I coughed out the orange juice that I’d been drinking. I never had to endure these types of conversations before. Hearing these questions from my father and the thought of answering them was—for me—beyond awkward.

“Okay…” I stood up as I continued to cough out the juice. “I think that’s enough dinner talk…” Rob and Madeline were squealing with delight.

“I think we better go…” Derek suggested and I quickly agreed.

We didn’t wait for Aiden to voice out more objections. Derek simply took my hand and whisked both of us out of The Catacombs and into the woods, where we took a long, leisurely walk back to his penthouse, where we planned to spend the night.

“Your father must be throwing quite a fit right now. I almost feel sorry for Rosa, Gavin, Lily and the kids,” Derek said.

“They’ll be fine.” We walked in silence for a while, losing ourselves in our own thoughts, enjoying each other’s company.

“Thank you for bringing Vivienne back,” Derek broke the silence. “Claudia too. I’m not a big fan of the girl, but somehow The Shade isn’t quite the same without her.”

Derek and Claudia had always been at odds with each other. I knew that they’d slept together before, knew that Claudia was attracted to him, but it was perfectly clear that they weren’t friends. I doubted they even liked each other. Still, I somehow understood what Derek was getting at. The Shade had grown to be more than just a community. Over time, it had grown to be a family. They may not get along well with one another and everyone was always at each other’s throats, but should anybody take one person away from the island, that person’s presence—no matter how unpleasant—was bound to be missed. The familiarity with one another and acceptance of each other’s flaws was what made The Shade feel like the home that it was.

Now, The Shade’s falling apart. My heart sank at the thought. War was brewing, the blood supply was running low… The island wasn’t going to be in its self-sufficient cocoon for long.

“What are you planning to do, Derek?” I asked.

He eyed me momentarily. “About what?”

I shrugged. “The Shade, the war, the blood supply…my father’s proposal to get the hunters to come…the cure…”

He didn’t reply immediately, and for a while, I thought he had no intention of replying at all. We just walked, listening to the sound of twigs snapping and leaves rustling beneath our feet.

“I don’t know what to do,” he finally admitted. “I solve one issue and another one pops up in its place. The last time something like this happened—right before I asked Cora to put the sleeping spell on me—I just gave in to the darkness so that I could control everyone through fear. I don’t want to go back there.”

I remembered what he’d shown me in his journals back at the Lighthouse—the history of The Shade, what became of him, how he’d gone over to the dark side. I swallowed hard. I knew how important it was that he never go back to that version of him again.

“This cure, Sofia… Do you really think it’s worth the risk of letting your father bring in more hunters to The Shade?”

My throat felt dry as I rasped my response out. “I want this to work out, Derek. Perhaps I’m being selfish with you… I don’t know. It seems like the only way we can be together. I want to trust Aiden, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I don’t. I’m scared that it’s a trap.”

“I can’t even wrap my mind around the idea of a cure, Sofia. It feels like too big a risk. The other vampire covens have made it clear that they are uniting and gearing up for an attack. I don’t know when, I don’t know how, but they’re coming and we need to be ready for that. The island is falling apart and we’re barely keeping things together. If I allow hunters into The Shade and your father somehow betrays us… Do you realize what could happen?”

I nodded my head as I took care in weighing his words and responding to them. The atmosphere was tense and charged with emotion. I could practically feel Derek’s desperation oozing through me. I wondered once again if the cure really did work. What if it works only with Ingrid? I probably should’ve spent more time observing her. I felt like I was played by Aiden, manipulated into trusting him and bringing him to the island—a place he’d been desperate to find since he heard about its existence.

“Even if the cure works, Sofia…” Derek continued. “What’s going to happen? How am I going to defend the island as a mortal?”

I swallowed hard. I hadn’t actually thought that far. Was I expecting that all the vampires would simply agree to turn back into humans? Was I expecting that Derek and I would just skip out of The Shade and live normal, human lives? If Derek turned back to a mortal, he’d be powerless to fight against all these forces coming at him.

I couldn’t find answers to the concerns Derek was placing before me, and yet every bit of me was screaming that this was the way, that this was as close as we could get to true sanctuary at the moment.

“You’re supposed to take your kind to true sanctuary, Derek. That much we know is true, but what is true sanctuary?”

“You tell me.” He shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t really know anymore, to be honest. I used to think The Shade was true sanctuary.”

“It couldn’t possibly be true sanctuary. The last time I talked to Corrine, she told me that she was the last of the witches capable of keeping The Shade hidden. The island is safe from human detection and sunlight only as long as she is alive. The Shade’s fall is inevitable.”

Derek’s bright blue eyes, illuminated by moonlight, focused on me, almost as if he was searching me for an answer, almost as if he were reminding me that I was supposed to help him find true sanctuary. “I don’t know what to tell you, Sofia.” His shoulder sagged in resignation. “Perhaps this is it. Maybe true sanctuary really is just an eternity of war and bloodshed and once The Shade falls, I’m doomed to find one haven after another to keep my subjects protected. Perhaps that’s my fate. Forever.”

I shook my head and stopped in my tracks to look him in the eye. “Derek, you can’t possibly believe that’s true.”

“Maybe you’re right… Maybe I need the cure… Maybe the only escape from this is mortality.”

His words lit up a fire in me that I couldn’t extinguish no matter how hard I tried. I didn’t know how to explain it to him or how to make sense of what was going through my mind, but I knew without a doubt that what he had just said was true.

Mortality was Derek’s true sanctuary.

CHAPTER 42: INGRID

Bloody fools. They never should’ve underestimated me.

I couldn’t help keep the smirk off of my face as I made my way through the secret passages that Aiden introduced to me during our short love affair and midnight rendezvous into the secret garden. Aiden’s young protégé, Zinnia, had messed up big time when she had left me momentarily unguarded as I headed off to the showers. I knew how to find my way around the headquarters and quickly found my escape, emerging outside the gardens.

The moment I did, however, I knew I had a big problem. It was the height of noon and the sun was blazing right at me. The very moment its painful rays hit my skin, my suspicions once again proved true. I don’t know how it had happened, but Aiden’s cure failed. When I cut that glass into my skin and it healed, I knew that I was immortal, but when the sun began to irritate my pale skin, I knew that I was still a vampire.

Still, the dilemma before me was clear. I had to find a way out of hunter territory and out of the sun as quickly as possible or it would be the end of me. The sun’s rays weakened a vampire immensely. It would take ten minutes before it would begin to get beneath my skin and the pain would be agonizing. It would be a slow, painful death.

Trying to ignore the piercing sting of the sun, I used my agility as a vampire and scaled up the nearby wall. I knew that by that time, the hunters were already after me. I didn’t have much time to get away. I jumped from the top of the wall to the ground below and ran with lightning speed. I ran, ignoring the pain of my skin peeling away. I ran even when I felt blood coming out of the sockets of my eyes. I ran until I could no longer run, until the sun had completely worn me down. It felt like hours until I collapsed on the ground, every bit of my body writhing in pain. I knew I was miles away from hunter territory now and I looked up and discovered I was in the middle of a meadow, not quite certain where I was or how I was going to get out of there.

I looked around me and saw a log cabin on the horizon. The small house was only a couple of hundred meters away, but it felt like it was an ocean away. I dragged myself toward the home, my charred skin beginning to emit smoke, the pain of the sun digging in to my very bones. It felt like a million needles being repeatedly jabbed right through my skin to the core of my bones. Over and over and over again.

It took all of my might to drag myself toward the cabin. I wondered if it was a trap set by the hunters. I even thought that it could be some sort of optical illusion, but at that moment, whatever it was, that cabin was my only escape from the punishing rays of the sun.

I couldn’t have imagined how grotesque I looked as I crawled up the front porch. I felt like all the liquids had been drained from my body and I was dried and shriveled up. One look at my hands made my stomach turn. Both looked like rotting flesh. I pushed the door open and lost all control when I saw a young woman, who couldn’t have been any older than Sofia, descend a wooden staircase. She shrieked at the sight of me before I charged for her and devoured her, drinking down every single drop of her blood.

By the time I snapped out of my black out, I was surrounded by three dead bodies and the sun was no longer shining. I couldn’t help but smile as I rose to my feet. I’d done it. I escaped hunter territory. I sought out a mirror and was pleased to find my body restored, even though my skin was still stinging.