The surprised expression on her face showed that she was nowhere near used to my audacity, but she quickly recovered. “Yes. Our kind. Derek asked Cora, a great witch – Corrine’s ancestor – to put him under a sleeping spell. He wanted to escape all the things we did in order to keep The Shade safe. The guilt was killing him.”

“Why? What exactly did your kind do to make him feel so guilty?” I interrupted.

Vivienne shifted in her seat, showing her discomfort. Still, she maintained her posture and set her eyes on me. “That’s a question you’d have to ask him yourself.”

My shoulders sagged. It took me by surprise how much her statement made me ache with longing. I smiled bitterly and slightly shook my head. “Go ahead. What were you saying?”

She gave me a lingering gaze, before proceeding with her story. “Derek thought he’d already fulfilled the prophecy when we established The Shade. The island, he thought, was our true sanctuary. Cora knew otherwise. She knew that he wasn’t done, so without his knowledge, she tacked on an end to her spell. Derek was to wake once it was time to find the girl who would help him fulfill his destiny.”

She paused and looked to me for a reaction, but the words were still sinking in and I couldn’t find a proper way to respond.

Thus, she continued, “It was Corrine who signaled that he was about to wake and she made it very clear that the girls taken on a certain night were to be reserved for him.”

“My birthday…” I threw the words out there, remembering the way I felt that night. Ben forgot my birthday and spent most of the day wooing Tanya.

“Yes… Your birthday…” She said the words as if she found it amazing that Lucas abducted me and brought me to The Shade on that particular day. “Derek hadn’t fed on human blood for four centuries. You couldn’t possibly understand how difficult it was for him not to feed on you. When he slammed you against that pillar, I thought you were done for.”

I remembered what it felt like to have Derek’s large, virile form pressed against mine, his strong arms holding me up against the pillar, his breath chilling the skin on my neck… I was terrified.

“But he spared you. I don’t know what you told him, but you got to him in a way no other person was ever able to. Not our father or our brother or myself or even Cora was able to get through to him the way you did…”

I swallowed hard as I tried to make sense of what she was trying to tell me. I couldn’t bring myself to accept what she was implying. “I am not the girl Cora was speaking of, Vivienne.”

Vivienne gazed at me with what could almost pass as affection. “Sofia, look me straight in the eye and tell me that you don’t feel anything for my twin.”

My lips pursed and my jaw twitched. Even if I tried to lie, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to fool her. There hadn’t been a day that passed since I left The Shade that I haven’t thought of Derek in one way or another.

Vivienne’s smile was bitter as she understood clearly what my silence meant. “I thought so.”

I clutched the armrests of the couch I was seated on and steadied myself over its edge. I wasn’t about to let her win just like that. “I care about Derek, Vivienne, but that doesn’t really mean anything. That doesn’t prove that I’m some girl destined to help him fulfill some sort of prophecy.” A wry, sarcastic laugh escaped my lips. “Besides, why on earth would I help Derek save your kind? After everything you put me through, after everything you put Ben and so many others through…”

“Because as you said, Sofia, you care about him…” Her blue-violet eyes glistened as she spoke. “He needs you.”

It was impossible for her to say something like that without it meaning anything to me. She was his twin… she knew him better than I ever did… Her words had weight, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around someone like Derek needing someone like me. Who am I? Still, her words were enough to trigger all the pent-up longing I had to be with him again, and I found myself asking, “How is he?”

“The darkness came for him the moment you left. It’s taking away the man that he became when you were there.”

I could feel my face lose color, and my lips parted as I drew a breath. “The darkness is coming…” I muttered under my breath.

It seemed the words meant something to Vivienne, because her eyes flickered with recognition.

“What did you say?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.” I wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of revealing to her all the nightmares I’d been having. My phone began to vibrate over the coffee table. I glanced at it, but decided not to check the message. I took another sip of my not-so-hot-anymore latte. I found myself overcome with worry for Derek. If my nightmares held any meaning, then… I gulped.

“How are the girls?” Guilt claimed me the moment I thought of Ashley, Paige and Rosa. They were my friends and I just abandoned them, did nothing even to help rescue them from The Shade.

When Vivienne told me that Derek attacked Ashley in the Sun Room, that he drank her blood almost enough to kill her, I had no idea how to recover from both the guilt and the shock. I felt like it was partially my fault, because I never did anything to get Ashley and the other girls out of The Shade, but I was always secure that Derek would keep them safe. I couldn’t even wrap my mind around the idea that Derek could be capable of something like that.