A Blaze of Sun (A Shade of Vampire #5)(4)

After I put away the dishes, I headed off to The Cells, where my father was still being kept captive. Aiden was more famously known in the vampire world as Reuben, one of the most ruthless and notorious hunters alive.

To say that my father was unhappy about me being in love with a vampire was a huge understatement, but then so was he… After all, my mother was now Ingrid Maslen.

Aiden was doing push-ups on the ground when I stepped into his cell. For a man who was well into his forties, he was still extremely fit and worked at remaining so. I waited for him to finish his set before clearing my throat.

He didn’t even bother looking up to see who his visitor was. He knew it was me. “How long are they going to keep me here, Sofia?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to Derek about you yet.”

Aiden ended up in The Shade after he fooled me into believing that the hunters had found a cure to turn vampires back into humans. I was disappointed to find out that it was all, in fact, a ruse. When he was forced to reveal to Derek that there really was no cure, he ended up getting thrown into prison.

“The hunters will come for me, Sofia. I’m too important to the organization for them to just forget about my disappearance. The longer you keep me here, the longer you’re putting the island in danger.”

I knew he was bluffing, so I just stared at him blankly. “They won’t know how to get here, Aiden. Your tracker was disabled, protected by Corrine’s spell, the moment you came within the boundaries of The Shade. You know that. Besides, isn’t it hunter protocol to consider anyone caught by vampires dead?”

A muscle in his face twitched. He heaved a deep sigh and sat on the edge of his couch, tapping the space beside him to encourage me to sit.

Despite my apprehensions, I took a seat beside him and we sat in silence for a while before he broke it.

“I’m sorry, Sofia.”

I wasn’t expecting an apology. Not from him. I’d been putting off seeing him for days because I felt betrayed by him. Right after I thought we were becoming closer to each other and forming a bond as father and daughter, he betrayed me. He knew that I wanted to find a cure to turn vampires back into humans and he used that desire against me. I had no idea how to even begin forgiving him for that, and yet, I found myself responding with a nod and saying, “I understand why you did it.”

“I was doing what I thought I needed to do to get this idea of a cure out of your system. You have to accept, Sofia, that there is no cure.”

I shook my head, refusing to accept what he was saying as truth. “No. There is a cure. I’m going to find it.”

I saw how his face turned into a bitter, grim expression. “Stubborn,” he muttered. “Just like your mother.”

I remembered the last time I saw Ingrid. She was looking at me with so much hatred, because I had just killed the man who turned her into a vampire – Borys Maslen. She was loyal to him above all – a loyalty that transcended even her love for her husband and her daughter.

I shook my head as I stood up and motioned to leave. Before the guard could open the door for me, I turned back to my father. “I am nothing like Ingrid.”

I left his cell with a heaviness in my heart that I couldn’t quite describe. I wasn’t sure why but I felt within me an overwhelming sense of loss. Perhaps it was just the recent events catching up with me – all the deaths that The Shade suffered, losing not just my foes, but also people I cared about. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t just sit around sulking and I knew it; so I picked myself up, tried to ignore the melancholy and moved on with my tasks for the day. I headed to meet with two of the most intelligent people in The Shade – the island’s resident genius, Eli Lazaroff, and Corrine, The Shade’s witch.

The challenge that Derek placed upon me when we last spoke of the cure weighed heavily on my shoulders. He was prophesied to be the man who would bring the vampires to “true sanctuary.” I, on the other hand, was believed to be the woman who would help him do it.

I believed with all my heart that the cure was “true sanctuary.” Derek had already lost hope that the cure could even be possible. His words still rang in my ear.

“Don’t ask me what true sanctuary is, Sofia. I fought for it for an entire century, practically gave up my soul for it. I thought I already got sanctuary after establishing The Shade only to find out that I didn’t… I just don’t understand the prophecy. What I do know is that war is brewing. That’s what’s going to happen.”

“So that’s just it? More bloodshed?”

“Did you think there was ever any other way?”

Eli and Corrine were supposed to help me discover if a cure could even be possible. Our meeting proved fruitless, with Eli and Corrine scouring what resources they had to find any indication of the possibility of a cure and the existence of immunes like me. Immunes were humans who couldn’t be turned to vampires – for reasons no one knew about. In The Shade, we suspected that aside from me, there was one other immune. Anna.

I made a mental note to speak with Ian and Kyle about her. Recently, it seemed the two men had placed it upon themselves to look after the young woman’s well-being. Hence the reason behind the tension that always seemed to exist between them.

The cure was still on my mind, right along with everything else going on in The Shade. When lunchtime neared, I found myself returning to The Catacombs to have my midday meal. Over the past days, I found myself looking forward to this time, a time I got to spend with Rosa and Ashley.