A Blaze of Sun

by Bella Forrest

  I was expecting her to whimper, to beg for her life, to scream. Instead, as I drank her blood and threatened to end her life, all Sofia did was hum me the most haunting tune I’d ever heard. I felt her soft hands gently take hold of both of my wrists as she whispered, “Remember, Derek.”

  I don’t know who you are. Even as the thought came to me, I knew immediately that it was a lie. I knew this woman. The feel of her blood inside me – the power that came with it, the pleasure that was beginning to pump through my whole system – all of it was too familiar. I was so consumed by Sofia, I lost track of everything else around me.

  All that was left in my consciousness was Sofia and my determination to kill her.

  Chapter 39: Sofia

  I knew from the moment I saw Derek that something was wrong. He had a glazed look in his eyes. He seemed listless and out of his senses. He looked straight at me and it was as if it was the first time he’d ever seen me.

  I knew Derek Novak. He was the man of my dreams and it was clear that the man Emilia returned to The Shade with was nothing but a shadow of the original.

  I glared at Emilia. What have you done to him? I then returned my eyes toward Derek. I wondered what had to be done to get him back to me. The look he was giving me wasn’t something I was a stranger to. He was looking at me like I was his prey. I could sense the thirst emanating from him. He was craving a drink. At that moment, he wasn’t seeing his lover. The predator was seeing his prey.

  I was surprised when Emilia told him that he wasn’t to drink my blood. I fixed my eyes on Derek. Why? Why doesn’t she want my blood coursing through you?

  I was losing him and I knew it and I could tell just by the look on his face that he was about to do something he was going to regret for the rest of his life. I went by gut instinct and did what I knew would horrify my father.

  I pulled my hair back and offered myself to him as I had done many times before, but this time, I was no longer expecting him to hold back. I wanted him to give in. I wanted him to break free of whatever grasp Emilia had on him.

  I succeeded but I wasn’t prepared for what came next. Derek lunged for me, throwing me into the wall stronger than he ever did before. My breath got knocked out of me the moment my back hit the wall. My shock hadn’t even worn off yet, when his teeth painfully sank into my neck and he began drinking my blood.

  Emilia was screaming like a mad woman for Derek to stop. I could see the horror in her eyes when she saw Derek sink his teeth into my skin. “Derek, no!” She began to move toward him, but in a moment of confusion, the Elite Council lunged toward her to stop her.

  I saw a flash of delight in Emilia’s eyes and I quickly realized why when I felt the pointed end of Derek’s claws claw right over my heart. I drew a breath when I realized what he was about to do. I tried to think of words that would jolt him back to reality. He was about to kill me, the girl he professed to love, the woman he swore to marry.

  No words came, so I simply hummed our song – the same one he hummed to me time and time again, the same one that I hummed to him whenever he was about to do something he would both sorely regret.

  Derek Novak was about to rip my heart out and all I could do was hum, before I managed to finally breathe out two words, hoping that it was enough to bring him back to me. “Remember, Derek.”

  I was beginning to get dizzy from the blood loss. He’d never drunk so much of my blood until now. I couldn’t tell anymore who was saying what around me; it was a cacophony of mixed up voices all moved by concern.

  “Derek, you’re going to kill her! Stop it!”

  “He’s going to kill my daughter! Do something!”

  “Hold Emilia back!”

  “Kill her before she ruins everything! Do it! Rip her heart out!”

  Emilia threw herself behind Derek to try and keep him from drinking more of my blood, but with one motion of his arm he was able to throw her away with one growl before once again drinking my blood. I was confused. Why is she trying to help me? Not knowing how to react to Emilia, I threw my attention at Derek. The short glimpse I had of him, I noticed that his eyes were pitch black instead of their normal bright blue.

  He was completely out-of-control and out of reach. The other vampires tried to stop him from totally devouring me, but none of them could pry him off of me. I knew the kind of effect my blood had on him. It made him powerful.

  I didn’t know what to do, so I began to welcome death until I recalled the same thing I told him the first time I met him, when he had me in that same position, about to devour me: “You can control yourself. Don’t do this to me.” It was a bare whisper, but the moment the words came out of my lips, he stopped drinking and his claws withdrew.

  Relief washed over me when he responded with the exact same words he told me that first night. His eyes – black as the darkest night – met mine, my blood dripping from the corners of his lips, his fangs bared right before me. “I can’t,” he responded. “You’re too beautiful, your blood too enticing, too sweet…”

  Tears began to stream down my face – partly because everything that’d been happening came crashing down on me, overwhelming me, and partly because of how much I ached for my Derek to return to me.

  “I know an excuse when I hear one. Don’t you dare deceive yourself into believing that you’re the victim, Derek Novak.”

  I could hear a soft gasp escape his lips the moment I said the words. I couldn’t help but sigh with relief when his grip around my waist loosened. His lips remained pressed on my skin. He eased me down so I could stand on my feet again. I felt so small and fragile standing so close to him. The moment my feet hit the ground, my knees buckled and I found myself leaning on him for support.

  His eyes were still on me as he spoke. “Tell me your name.”

  I found it strange how everything replayed exactly as it did the night he woke up from his four-hundred-year slumber and I was offered up to him as a slave. It was almost as if we were both jolted back to a memory, one that wasn’t pleasant to either one of us, but one that paved the way for us to become the intimate lovers that we eventually became.

  Just like it did that night, his admonition sounded more like a command than a request, but I found myself responding anyway. “Sofia… Sofia Claremont.”

  Just like that, his eyes began to clear – a haze giving way to those clear blue eyes, light twinkling in the darkness’ place.

  “Sofia…” Derek gasped and I knew then that he recognized me.

  I managed to smile at him, but the blood loss had finally taken its toll on me. It felt as if my heart suddenly stopped beating and everything surrounding me dimmed into black.

  Chapter 40: Derek

  The memories came like a flood right after she had spoken her full name. Starting from that memory of our first encounter, every single moment I spent with Sofia Claremont returned to me and haunted me into realizing what I was doing, what I was about to do.

  The moment Sofia collapsed in my arms, panic rushed through me as I cradled her close to my chest, kneeling on the ground as she fell.

  “No…” I gasped, as I held her against me, her slender form resting limply on my lap.

  Vivienne rushed beside me to check Sofia’s pulse. “She’s alive,” she assured me.

  I was about to cut my wrist in order to feed Sofia my blood, but Vivienne shook her head.

  “I don’t think your blood is going to cure her. That much blood loss is a completely different injury. It can heal the bite marks and the claw marks over her heart, but you can’t replenish her blood with yours.”

  “Then let’s close those wounds first,” I responded with resolve before swallowing hard. I force-fed Sofia my blood, hoping that it would do something to somehow revive her, but Vivienne was right. All it did was close her wounds. I stared at my twin desperately. “What are we going to do now?”

  Vivienne breathed out a sigh. “We’ll need to get her immediate medical care if she’s to survive. I’m sure Eli will know wh
at to do.” Vivienne looked at me with what looked like confusion and contempt. “What were you doing, Derek?”

  “There’s no time for explanations. Get her help. Now!” I had half the mind to stay by Sofia’s side, but I knew that I had a score to settle. I rose to my feet and turned to face Emilia, who was being restrained by Xavier and Yuri. I wondered why she wasn’t fighting back. I knew she had the power to do it.

  She stared at me with both defiance and defeat. “You said you would kill her. You promised.”

  Everything that I went through in her hands came flooding back to me. The thought that I’d actually lived believing that I was in love with her, the idea that I had actually shared a bed with her, was absolutely revolting. I wanted nothing more than to end Emilia’s life.

  “You’re supposed to be in love with me!” she screamed, tears streaming down her eyes. “Why didn’t you do what you promised?”

  “It’s over, Emilia. Whatever spell you had on me has been broken. Enough of your delusions.”

  “You belong with me, Derek…” she whimpered. She finally managed to get away from the vampires holding her back. She threw herself into my arms.

  I shook my head. “No. I belong with Sofia, and if I lose her… If she dies…” I wanted to threaten revenge. I wanted to tell Emilia that I was going to hunt her down and make her life miserable, but instead… my shoulders just sagged. I knew that Sofia would never take the path of vengeance, and neither would I. “If I lose her, Emilia, you might as well kill me. I would rather die than live the rest of my immortality without her.”

  Emilia stared up at me as if it dawned on her for the first time that I was truly in love with Sofia. “I can’t believe you conquered the lure of the darkness, Derek. For her.”

  Emilia placed a soft kiss on my jaw. I flinched at the very feel of her lips, my fists clenching as I fought hard not to respond with violence.

  “I should kill you,” I whispered.

  “Please do… If I return to the Blood Keep without having accomplished my mission, I might as well be dead. My master will be far less merciful than you.”

  I couldn’t keep myself from asking the question. “Why aren’t you fighting back?”

  “I lost control of you the moment you remembered. And the spell of night is now back upon The Shade. I can’t harm The Shade or Sofia. I’m powerless here where, despite there being an endless night, there is barely any darkness... Darkness is powerless against light.”

  I found the statement ironic. Sofia was light and she was absolutely powerless against me in my moment of darkness. The thought that her life was hanging by a thread at my own doing was horrifying.

  “What is the Elder going to do to you if I don’t kill you myself?” I asked Emilia. I wanted to get away from her and back to Sofia as soon as I could.

  Fear enveloped her countenance as she shook her head. “Please… Derek, don’t…”

  “Answer my question, Emilia.”

  “He’s going to turn me back to a human and give me over to my brother. I will be under his control until the day I die… Derek, you need to understand…”

  I’d seen enough of her family to know that the worst fate she could possibly endure was to be amongst them. Without hesitation, I sank my claws right through her chest, looked her straight in the eye as I gripped her beating heart. “I show you this mercy as gratefulness for everything that you did in order to make The Shade safe. We owe you that much.”

  “Thank you,” she mouthed to me before I ripped her heart out.

  We both knew that what I did was an act of mercy.

  “I’m confused,” Xavier confessed. “What just happened, Derek? Why did you attack Sofia? What happened to you?”

  I stared at Emilia’s motionless body for a couple of seconds before responding to Xavier’s question. “I was in love with her. She and the Elder brainwashed me to believe that I was in love with her and that I wanted to kill Sofia.”

  Without another word, I turned my back on them and rushed toward Sofia’s quarters at The Catacombs. I found her in her bedroom, with Vivienne, Aiden and Eli circling her bed. The others were right outside the room waiting to be told of her condition.

  “Is she alright?” I asked.

  Eli looked at me pointedly over his black-rimmed glasses. “She lost a lot of blood. We have to do a blood transfusion. Aiden’s donating his blood. It’s a good thing they’re compatible.”

  Vivienne motioned for me to take a walk with her. When I refused, she insisted. “You’re not going to help anyone – least of all Sofia – by staying here and hovering over Eli as he does his work. Come with me so you can tell me what just happened.”

  I knew she was right, so I obliged. It helped that I couldn’t stand looking at Sofia without the guilt eating me up. I told her everything that happened at the Blood Keep and she told me everything that happened and was happening in The Shade. When she mentioned that Kyle was human, hope surged within me.

  “How is that possible? What happened? Where’s Kyle now? Have you tried it on anyone else?”

  Vivienne nodded. “Rex and Ingrid.”

  My eyes grew wide open. “And?”

  She shook her head and my heart dropped. “They’re gone.”

  I swallowed hard. The idea that Sofia lost her mother while I was gone pierced me. “I should’ve been here.”

  “You couldn’t have done anything to change that. Besides, if you were here, I doubt Rex would’ve tortured Kyle.”

  “You have a point.” I paused, hope still lingering inside of me. “So after Ingrid… do you still have a theory on what the cure might be?”

  “We didn’t know who to test it on next,” Vivienne explained, “but the theory is that an immune’s blood must first be running through a vampire’s system before he can be immediately exposed to sunlight. That, we believe, is how Kyle turned back. Or… it was all just some sort of fluke.”

  I suddenly recalled the vampire Emilia killed when he fell into the sunlight. I nodded violently. “No. I think that’s it. Let’s try that theory out.”

  Vivienne’s eyes grew wide open. “On whom?”

  I knew that Sofia’s blood was still pumping through mine, so the only logical thing that I could respond to my twin with was, “Take me to the Pit.”

  I couldn’t think of a better person to test the cure out other than myself. Vivienne stood adamantly against it.

  “You can’t be serious, Derek. You could die! Do you understand that?”

  “Who better to do it than me, Vivienne? I’m the leader of The Shade. I can’t just let us test it on someone else… not while I’m around.”

  “What if the cure doesn’t work? Do you really want Sofia to wake up after what you just did to her only to find out that you’re dead?”

  “But what if the cure works? Why would you immediately assume that I would die?” I told her what happened in the labyrinth. I was sure then that the reason why Emilia killed the vampire guard was because she didn’t want me to see him turn back into a human. “If this is the cure, Vivienne, then Sofia and I can actually be together.”

  “I know that, Derek, but if you’re going to try this cure out, you’re not going to do it without her consent.”

  “I’m still King of The Shade, Vivienne. I want to do this.”

  Vivienne scoffed at my bluff. “You are our king, Derek. That’s true, but I would like to think that you’re not completely foolish. I’d like to think that you are smart enough to realize that Sofia is your queen, and that to make a step as big as this without even hearing what she thinks about it, is your downfall and hers. You two are most powerful when you put your wits and strengths together. Don’t do this to her, Derek.”

  I knew my sister was speaking truth. I gave her a lingering look, realizing what an ally she had become to Sofia. I had to take note of the difference in all of us ever since Sofia became a part of our lives. She changed us all… for the good. I loved Sofia. I just hoped that she wouldn’t deny me this.


  I gave Vivienne a nod, determined that no matter what Sofia said, I would stand by my decision to be the next person to test the cure out. “This is the cure, Vivienne, and I feel confident about it, but you’re right. Sofia deserves to have a say in this.”

  I honestly thought nothing would shake my decision to test the cure out. That was until I returned to Sofia’s bedroom to find her surrounded by her dearest friends, a huge smile on her face. My resolve crumbled the moment she laid her eyes on me.

  “I’m so sorry…” I rasped out. I didn’t want to go near her in fear of somehow breaking her. I was once again so greatly aware of how fragile she was compared to me. It didn’t help that I could feel Aiden’s eyes on me, studying my every move, blaming me for what happened to Sofia. I struggled to meet Sofia’s gaze. I could never get used to the way she looked at me like I was the most worthy person she’d ever seen in the world, like I meant more to her than anything else. How could she still look at me that way?

  Everyone filed out of the room to give us our privacy, Aiden more hesitant than the others. The moment we were alone, she reached out toward me, welcoming me into her arms.

  I drew near, still apologizing, but she shook her head refusing to hear any of it.

  “Shut up, Derek. I’m just glad you’re back. We’re both alright.”

  She held me close and kissed my lips gently and I knew then that she was right. We survived. I also realized that what my sister said was true. Sofia was my queen and if I wanted to rule well, I had to accept the reality that I couldn’t do things without taking Sofia into consideration.

  When I mentioned the cure and that I wanted to be the one to test it out first, she just listened to me, hearing me out before giving me a response.

  “I understand why you want to do it, Derek, but you do realize that the cure might not work?”

  “I’m ruler of The Shade, Sofia. I can’t have another one of my subjects die testing out a cure that I’m not willing to go through myself…”

  “If it doesn’t work, I could lose you.”