I made a face as I lit my cigarette and took a puff. “What’s her game now?”
“She says that she wants her family back.”
“Right.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or get angry. How dare she pull that card after everything she put Sofia through…
Yuri looked at me. “If she really is willing to change, would you take her back?”
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to trust Camilla again more than anything, but I couldn’t. Not as long as she was a threat to Sofia. “I think the only way I can ever trust Camilla again is if she gets back into Sofia’s good graces.”
Yuri laughed. “Sucks for Camilla then. Sofia says that the only way she can ever trust Camilla again is if she gets back into your good graces. Seems to me like Camilla is screwed if neither of you are willing to take a chance on her once more…”
“Camilla isn’t Claudia, Yuri…”
“What’s the difference between them?” I remember the day Yuri told me Claudia’s tragic story and how they got back together. I could see why he thought that our story was similar to theirs, but it wasn’t.
Claudia had been a prostitute, just like her mother. She experienced abuse from a cruel man, and was a broken, untrusting creature.
“You know what broke Claudia, Yuri. You understood the depths of her brokenness. You saw why she was broken firsthand. You admit yourself that you contributed to her brokenness when you used her that first night.”
Yuri’s lips twitched at the recollection of the night Claudia was brought to him in a mask and he found out only after sleeping with her that she was the girl he was in love with.
“You can’t fix something if you don’t know what’s broken.” I grimaced at the thought of Camilla never actually letting me in. She never opened up her past to me. She never allowed me to help her heal. I looked up at the vampire I was having a conversation with. “You had to wait hundreds of years before the woman you love came around. I can’t wait that long. I will never become immortal like you. I don’t ever want to be.”
“The way I see it, Aiden.” Yuri smirked knowingly. “You are mortal. You only have this one lifetime, a few decades at best, to be with the woman you love and I think that’s what’s bothering you. You still love Camilla – even if you don’t know what broke her. It doesn’t make a difference whether or not you know the reasons behind why a person is broken, Aiden. We’re all broken. The question is can you still love her and trust her in spite of that brokenness?”
“I did that for a full decade and still, she left. Camilla left me. She left her daughter.”
“Well, I did it for centuries and still, Claudia left. Love doesn’t have to be returned in order for it to be true, Aiden. When she came crawling back, don’t you think I wanted to make her suffer? I wanted to see her cry upon losing me. I wanted to hurt her like she hurt me. But I chose to love her. I made the choice to forgive her and take her back. Part of me is still afraid that she’ll go back to the way she was, but at least I’ll have this moment in time, this period, when I can say that the woman I love shows me that she loves me in return. Don’t miss out on that, Aiden.”
I stared at Yuri, a man who was turned into a vampire in his early twenties, which was half my age. I wondered where all the wisdom was coming from, only to remember that Yuri might look young physically, but he was actually giving me centuries’ worth of experience.
I took a long puff from my cigarette, not knowing what to say.
“So what are you going to do?” Yuri asked after a long silence.
I scoffed at the question, “After that long-winded speech of yours, what choice do I have other than to see Camilla?”
Yuri laughed and I realized that as much as I hated to admit it, I actually considered this vampire my friend.
Chapter 18: Ingrid
I began to hold my breath the moment Aiden entered my cell. Yuri tossed him a wooden stake as he approached – a safety measure.
The vampire winked at me. “Be careful, Camilla. Word is that he’s pretty good with one of those things.”
I smirked, unable to look at Aiden in the eye. “He won’t need it unless the only reason he’s here is to attempt to kill me, Yuri.”
“I don’t think he’s here for that.” Yuri grinned. “Don’t get yourself into more trouble than you’re already in, Camilla.” Yuri nodded his head at both of us before leaving.
With Yuri gone, I forced myself to look at Aiden. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the stone wall, wooden stake secure in his grip, green eyes glaring at me. “What game are you playing now, Ingrid?” He cocked his head to the side. “Or should I start calling you Camilla like everyone else?”
As far as I was concerned, I had only one chance to get this right, and I wasn’t about to spend it playing games or beating around the bush so I asked Aiden the one question I wanted to hear the answer to. “Do you still love me, Aiden?”
A muscle on his jaw twitched. He was quiet for what felt like an eternity as he gave it thought. I was almost sure that the silence meant no. When he spoke up, I wished he’d just kept his silence. “It doesn’t really matter whether I love you or not, Ingrid, because you were right. I love our daughter more.”
He couldn’t have possibly known how much those words stung, but I reeled in my temper and kept my cool. I couldn’t afford to break down. I knew what the stakes were and I wasn’t going to spoil this one chance that I had. “I guess I deserve that.”
“I will never understand how, for nine years, you raised someone as strong-spirited and as kindhearted a person as Sofia.”
I swallowed hard, wondering how many more insults I would have to endure.
“How about you, Ingrid? Do you still love me?”
“If I said yes, would you believe me?”
To my relief, he nodded, “Yes, but you see… that’s where we’re the same. We love something else more. I love Sofia more than I love you. You love power more than you love me.”
The truth was like a splash of cold water and all I could do was hang my head in shame. I couldn’t deny it, because for the past decade, I’d been living controlled by my thirst for power.
“You found yourself powerless the moment Borys Maslen died. You must hate Sofia even more for killing him, don’t you?”
Aiden was making me feel vulnerable. I hated that he seemed to be seeing right through me. I hated knowing that I couldn’t manipulate him, because he knew me far too well.
“Sofia did the right thing. Borys Maslen does not deserve to live and with his demise, you became what you always were, Ingrid. A weakling. You have all this power as a vampire, but then you’re now held captive in an island that is not your own by a coven who has vampires centuries older and far more powerful than you. You gave up your husband and your daughter, your whole life, for nothing, Ingrid. I hope you realize that.” He scoffed. “It must kill you to think that after everything you gave up, it means nothing to be Ingrid Maslen anymore. You’re just as powerless as Ingrid as you were Camilla. Maybe you’re right… Maybe I should start calling you Camilla once again… to remind you of everything you lost.”
I was hoping that he was done, that he wasn’t going to continue this diatribe of his, simply because I couldn’t take any more of the truth, so when he opened his mouth in order to speak some more, I couldn’t help but drop my docile act and glare at him. “Enough. I don’t want to hear any more, Aiden. Shut up or I swear you’ll regret it.”
He seemed amused by my change of countenance. “There you go. That’s it, Camilla.” He said my human name as if it was a taunt he could use to jab me in the heart whenever he pleased. “Stop pretending that you want to be a wife to her husband and a mother to her daughter. That’s not you. Stop trying to fool us with this docile act you’re trying to put on. You’ve been Ingrid Maslen for too long to convince us that this is real.”
He was taunting me, making a joke out of me, turning me into his entertainment. I wouldn’t have it. I swore a lo
ng time ago that I would never allow a man to treat me that way again. Before I could keep myself from doing it, I attacked Aiden. I had him pinned to a wall, ready to bite into his neck, only to find his wooden stake pointed at my heart.
He smiled. “Do it, Ingrid. Take a bite. Drink my blood. Make no mistake about it. I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
I looked into his green eyes wondering if he was bluffing, wondering if he could really drive that stake into my heart. Either way, he’d already been stabbing my heart with his words from the moment he arrived at my cell.
Despite all my attempts to keep it from happening, tears began to brim my eyes and stream down my cheeks. I was still in love with Aiden, and it hurt that we had reached this point – this point when we were both willing to hurt each other – even kill each other. I still bluffed, poising myself to bite into his neck. I could feel the pointed end of his stake sink into my skin.
I shut my eyes and shook my head. I couldn’t do it. I could bluff as much as I wanted to, but I knew that I couldn’t possibly drink Aiden’s blood. I could tell that he knew it too. I pulled away from him, hating the way my body was trembling as I backed down.
I could feel his stare on me as he heaved one breath after another. “Give me one good reason why I should trust you again, Ingrid. Why should I open my heart to you again? Why should I think that Camilla is still somewhere deep inside your bloodthirsty self?”
One good reason. I tried to hold back the sobs, but I couldn’t. Still, despite the way my body was shaking, I managed to answer his question. “Because you want to, Aiden. You want to trust me. More than that, I need you to trust me.” My life and yours hang in the balance.
He stared at me for what felt like hours, studying me, maybe trying to figure out what I was saying, what my game was. “Okay, Camilla…” He nodded. “I’ll play whatever game this is. You really want me to trust you? Oh wait…” he mocked me “…not want… you need me to trust you. Is that right?”
I didn’t respond. Instead, I just lifted my eyes in order to meet his cold, mocking glare. I would’ve given anything at that moment to once again have him look at me the way he did before I became a vampire.
Aiden began to nod slowly. “Fine. I will trust you on one condition, Camilla.”
“What is it?” I didn’t think he could ask something of me that I couldn’t give. I was desperate enough to add confidently, “I will do anything.”
“Bare yourself completely to me. Tell me about your past. Tell me why you’re so broken. Tell me what you never had the guts to tell me before. Let me in, Camilla. I want to know everything.”
I stared at him in horror. He asked of me the one thing I could never give. He was asking me to live out my greatest fear of being discovered for what I really was. He was asking me to relive the horrors of my childhood and revisit my brokenness. I shook my head. “I can’t do that, Aiden. You’re practically asking for my soul.”
“That’s the price of trust, Cam. Openness. Vulnerability. The ability to risk getting hurt. And don’t think for one second that you can lie to me. I know you well enough to know if you’re just giving me some crap story that you made up. Tell me the truth about who you are. The whole truth. Can you do that?”
“What if I can’t?”
“Then I can’t trust you, can I?”
“Aiden, please…”
“I’ve given my condition, Camilla.”
I shook my head and buried my face in my palms. It felt like defeat. I never felt weaker than I did at that moment.
When I didn’t respond for what felt like an eternity, Aiden nodded and motioned to leave. “Let me know when you’re ready to give in to my condition, Cam.”
Cam… He hasn’t called me that in years… Not since… I held my breath when he turned his back on me. He was about to call for Yuri when I did the most courageous thing I’d done in years. “Wait…”
Slowly, Aiden turned to face me. His brow rose at me in question.
I nodded, letting him know that I was agreeing to his condition. It was perhaps the most painful night I ever had in years and it took hours. It took many tears. I told him everything. He held me. He gave me the comfort that I was deprived of through all those years of abuse at my foster parents’ hands.
I knew that what I was telling him made Claudia’s experience seem like child’s play. My foster parents were violent, merciless people and growing up with them was a living nightmare. They helped me through high school and even got me a scholarship for college, but nothing came for free around them. Everything had a price and I was often the payment they required. Not money, definitely not gratefulness – me, all of me – my body, my dignity, my very soul.
No man had ever stood up for me before. I knew what it was like to feel helpless and abandoned. Even when I got away from their grasp, I was still haunted by what they put me through. Then came Aiden.
Aiden was the man of my life. I never felt like I deserved him. Surely someone as perfect as him didn’t deserve someone as broken as me, but he came into my life and he made me feel like I could be whole again. Still, around him, I was pretending. I knew that I was a broken creature, and my full awareness of that reality couldn’t allow even his love to fix me.
I told Aiden what it was like to be married to him, what I felt like around him – how unworthy I was.
That night, Aiden listened. He barely even said any words of comfort. He just held me and let me cry into his shoulder as I told him horror story after horror story of all the terrible things I went through as a child and how it made me the woman I was.
When I finally finished telling him my story, he kissed me on the forehead and told me that he still loved Camilla and that he always will.
“Your past can never change that,” he assured me.
I gained his trust that night and in doing so, I had to pay the ultimate price. I had to bare my soul to him and let him see all its emptiness – an emptiness that his love and acceptance was able to fill. I knew what that meant. I knew that should I become vulnerable to Aiden – completely vulnerable to him – it would make what I had to do even harder than it already was.
He made love to me – gentle and tender as always – but not lacking in passion. When I woke up next to him, I realized that I was now faced with a new dilemma. Secured by the love Aiden still had for me, I searched myself for any hatred I still harbored toward my daughter and found not a single trace of it left. I no longer wanted to kill Sofia, but I was still forced to.
Chapter 19: Vivienne
I sensed her presence the moment she was brought within the vicinity of the island. Emilia. My heart began to race and my pulse doubled its pace. I dropped my shearing scissors and bolted out of my greenhouse.
“She can’t be back,” I began to mumble. “She can’t be here in The Shade.” Following my instincts, I sped towards The Sanctuary and sure enough, I found Xavier gently laying an unconscious Emilia on the bed inside one of the chambers.
Derek and Sofia stood nearby. Ashley was standing by the bed, holding a packet of blood, which I was certain was meant to heal Emilia. Corrine, on the other hand, was seated on an ottoman by the wall, staring suspiciously at Emilia.
“What’s going on?” I demanded. All eyes turned toward me as I stepped forward. “What is she doing back at the island? At the The Sanctuary of all places?”
“She needs care, Vivienne…” Sofia explained.
“Then she should get it from her own people, not from us. I don’t trust her.”
“Neither do we, Vivienne,” Derek spoke up, “but what are we going to do with her? She washed up on the shore and she’s beaten to a bloody pulp. We can’t just leave her out to die…”
That’s exactly what we should do. I knew that I was being ruthless, perhaps even dark and cold, but every fiber of my being wanted Emilia off the island. I turned my eyes toward the witch for help, but Corrine just gave me a shrug in response. I stared at Emilia’s motionless form. I shook my head. “Thi
s doesn’t feel right. It’s too much of a coincidence…”
Derek creased his brows at me. “What’s too much of a coincidence?”
As twins, Derek and I always had a strange connection. It’d been there when we were kids. I had a way of instinctively knowing his dreams or figuring out what was going through his mind at certain points, especially when it was needed.
“You’ve been dreaming about her. You saw her at the exact same spot you found her, did you not? At the shore near the Lighthouse? You thought she was Cora… The fact that it actually happened, you think it’s just coincidence?”
Derek shifted his weight from one foot to another as if he didn’t remember the dream and it just suddenly became clear to him. “I have to admit that it’s strange. But it was just a dream.”
I watched Sofia for a reaction. She looked at Derek in question. “You’ve been dreaming about Cora too?”
Derek shook his head. “No… This one… I remember the dream now. It’s just as Vivienne said. I saw it exactly like this. This was the exact same spot that I found Cora hundreds of years ago. I dreamed about it, I thought it was Cora who was on the beach, but it turned out to be Emilia.”
Sofia nodded, wrinkling her nose in thought. The idea of my brother being able to tell Sofia these things made me feel better about the situation, but I still could not deny the threat I felt just by seeing Emilia there. I knew that she was a source of power that we couldn’t afford to underestimate.
Xavier, one of my closest friends, stared at me inquisitively. He knew me well enough to know that I wouldn’t be objecting this much if I didn’t feel ill at ease around Emilia. “Maybe it’s better we leave her this way…” He frowned.
Sofia objected. “We can take her down if she decides to fight against us once she heals. With all four of you vampires and Corrine here, she won’t stand a chance no matter how powerful she is, but we can’t just leave her like this. It’s inhumane.”
I grimaced at the way Sofia called it “inhumane” as if the creature we were talking about was anything close to being human. “She’s not human, Sofia.”
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