A Shade Of Vampire 4: A Shadow Of Light(32)

“How did Sofia know how to get to the garden?” I asked Ingrid.

Her shoulders sagged and she heaved a sigh. “She wanted to escape, Aiden. She asked me for help, so I helped her. My conscience couldn’t stand it though. It felt like I was betraying you, so I had to tell you…”

If she was putting on an act of a conscience-ridden woman, she was good at it. I couldn’t help but still draw a breath at the sight of her. She will always be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.

I clenched my fists, my recent conversation with Sofia still stuck in my mind. “She’s talking crazy. Sofia.”

That statement seemed to spark delight in Ingrid’s eyes, but she quickly covered that up. “Why do you say that?”

“She’s talking about being immune to vampirism. She’s talking about a cure to the curse.” I looked at Ingrid, not missing how ironic it was that I was discussing this with a vampire. I’m such a hypocrite. I’m condemning my daughter for loving a vampire, when I myself am in love with one. I gave Ingrid a lingering look, hoping that she couldn’t see the disgust in my eyes when I thought: it’s your curse too. How on earth could I allow myself to still love you?

Conflicted was a word that did little justice to the war raging within me ever since Ingrid and I first slept together.

“Sofia and her delusions…” Ingrid said, sounding melancholic, almost as if she felt sorry for Sofia. “She actually thinks that because she’s immune, there’s some sort of cure that will make a lifetime of bliss possible for her and her beloved. Delusional darling...”

“Immune? She is immune?”

“Yes.” Ingrid stared straight at me before quickly reminding me why I should be revolted by her very being. “Borys tried to turn her the night I gave her to him. She didn’t turn. She’s immune to the curse, if we could even call it that.”

I stood there, unable to wrap my mind around the idea that she could speak so nonchalantly about offering her nine-year-old daughter to a century-old vampire and allowing him to try and turn her. How many times must I be reminded that she is not my Camilla?

“Don’t look at me like some monster, Aiden.” She shook her head. “It’s not like you didn’t know that I wanted Sofia to end up with Borys all those times we made love. Does it really make a difference now?” She drew close to me, pressing her body against mine.

This time, however, I found myself repelled by her. I pushed her away. “This ends now, Ingrid. No matter what we’d been doing these past days, my loyalty remains with our daughter. You were right all along. You lost me to Sofia, and make no mistake about it… If she ever asks it of me, I wouldn’t think twice about killing you.”

Fury unlike anything I’d ever seen before sparked in her eyes as she bared her fangs, poised to attack me, not quite remembering that I was a formidable hunter and compared to other vampires I’d fought before, a decade-old vampire like her was no match for me. As she was about to sink her teeth into my neck, I grabbed her head with both my hands and used all my strength to twist her head and snap her neck in two.

Quickest way to maim a vampire. I thought as she dropped to the ground. She was still alive, but once I instructed someone to snap her neck back into place, she would realize that she had just lost all leverage she had gained from my renewal of love for her—or perhaps lust.

She was going to wake up in a dungeon, her fangs ripped from her mouth, regretting the day she had ever tried to harm my daughter.





Chapter 21: Sofia


Since my confrontation with him, Aiden kept me locked in my bedroom. The only person coming and going was Zinnia, and she usually came only to bring me food or take the dirty dishes away. During this time, she would barely speak to me or even look at me.

“How long is he going to keep me here?” I asked once after she had brought me breakfast on a tray. It was the morning of the second day after my botched escape attempt.

She glared at me. “Until you die, I hope. Ben gave up his life in order to get you safely back here, and this is how you repay him? By bolting the first chance you get so you could go back to that vampire boyfriend of yours?”

“You don’t know Ben as well as I did, Zinnia. You weren’t there with him at The Oasis. He didn’t risk his life to get me back here. He gave it up so I could be happy, so I could be with Derek.” I was choking up with tears at the memory of my best friend.

“Ben was loyal to the cause of the hunters. He never would’ve wanted you to end up with Derek.”

“Really? Is that why he chose to stay with me at The Shade instead of returning here? Is that why he agreed to give me away on my wedding day, with Derek as my groom?”

Her eyes widened. “You married Derek Novak? Your father knows this?”

I shook my head. “I am engaged to Derek. I was abducted and taken to The Oasis before we could actually get married.”

Zinnia narrowed her eyes at me, the disgust and criticism in her voice unmistakable when she said, “What is wrong with you?”

“I don’t need to explain myself to you. I want to see my father.”

“He doesn’t need to explain himself to you either. You may be Reuben’s daughter, but you’re nothing like him.”

Thank heavens for that. I grimaced. I never could quite get used to what they called my father at hunter headquarters. Reuben. I wondered what kind of a life my father had lived even before my mother went crazy and became a vampire. Aiden and Reuben—two sides of a coin, my father’s double life—both sides of him a complete mystery to me.