I withdrew my hand immediately and stepped back. “Doesn’t she recognize me?”

“She’s turning, Derek. She’s too consumed by the process.” My father was speaking from behind me. I was about to turn around to face him, but to my shock, Vivienne lunged for me, her hands gripping my neck, ready to take a bite. I knew how to take her down, knew what I had to do in order to kill her, but I couldn’t do it. She was too precious to me. I shut my eyes as she bared her fangs at me. I had no doubt in my mind that I was about to meet my end by my sister’s hands.

To my surprise, my father pulled her away from me and threw her right back onto the bed. Vivienne glared at him with a look that was not her own—beastly, menacing, fearsome—nothing like the serene and docile young innocent my sister used to be.

“How could you do this?” I spat at my father as he held me down on the ground. “How could you do this to your own children?”

“If I don’t turn you, they will kill you, Derek. Can you really let Vivienne live her whole life bearing the guilt, knowing that she helped kill her twin?”

The implications of what he was saying hit me full force. “No…you can’t…you won’t…” It felt like I was blindsided, because he hit me on the face and everything faded to black. When I came back to full consciousness, it was because of the agonizing pain. Three days of sheer excruciation followed—three days I could barely remember. At the end of the worst seventy-two hours of my life, I woke up to find three unconscious young women surrounding me. To my relief, they weren’t dead, but I knew based on the way I was craving them, that I’d had a taste of their blood. Fighting the urge to kill the three innocents—not even bothering to ask how they got to be there, I knew that I needed to leave that place—to get as far away as possible from those three young women before I could do anything I would later regret. It was taking every bit of my will power and self-control not to hunt them down.

Until the Battle of First Blood, the battle that secured us control over The Shade, I prided myself on never killing a human being—something Vivienne was also able to accomplish. As for my father and brother, I never dared ask. One thing was for certain though: after the Battle of First Blood, many humans had since died in our hands.

Mine was a fate I was determined not to let Ashley repeat, but it was going to be an uphill battle and I knew it.

I gripped Sofia’s hand tightly until she gasped in pain. I wanted her to know that I wasn’t about to be questioned or defied. “We’re leaving. You’ve seen enough.”

Tears moistened her eyes. “Is there no way we can help her, Derek?”

I shook my head. “She’s made her choice. Now, she has to live—or die—with the consequences.”

CHAPTER 18: SOFIA

I sat on the red velvet couch in the living room area of my quarters in The Catacombs. It’d been three days since Ashley’s turning and I hadn’t been able to visit her. Derek simply wouldn’t hear of it.

“Sofia,” he said through gritted teeth, “I will post guards to keep watch over you if I have to. You are not to go anywhere near Ashley. Not now. I should never have allowed you to see her turn. I…” He licked his lips and shook his head as if to wade off whatever demons were plaguing his conflicted mind.

My heart softened at how torn he was by the whole matter and I nodded. “You don’t have to do that, Derek. I won’t go if you really don’t want me to.”

He looked at me with blue eyes glazed, expression tender. I had to catch my breath at the way his eyes were set on me. I knew he loved me. I had no doubt about that, but I wasn’t sure he understood enough just how much I loved him. That bothered me, because as far as I knew, I’d already given him everything. It felt like I had nothing else left to give in order to prove my love.

The tender look in his eyes was quickly replaced with a heated, smoldering one and I knew without a doubt that he wanted me. I wanted him back, so I found myself frustrated when he stepped back, bit his lip and said, “I have to go.”

My shoulders sagged as I watched him leave. He’d been true to his word. Since he told me that he would pursue me, he never once made a move to touch me beyond the kind of affection a brother would give a sister. He wasn’t as he was before—always hanging a possessive arm around my waist, freely touching me wherever and whenever he pleased. His caresses were soft and tentative, his kisses chaste and gentle. Whenever he was around me, it was almost as if I was a fragile, porcelain doll he was afraid to break.

For the first time since I met him, I hadn’t the slightest clue how to deal with him. What came to me instinctively before in matters that concerned Derek Novak eluded me the moment he got this idea that he needed to romance and pursue me. I wanted to reassure him, longed to let him know that I was his and would always be his, but I didn’t know how to do that without losing my own self-respect.

Whether he knew it or not, as far as our relationship went, he was calling all the shots, and all I could do was go wherever he chose to take us.

Sitting there that afternoon, my mind was torn between the constant ache in my chest over how I felt for Derek and how anxious I was over Ashley’s predicament. Seeing her turn triggered memories of my childhood that I long since buried, memories that I wished could’ve remained buried. After Ashley’s turning, it haunted both my dreams and my every waking moment.

The fever raged for more days than my nine-year-old self could remember. I kept tossing and turning on my bed, calling for Mommy, but she didn’t come like I wanted her to. I couldn’t remember anything that happened before the fever. Only Daddy was there to make sure I was alright. I hated looking at him, because he had the saddest eyes whenever he looked at me. It felt like I did something wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. When I woke up one night, my entire body was so hot, my skin felt like it was about to burn up, I found Daddy crying, his face buried in his palms as he sobbed. I wanted to complain about how hot I felt, but I felt too sorry for him. That’s when I realized that something bad happened. I wished that I knew what it was.

Seeing Daddy cry, I couldn’t fight back the tears myself. Every part of my body hurt, but not as much as the pain I felt inside as I wondered what could’ve made my wonderful father cry. I tried to hold it back, but I could no longer stifle a sob. Daddy heard it and he looked at me.

“Hey, baby…” he whispered, his voice hoarse and dry. “How are you doing? Why are you crying?” He walked up to me and touched my forehead. He withdrew his hand in surprise. A bad word came out of his mouth. I never heard him talk that way before. “You’re burning up, Sofia.”

He looked angry. It made me feel bad that my body was so hot. I couldn’t understand what was going on. I was in so much pain, with no idea how to let him know, so I just let the sobs rack my small body.

“Hush…” he whispered in an attempt to comfort me, but he too was in pain I could tell. After I recovered from the fever, I realized why Daddy was so sad. Mommy was gone. Daddy told me that she went off to another home, where they could take care of people like her—people who’d gone crazy.

When Daddy left me with the Hudsons, I cried myself to sleep for weeks. Only Ben saw me crying.

“Why do you cry every night?” he asked me once.

I heaved a sigh and stared into the distance. “My mommy went crazy. Do you think my daddy left me because he thinks it’s my fault?”

Ben stared at me for a few moments, his blue eyes wide and thoughtful as he tried to comprehend what I had just said. In response, he shrugged and squirted his water gun at me.

At that memory of Ben, I couldn’t help but smile. He always did have a way of making heavy situations feel a lot lighter than they were. I looked around me and held back tears as I realized how much The Shade had changed him—how much it changed me.

“What’s with the weird half-smile, half-frown expression on your face?”

I looked up to find Gavin leaning against my doorpost, arms crossed over his chest. His tousled red hair and the boyish smirk on his face were enough to lift my spirits.

I smiled. “I just remembered my best friend…Ben. The memory of him makes me both happy and sad at the same time.”

Gavin’s brows rose in surprise as he strode toward me. He then plopped himself on the couch beside me. “Wow. So there were actually other men in Sofia Claremont’s life before the great Derek Novak.”

“Just Ben.”

“He must be quite a guy to compete with the likes of the prince.”

He tried to compete. He failed miserably. My smile was bittersweet. “I miss him.” Or at least the version of him before The Shade destroyed him.

“Does Derek know that? I might have to report you for dreaming about other men while he’s so enamored by you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Much as I love the banter, Gavin, what exactly are you doing here?”

“You’ve been in The Catacombs for more than three days. I’d given you all the time to rest and adjust. It’s time to get your ass to work. Contrary to Derek’s opinion, you’re no princess of The Shade.” He paused and raised his brows as he gave his last statement some thought. “At least not yet.”

Gavin saw the frown in my face before I could conceal it. “What? Don’t tell me that you thought you’d be sitting pretty here all night long…everyone in The Catacombs works. You have to earn your keep, and considering how glorious your keep is, you’d better be good at what you do.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to work. I just…” I heaved a sigh. My stay in The Catacombs wasn’t exactly one that received a warm welcome. I’d already made attempts to make friends with some of the Naturals, but though they were all polite and treated me with respect, I couldn’t help but sense their resentment. “The idea of having to face the Naturals…”

“What’s wrong with us?”