A Castle of Sand (A Shade of Vampire #3)(26)

For the first time since I met her, I found myself fighting the urge to rip Natalie Borgia’s heart out.

CHAPTER 17: DEREK

I took hold of Sofia’s hand and was surprised by how devoid of warmth it was. I held it tighter. There was no way of telling how Ashley’s body was going to react to the serum that would turn her into one of us. I’d seen many turnings go awry before. It rarely happened, but they weren’t the prettiest of sights.

Sofia slowly nodded, acknowledging my gesture of reassurance, but the shaking of her body was only getting worse.

“Let’s get out of here, Sofia.”

Just as I expected, she shook her head.

Stubborn little minx.

Kyle was positioning Ashley again. His eyes found mine as he bared his fangs. I gave him a nod. His one hand rested on her hip bone, while the other clung to the back of her neck to support her. He took a bite. For a moment, he gave in to the urge to drink her blood. I knew it from the way my body reacted negatively to a morsel that was mine being partaken of by another vampire, but the boiling in my blood subsided when he went from sucking her blood to injecting the deadly serum from his fangs into her system.

The snake has taken a bite.

None of us could question when the serum began to take effect on Ashley, because the moment it entered her system, she let out an agonized scream.

The blood drained from Sofia’s face. She let go of my hand and motioned to run toward her friend. I grabbed her arm to hold her back. When she fought against my grasp, I held tighter. “Sofia, don’t. You wanted to see this. This is what happens at turnings. You can’t be anywhere near her. She won’t have the presence of mind not to kill you.”

The mutations were beginning to happen and Ashley’s long, slender form was convulsing over the stone slab. She began coughing blood. Sofia once again motioned to step forward. I knew she wanted to do something to help, but at that point, there was nothing any of us could do, so we all just stood by and watched. Kyle was staring at Ashley’s form, his shoulders stooped low. We hated the sight unfolding before us, but we all knew that it would happen.

I expected Ashley to stop coughing after a few minutes, but it didn’t let up for another five minutes, at which point even I wanted to rush forward to try and do something about it, but I was held back by the knowledge that I had to stand by Sofia. Corrine was powerful enough to protect herself; thus, it left Sofia as the only human being in that room Ashley could possibly attack once the bloodlust took over.

When the coughing stopped, an audible sigh of relief filled the room. Still, Ashley’s fingers and toes were twitching—aftermaths of the violent tremors her body had just endured only minutes ago. When the claws began to grow, Ashley once again screamed in agony.

That’s when flashbacks of the night I was turned began to fill my mind.

I trusted him. I trusted my father. I was supposed to kill him. He was a newly turned vampire, and I was the most powerful hunter there was. It would’ve been easy to take Gregor Novak down, but he was still my father and as I held that crossbow mounted with a wooden stake, I simply couldn’t make the kill.

“How could you let this happen?” I asked through gritted teeth. “How could you allow yourself to become one of them?”

“You don’t know what it’s like, Derek,” he explained to me as he took a step forward over the creaking floorboards. “The taste of power, the heightened senses…everything becomes a thousand times more beautiful…”

I backed away from him, the back of my knees hitting one of the benches in our home’s small parlor. “Stop it, Father. I don’t want to know what it’s like. These creatures killed Mother…how could you…” I drew in a sharp breath. It felt like a betrayal. “How can you live everyday knowing that you’re one of them? One of the beasts who killed her?”

“Don’t talk to me about your mother, Derek…”

His words faded away when a surge of panic and fear enveloped me. “Vivienne and Lucas…where are they?”

His face morphed from irritation to defensiveness. “You have to understand, Derek…”

Breathing began to be quite a task. “No…no…what have you done?” I didn’t need to hear what he had to say. I walked past him, trusting that he wouldn’t do anything to harm me. I was his son after all. “Vivienne! Lucas!” I threw one of the bedroom doors open.

The sight that presented itself to me made me want to vomit.

“It was the only way we could all be together. Forever.”

At that moment, I knew without doubt that my father was a sick, sick man. I stared blankly at the two beds where my brother and sister were lying. Both were writhing on the floor, half-grown fangs were protruding from Lucas’ lips. Vivienne on the other hand was doubled over in pain, her hands gripping her stomach. It was clear that whatever she was going through, it was agony.

“How could you do this to your own children?” I walked toward my twin sister, longing to hear her speak to me—a pleasure I’d been deprived of since Borys Maslen took her captive. I couldn’t hold back a sob as I watched what the turning was doing to her. I wanted to spare her the agony she was going through, but the idea of killing Vivienne was something I knew I would never be able to do. I brushed a strand of her sweat-soaked hair away from her face, whispering, “What have you done?” to my father once again.