I made my way to her greenhouse, her favorite place in the world, a place where life thrived even when death surrounded us. The moment I entered it, I had nothing left to do but crumple to the ground, hands fisting over my own hair as I gave in to the dark possibilities that came with her capture.

I knew my sister. She would willingly take everything they threw her way if only to protect the island. They would make every effort to break her and they were going to fail. Their failure would be paid for at a great and excruciating price by the one person I would willingly give my life to protect.

The Shade was a place where there was no day, only night. The night never felt as dark as it did as I sat on the floor of Vivienne’s greenhouse, mourning her loss. I had no inkling of how many hours I spent there. It felt like days. For a certain period of time, I was still reserving room for the hope that Vivienne would walk in, unharmed and perfectly alright. There were times when I fooled myself into believing that her footsteps were gracing the hardwood floors. At some point, however, denial gave way to reality and inevitably, to anger. Someone is to blame for what happened to Vivienne. Only one name came to mind. Only one name was deserving of bearing the burden of receiving punishment for my sister’s demise. Sofia.

Rage I haven’t felt in hundreds of years consumed me and for the first time in a long time, I switched off all guilt in order to completely give in to the monster I’d become. I was going to make Sofia pay and at that very moment, there was only one way to do it.

I was going to punish the people she cared for. Ashley… then Paige… then Rosa… I lost no time in finally allowing myself to satiate the hunger that had been begging for days to get satisfied. It didn’t take long for me to go from Vivienne’s penthouse to Kyle’s much smaller residence. I knew he would be at the port – on watch duty with Sam. I found that displeasing. I wanted to fight them in order to get to Ashley, but she would have to make do. I didn’t bother with pleasantries and let myself inside Kyle’s home, breaking down the door while I was at it.

“Ashley!” I screamed. “Ashley!”

I sensed her fear. I could hear the sound of her pulse racing, her heart doubling its beat. That’s right. Be afraid. Be very afraid. From outside the windows of the small receiving room I was standing in, I was able to make out her form running past a glass-covered walkway. I smirked. I didn’t intend to prolong the chase. I wanted her and I was going to have her.

Lightning speed carried me from where I stood to where she was running to. I had her pinned against a wall, one hand gripping her jaw, the other grabbing her hair until I heard her gasp in pain. In order to position her face where I wanted it to be – I tilted her head to one side so that her neck would be exposed, ready for me to sink my teeth into. With her bare neck right in front of me, I didn’t have even an ounce of hesitation before taking a bite and drinking deep of her blood. I could hear her screams, her pleas for me to stop. They only served to fuel the fire my sister’s loss sparked within me.

I drank until I was approaching the boundary that once crossed, would lead to her inevitable death. I stopped. Claudia was right. Rage gave us control. Ashley was barely conscious when I slung her limp form over my shoulder.

Within minutes, we were back at the penthouse, with her lying face down on my bed as I ripped her dress off her body. My eyes widened in both horror and delight when I saw a hawk tattooed on her lower back – the mark of a hunter. I pulled her blonde locks to the side as I leaned over to whisper to her ear. “I had no idea you were one of them. Revenge is going to be sweet.”

Weak from the blood loss, all she could do was whimper beneath me. Straddling her hips, I knelt up so I could pull off my shirt. I just managed to throw my shirt aside and was about to unbutton my trousers when I heard the bedroom door open behind me.

I turned around to find a stunning vision of the person I least expected to see standing there. Sofia.

CHAPTER 32: SOFIA

The first thing I noticed upon swinging the door open was the symbol of a hawk on Derek’s back – right below his right shoulder. It was one of Vivienne’s memories proving accurate and for a split-second, I stood mesmerized.

It wasn’t until he turned toward me that I realized what he was doing … what he was about to do … The sight of the blood on the neck of the unconscious young woman he had on his bed made my head faint with shock.

My cheeks drained of blood as I leaned against the doorpost for support, my knees weakening beneath me. “Derek, how could you…” My voice trailed off when I saw the way he was looking at me – as if I were a ghost, a ghost that he loathed.

A deep, heart-wrenching growl came from his lips and within seconds, he had me against his bedroom wall, his hips supporting my weight, his left hand gripping my right arm and keeping it pressed against the wall, while his right hand held my neck.

“How did you get back here?” he hissed, anger poisoning every word.

It was almost as if history was repeating itself, considering all the familiar sights and sensations assaulting me: the predatory glare in his steely blue eyes, the chill of his breath, the helplessness my vulnerability around him brought about, how small and fragile I felt jammed between his body and the wall… It’d all been done before, but this time, I wasn’t the same girl. I was no longer a scared, whimpering victim trembling beneath his touch.

“This isn’t you, Derek.” It was a soft whisper, but not lacking in conviction. I gently wrapped my fingers around the wrist of the hand he had over my throat.

The muscles of his jaw twitched at my touch. His looked murderous and yet severely conflicted. His hand closed down on my neck, threatening to choke me.

“Answer my question and choose your words well, because they might just be your last. How did you find your way back here?”

I kept my hand on his wrist, my fingers caressing his skin, hoping to soothe him. “Vivienne showed me the way.”

The misty haze in his eyes cleared and the darkness lifted to once again show me a spark of his bright blue gaze. Right then, he quickly stepped away from me, wriggling his wrist away from my touch as if mere contact with me would somehow burn him. “How did she…”

His question faded into the background the moment I saw a wooden stake, clutched by two trembling hands, rise in the air, poised to stab Derek in the back, right through his heart.

“Ashley? No!”

I pushed Derek to the side and found myself startled when he actually budged, perhaps more out of surprise rather than my strength or ability to push him aside. With him out of the way, the wooden stake Ashley meant for him dug its way through my right shoulder.

I screamed in pain the moment my flesh tore and blood rushed out. I clasped the stake with my left hand. The throbbing pain was making my head spin.

Ashley’s eyes grew wide with surprise. “Sofia?”

I looked up to face her, only to watch with horror as Derek approached her. The stake had come from his personal stock. Each of us had one. He taught us how to kill a vampire before I left The Shade. I remembered him warning us that if we ever used it against him, he would kill us himself and that’s exactly what he was going to do to Ashley.

When his hands rose in the air, poised to hold her by the neck, I gasped at what I was certain he was about to do. He was about to break her neck and he was perfectly capable of doing it with barely any effort at all.

“Derek, don’t…”

His one hand grabbed a fistful of her blonde hair, while the other gripped her jaw tightly. “She was about to kill me.”

“She was defending me!”

I drew a breath when he pulled her head back and his hand closed tighter over her jaw. Conflicted wasn’t a good enough word to describe the expression on Derek’s face.

“She’s a hunter…”

The stake in my shoulder was agony, but seeing Derek kill a dear friend right in front of me was something I could not survive. Desperate, I staggered forward and gently held the wrist of the hand he had over Ashley. “Please.”

Forgetting just how strong he was, he pushed my hand away and the motion sent me tumbling to the floor. I whipped my head toward Ashley, fearful of the worst. To my relief, Derek threw her toward the direction of the bed. Not very gentle, but at least she’ll live. She fell to the bed face forward. I then saw the hawk on her lower back. Hers was a tattoo and not an iron brand like Derek’s but it was the exact same symbol. The hawk… what does it mean?

Derek’s focus was now on my injury. He knelt on the floor in front of me. Concern and guilt traced his stunning blue eyes when he saw the blood gushing from my shoulder. His jaw locked. “This will hurt.”

Before I could even react to his warning, he pulled the stake out of my ligament in one quick motion. I cried out, certain that I would faint, but I wasn’t given that reprieve. The pain the stake caused going out was twice the pain it dealt me going in.

I wished that I could somehow shut down one or more of my senses, but awareness sometimes felt like a curse I would forever have to deal with.

“You have a punctured ligament and a displaced shoulder,” Derek informed me upon closer inspection of my injury. “I’ll need to put your shoulder in place before healing you.”

He pulled my shoulder in place with one strong thrust, causing my mental carousel to go spinning out of control. I bit my lip until it hurt, refusing to cry or scream any more than I already had. Seemingly satisfied that he’d done his part, Derek stood up and headed for the bed. I was afraid that he was going to once again turn on Ashley. She moved as far away from him as she could until her back hit the headboard. She was still wearing nothing but her underwear. Derek glared at her but relief washed over both of us when he picked up the shirt that was hanging over the edge of the bed. He put the shirt on before retrieving a Swiss knife from his pocket. I knew what it was for.

“No. I don’t want to drink your blood.”

“Why the hell not?” He cut a gash in his palm anyway and shoved his hand in front of my face. “Drink, Sofia.” He sounded more authoritarian than he ever did before.