry me before we could make love, the same way he waited for me to agree to turn into a vampire. He never forced me into anything until I was ready. I wondered then if he could wait a little bit more before we could get married.

“Do you really think we should go ahead and get married, Derek?” I felt guilty just asking the question, but I couldn’t keep myself from asking either.

“Don’t you?” was his response. “You said so yourself so many times… we belong together.”

At that, I couldn’t help but give in. It was hard not to with him being so loving and tender and sweet.
Why resist it? Why not now?
Still, I couldn’t deny to myself that I felt a cold sense of foreboding regarding the whole thing.

I tried to shake it off a
s we spent more time together that night, but I just couldn’t. When we ended up in his couch and he began to tug at my shirt to expose my neck, my heart sank when I realized what he was doing. He didn’t ask for my permission or consent. He just bit into my neck and began feeding on my blood.

As I sat there, feeling his body pressed against mine, his teeth sinking into my skin, I couldn’t help but wonder:
If he never becomes mortal, is this how it’s going to be? Is this going to be what life is like?

For the first time in a long time, I saw him as a predator and I, his willing prey.

Screams were a common thing within The Catacombs. They were as familiar to the Naturals as an ambulance’s siren would be to people outside of The Shade – or so the books say. While someone screaming with terror was a cause for alarm, a Natural never quite runs to the rescue unless they fear that the person screaming was one of their loved ones.

So
, for a guy like me, who was orphaned at fourteen and didn’t have any loved ones to worry about, screams never really became a source of alarm.

One particular night, I realized that things were different, because when I heard a piercing scream, I immediately found myself sitting up on my mat, blood pounding and heart racing. One name began echoing in my head.
Anna.

Ever since Sofia led the rebellion against Derek’s father, Gregor, and
his idea of another culling in The Shade, things had been very different around The Catacombs. I was already leading a group of rebels – mostly teenagers like me – against the idea of a culling ever being done again. Once was enough and the horror it brought all of us was still fresh in our hearts and minds. During a culling, all the humans of The Catacombs deemed to be weak or in any way useless, were killed. Their blood was harvested and preserved for future consumption by the vampires.

Sofia, who
m I wasn’t much of a fan of in the beginning, was instrumental in getting Derek Novak, then prince of The Shade, to stand with the humans against the culling. Of course, where Derek stood, a whole bunch of the vampire elite followed.

Since then, the huma
ns had gotten more of a voice in The Shade, and thanks to Sofia, mine was one of them. For the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to hope once again that things could turn around on the island. More than all of that, I hoped once again that perhaps I could have the old, vibrant, carefree and joyful Anna back. This hope was sparked further when one night when Anna found her way to my quarters. She was carrying a rose with her. She knelt on the ground and shook me awake. At first, I was annoyed, but when I saw that it was her, I once again found myself catching a breath over her beauty.

“Anna? What is it?”

She laid the white rose in front of me and smiled. “You don’t have to cry anymore, Ian. Everything’s going to be alright. I promise.” Her tone was childlike, her eyes wide with excitement.

I wondered where she got the rose, but I thought better not to ask. I was too busy choking back the tears as I
remembered her being the adored beauty of The Catacombs, back before Felix broke her.

“Thank you, Anna.”

She lay on the stone ground beside me, rolling to her side to face me. “Can I sleep here, Ian? I don’t think Felix will mind as long as we don’t touch. I’m afraid to sleep alone tonight.”

I nodded, careful not to touch her, knowing how erratic her moods were. I liked this docile version of her. “You can sleep here, Anna, but not on the ground.” I got up and retrieved another mat – the one my mother used before – and set it on the space beside me. “You can lie down here.”

She seemed grateful as she took her place on the mat. I gave her my pillow and she seemed to hesitate taking it, but I insisted. “A pillow for the rose, Anna.”

She understood, smiled, and nodded, before laying her head on the pillow and quickly drifting off to sleep.
She slept in my quarters three straight nights before she stopped. I sought her out that fourth night and found her sleeping like a baby in her own quarters. After another three nights, she once again requested to sleep in mine, something I readily allowed her to do. I got used to her requesting to sleep in my quarters, but I found myself craving her presence more and more.

So
, when I heard that piercing scream during that night, I found myself worried because I realized that I had once again began to care about someone other than me.

The scream was followed by another and then another and I found myself jolting out of my room and rushing towards the sound of the scream. By the time I got to her quarters, I found three men –
all older than me –inside her chambers. One of them had her pinned to the wall, his hand clamped over her mouth.

There’d already been rumors that some men were taking advantage of her but I never thought the rumors
could be true. We all thought that they were just the insane mutterings of a crazy woman. After all, who would ever want to hurt Anna?

That night, I found out.
“Get your hands off her!”

One of the men glared at me, a grin forming on his face. “Oh, look… It’s Ian. What? You’re not willing to share? Don’t play nice, Ian. We all know she’s been sleeping in your quarters
for nights in a row.”

The thought that he was accusing me of what they were about to do – or perhaps even what they’d already been doing – caused me to see red and I began attacking. While I was able to take one man down in a wild fit of fury, I didn’t stand a chance against the two other men.

One was already holding me by the arms while the other was poised to hit me when someone unexpected showed up.
Kyle.
A vampire guard.

I looked at him and wondered
,
what on earth is he doing here?
Anna ran to him, seeking safety behind him.

“Everything’s going to be okay, Anna,” he assured
, before casting a glare at the two men holding me back. “Let go of him,” he commanded and the two men readily obliged, lifting their hands up in the air in surrender.

Even they were smart enough to know not to mess with a vampire.

“Did you ever touch her before this night?” Kyle asked them.

The men shook their heads while one shook as he swore, “We never did. Not until tonight.”

I knew without a doubt in my mind that they were lying. I gently brushed a hand over Anna’s bare arm and was relieved when she looked my way without flinching. “Have you ever seen these men before, Anna? Did they come to hurt you before?”

She nodded. “They always come. I’m afraid Felix might find out. He won’t want me anymore if they touch me. I try to tell them, but they won’t listen.”

I wanted to kill them then and there, but it seemed Kyle already beat me to that idea. “Get her out of here,” he ordered. “I don’t want her to see this.”

The men began begging for their lives even as I gently led Anna away. I didn’t even hear the men scream, but I was sure that they met their deaths. I wondered if they had children and wives to look after. I wondered if Kyle
had created widows and orphans by killing them. I wanted to feel a sense of loss, but I couldn’t. It was the way of The Shade. Life was fragile. We were all used to that knowledge.

It didn’t take long before Kyle caught up with
me and Anna.

“Where are you taking her?” he asked.

“To my quarters. She’ll be safer there.”

He looked at me suspiciously before turning his eyes toward the lovely young woman who was staring blankly at the space ahead of us. “Did he ever touch you, Anna?”

I gritted my teeth at what he was trying to imply, but I couldn’t exactly blame him. I would’ve suspected myself too had I been in his place.

To my relief, Anna shook her head. “No. He never did. Ian is my friend. He’s just sad. Sometimes, I wish he could be happier.”

I drew a breath at what she said. I loved her. I loved Anna. How could I not? I returned my gaze to the vampire whom we owed her rescue to.

Kyle’s eyes softened as he gazed at her. He then turned his attention toward me.
He was about to say something, but it was my turn to scrutinize him. He seemed to get the implication of my glare. “I assure you… I could never do anything to harm her. At least not purposely…”

I believed him. I knew Anna wouldn’t be so comfortable around him if she didn’t
feel safe with him.

Kyle shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“I think she’d be better off staying in one of the spare rooms at Sofia’s quarters.”

Sofia was still gone. The latest news we heard about her was that she and Derek were being held captive at hunter territory. I nodded. “Fine. Knowing Sofia, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

We brought her to the quarters, where Rosa, Lily and her kids were already staying. We both stayed to look after her that night, glaring suspiciously at each other every once in a while. It took some time before we were able to trust each other to be left alone with Anna, but we never quite got past the tension. I knew why.

We never said it out loud, but I was certain that both of us
were hoping that Anna would pick one of us over the other.

I had just tucked Anna into the queen-sized bed
in one of the guest rooms of Sofia’s quarters. She was already sleeping soundly when the unwelcomed visitor spoke up.

“How is she doing?”

I turned around and found Kyle leaning against the doorpost, the vampire’s eyes fixed on Anna. I never quite understood his fixation with her, but it annoyed me. I hated it even more that he was instrumental in Anna’s rescue from the men taking advantage of her. I detested the idea of Anna owing him anything.

“She’s alright.” I shrugged. “Better than before. Old sparks of
who she was before have been coming back. What are
you
doing here? It’s my night to look after her.”

He nodded. “I know. I just wanted to see her.”

A sense of possessiveness came over me. She was my girl. What business did he have checking on her?

“Did you know that Derek and Corrine suspect
she might be an immune just like Sofia?”

I was surprised by that piece of information. Especially considering that Corrine,
The Shade’s witch, was involved. I couldn’t ignore the possibility that it could be true. “Why would they think that?”

“We all saw how Felix was with her. He was madly in love with her. I couldn’t understand how he could just get rid of her so suddenly. Derek is assuming that he was actually serious about turning her into a vampire. He most likely tried, but she didn’t turn.
”

I looked up at Kyle, wondering why he was giving me that information. It was the first real conversation I could remember ever having with him. “So he just threw her away because she didn’t turn?”

“I guess he was faced with her mortality. She probably wasn’t able to handle the effects that the foiled attempt to turn her caused. She may have gone insane because of this.”

I swallowed hard before casting a concerned look at Anna. “What do you mean?”

“
Borys Maslen tried to turn Sofia into a vampire when she was nine years old.”

I squared my shoulders in surprise.
I knew Sofia was an immune – everyone did, but I had no idea he had tried to turn her at such a young age.

“Ever since then, she’s had heightened senses. She was diagnosed with several disorders because of this. Even Corrine mistook her as someone with
some sort of disorder known as LLI, but now she suspects that perhaps it’s because, though she didn’t turn into a vampire, her senses got heightened. Maybe that’s why Anna went insane. Corrine told me that only people with exceptionally high IQs could handle that many sensations coming at them all at once.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“We’ve been looking after Anna over the past weeks. I wanted to know how you would feel if Anna saw Corrine. Perhaps the witch can help her cope with the heightened senses and hopefully get the Anna we remember back to us.”

I stared at him, wondering what he
had shared with Anna that made her so dear to him. I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to know what I was competing with, but my view of Kyle changed that night. We could always be annoyed with the existence of each other, but aside from irritation, we also shared the same feeling toward each other: Respect.

I realized that should Anna ever choose Kyle over me, it would break my heart, but I would also be at peace knowing that he would take care of her.

Kyle was definitely another reason for me to believe that goodness still existed in The Shade.

Every day of my teenage life in
The Shade had been a battle to stay alive. I lost my father and my sister to a cave-in at The Catacombs when I was nine. My dad had gone in to save my sister. He was my hero and I’d always felt a sense of pride over his bravery.

For five years, it was just my mother and
me. I looked after her like I promised my father that I would, but in a place like The Shade, life was too fragile. My mother was late in coming home one night, after working as a hairdresser at The Baths. It was the winter season and though it never snowed in The Shade, that night was particularly cold. She contracted a cough that she never quite recovered from. Her lungs were weak and none of us had any clue how she could possibly overcome the sickness that she had.

My mother was unable to go to work for months. Because of this, she was seen as one of the weaklings of
The Catacombs and was killed at The Shade’s legendary human culling. I was fourteen years old when I lost her and it felt like I had nobody left. Then I met Anna.