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.
She was a year older than me and the moment I saw her, I knew that she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. It’d been a week since my mother’s death and I was still in mourning.
Anna came to my quarters and for a moment, she just stood by the door and gave me a sad smile. She was holding a white rose in her hand, a rose as white as the dress she was wearing. I remember looking up at her and wondering if she was an angel. She was so beautiful.
I actually flinched when she approached. I could almost swear that she was radiating with light. She knelt on the ground beside me and laid the rose in front of me. She kissed me on the top of my head – a gesture of affection that no one in The Shade – not even my mother – had ever done for me before.
I didn’t know how to react to her, but I was so thankful that she was there. I began to sob. I was embarrassed at first, because I hated to make an impression that I was some sort of weakling, kneeling in front of a beautiful woman, crying like a baby. My embarrassment quickly faded away, however, when she just began to cry with me.
The look in her moss green eyes as they glistened with tears, tears she shared with me, was forever etched in my memory. Anna was a complete stranger, but that day, she chose to mourn with me, to join me in my sorrow. She owned my heart since, but then she owned the heart of many men in The Shade.
It was hard not to fall in love with a girl like Anna. She was one of a kind. Aside from possessing a physical beauty not easily matched, she was fun-loving and good-hearted. She always had a smile on her face. And it was easy to catch her humming a tune or dancing to the beat of her own drum. She was joy and laughter in a place that only knew sadness and tears.
We should’ve known that it wouldn’t take long before she would catch the eye of one of the vampires in The Shade. Felix. He wooed her. He didn’t abduct her or feed on her. He wanted her light just as much as we did. He was always in The Shade, showering her with gifts, giving her special favors.
I couldn’t blame Anna for falling for him. None of us men at The Catacombs could match the way Felix relentlessly pursued her.
Anna broke many hearts when she professed her love for Felix, and yet, we were happy for her. We were happy for him. We all thought that he was madly in love with her. He had us all fooled. After a year of keeping Anna in his penthouse, he returned her to her chambers at The Catacombs, but she was no longer her former self.
She was insane and child-like, afraid of everything and everyone. She was an empty shell, devoid of life, laughter and light. Everyone knew upon seeing her that we lost her the moment Felix took her away from The Catacombs. He broke her. When I saw what happened to Anna, I lost all hope that goodness could still be found in The Shade.
Then came Sofia Claremont, and the rest, as they say, was history.
Chapter 13: Kyle
Brigitte was the mayor’s daughter. She was kind, beautiful, sweet and down-to-earth. I was in love with her, but then so was every bachelor in our town. I had an advantage against all them though. I was her best friend. My father was her father’s bodyguard. For this reason, our family was given our own cottage within the mayor’s estate.
I grew up being the envy of all the other boys in school, because I always got to be around her. We were such close friends, everyone thought that we were sweethearts. We weren’t. In fact, I had to endure being Brigitte’s confidante all throughout our days in school. She told me about every boy she liked – none of them being me. I hated hearing about them and how much she liked them, but I loved listening to her talk, so I bore the heaviness of heart her every story brought me.
As we grew up, she left the estate to go to nursing school and I stayed behind to be my father’s apprentice, since we couldn’t afford to have me go through university. We wrote letters to each other frequently. Again, she told me about the young men she fancied and also those that fancied her. I found myself happy whenever she rejected one of them, and though I was hurt on her behalf when she was heartbroken, I was also relieved. I always believed that we belonged together.
By the time she returned, she was a woman in full bloom and I was even more stricken by her. I was also assigned the job to become her bodyguard, something that pleased me at first, because I would get to spend more time with her than anyone else. However, I soon realized that it was cruel and unusual punishment, because I had to stand in the sidelines as she fell in love.
I will never forget the night he broke her heart. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to punish him for making her feel like trash. I couldn’t imagine how he couldn’t have seen how beautiful a person she was.
She was so heartbroken; she was bed-ridden and sick for three days, so sick that I wasn’t even allowed to visit her. After the end of the third day, she finally allowed me to come to her chambers.
“Brigitte… Are you feeling better now?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think my heart will ever stop aching,” she sobbed.
I couldn’t help but notice how pale she looked as she gulped at the sight of me. I edged on the bed closer to her. “He’s not worth all these tears, Brigitte. He doesn’t deserve you.” I pulled her into my arms and whispered assurances in her ears.
“Thank you, Kyle. You’re such a great guy. If only I could see you as more than just my best friend… If only I could fall in love with you…”
Her words were a stab in the heart. My brain began reeling at what she was implying. I was still trying to absorb what she just told me, when she threw me another shocker.
“I’m sorry for what I’m about to do, Kyle, but I can’t stand the thought of being alone in this.”
I was about to ask her what she meant, hoping for dear life that my voice wouldn’t break when I asked her. Before the words could come out of my lips, however, I felt two fangs bite into my neck.
After breaking my heart, Brigitte turned me into a vampire so she wouldn’t ever be alone, so that she would always have me. I loved her, but she did not deserve my love. When I saw her get killed by the hunters, a part of me was relieved, because I was finally free. After escaping the hunters that night, I found The Shade. I also found Anna, and once again found myself on the losing end of an unrequited love.
“Where are we going?” Anna asked, her body trembling, her eyes wide with fear as Ian and I led her out of The Catacombs.
“It’s alright, Anna,” I tried to soothe her. “You’re just going to spend a little time with Corrine so that she can figure out if we can still get you back to who you were.”
Clearly, from the blank stare she was shooting my way, she didn’t quite understand anything that I said.
“Everything’s going to be fine, Anna,” Ian began rubbing his hand over her back. “We can go to the gardens after. Maybe you can go get some roses.”
A smile lit up Anna’s face. “Roses!” She nodded with enthusiasm. “I like roses!”
I swallowed back the jealousy. I knew that Anna and Ian had some sort of connection between them, one I was afraid to find more about, but it was there and I couldn’t deny it no matter how much it bothered me. And whatever that connection was, it had something to do with roses.
We eventually made our way to The Sanctuary, where Corrine was already waiting. Before she was brought to The Shade to become its power
ful witch, Corrine was actually in college as a psychology major. Sometimes, when around her, I found myself antsy because I always felt like she was evaluating me. I had no idea if anyone else felt the same way I did when around her.
“Hello, Anna,” Corrine greeted in a rather formal manner. “How are you?”
“I’m well.” Anna nodded, looking like a deer in headlights. “We’re going to get roses later. Ian promised.”
I wasn’t sure if it was just my imagination, but I could swear I saw Ian smirk. My gut clenched. Is this forever my story? Will I forever be the man in love with a woman who will never love me back?
I tried to push the thoughts away as I watched Corrine lead the beautiful young woman to a room, leaving Ian and me instructions to do as we pleased while we waited, but to make sure we were around when they were done.
Any time I was alone with Ian, I found myself feeling tense and unsure what to do or how to even spark a conversation with him. It seemed the only thing we had in common was Anna. I was pleased to find out that Ian wasn’t up for much conversation.
I found myself taking a trip down memory lane… to the day I first saw Anna in The Shade…
Sam and I were instructed to guard the southeast area of the Crimson Fortress. As with any guard duty in The Shade, the whole thing was routine – something we did at the kingdom, because there really wasn’t much else left to do. Sam and I were mostly just fooling around and trying to figure out how to wile the time away until the end of our guard duty.
We’d been at it for a couple of hours when we heard rustling along a nearby bush.
“I’ll check it out,” I told Sam and approached the area where the sound came from.
Behind the bushes, we knew that there was an opening that led to a large lake. I peered past the bushes and onto the lake and found myself drawing a breath when I saw her. I didn’t know her name, but her beauty took my breath away. Long, silky, jet black hair, big moss green eyes… A lovely feminine form, immersed in the shimmering water…
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