A Gate of Night (A Shade of Vampire #6)(34)

I heaved a deep sigh as I stared at the ceiling of her room. I’d left it mostly untouched. I wanted to sense her presence lingering there. I shifted on the bed in an attempt to make myself comfortable. I muttered a prayer for her, hoping to God that she was all right. I was never a man of faith, but at that point, I was desperate enough to believe that a Higher Power would somehow let her know that she was in my thoughts.

Everything’s going to be all right, I told myself, only to scoff at the notion. Nothing is all right.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw terrifying red eyes looking directly at me. I saw his sneer. I saw the manic look on his face as he stabbed Natalie Borgia in the kneecap, smiled at her scream, watched the wound heal only to stab her again.

Natalie had died for betraying the Elder the same day the Elder took over The Shade. In the back of our minds, we’d known that the Elder wasn’t just going to stop at opening The Shade’s side of the portal. We were right. They wanted full control.

On top of Natalie’s death, three hunters were also tortured and killed. None of us understood what was going on with Arron, and why he would bail like that when he seemed so adamant that the portals not be opened, but one thing was for certain: in the world we were entangled in, we couldn’t trust what we did not understand.

After they were done punishing those who had crossed them, Kiev had burned the Sanctuary down. Though we never found her body, we’d concluded that Corrine had met her death within its walls. Unless she used some sort of magic in order to escape, just like the temple, she was nothing but a pile of ashes now.

Along with her demise, we were certain that the protection over the island was going to disappear, right along with its endless night. We were mistaken.

Kiev grinned at our cluelessness. “Don’t worry. The Shade will be safe as long as you comply with our demands.” He grabbed a clump of Vivienne’s hair and dragged her to the ground. He seemed to know how much her struggles to break free from him were killing Xavier, because he glared at the vampire before announcing to us what the Elder had planned for his new conquest. “Your princess here will remain in power, but she is, of course, to do as the Elder instructs. Without question. Remember that the true rulers of this island are still within our grasp. One error from Princess Vivienne here and we won’t mind killing Sofia’s offspring right in the womb. Besides, cross us once and we won’t hesitate to end The Shade’s endless night, let the sun out and burn every vampire here. Will you comply, princess?”

Vivienne’s eyes betrayed how revolted she was by him, but we all knew she wasn’t being given a choice. She had to comply. She was the Elder’s puppet and anything she did that displeased the Elder was to receive “just” punishment—Natalie’s torturous death was the public example.

I was expecting Vivienne to wither away, to return to the empty shell she’d become after what we put her through at hunters’ headquarters, but the strength and defiance never left her eyes. I wondered if Xavier had something to do with that, but whoever was to thank, I was more than grateful that she still had fight in her.

We needed her to be strong. She needed to be strong. She couldn’t give up, especially now that she, just like the rest of us, had just become a pawn in the Elder’s game.

After proclaiming her as the ruler of The Shade, Kiev, Clara, and the Elder’s minions left for The Blood Keep and it seemed like we could do as we wished. The first thing Vivienne did was to make sure that all those who were lost would be honored. Hundreds of bodies were buried in the days that followed. Gavin’s family—his mother, Lily, his brother, Robb, and his sister, Madeline—among them. Rosa, one of my daughter’s dearest friends, had also met her end.

I could only imagine how heartbroken Sofia would’ve been to find out about the loss.

A memorial service was held to honor the dead’s memory. At that time, it didn’t matter what any of us were—vampire, human or hunter. We became one in our grief.

I was standing beside Zinnia during the candlelit service, listening to the sobs and the cries, the broken hearts, grieving the loss of loved ones. Zinnia was deathly silent for most of the service, except for one haunting moment when she whispered to herself in a voice so low she probably thought I wouldn’t hear, “The vampires cry as if they’re human. Who knew they could be capable of grief?”

Despite all the walls the young huntress had made to convince herself that devoting her life to killing vampires was a life worth living, she was beginning to see that misery existed on both the vampires’ and the hunters’ sides. Both had suffered loss.

Still, the solidarity that came out of our grief didn’t last long. The hunters still hated the vampires and the vampires felt the exact same way. Especially considering that blood was scarce, tensions were beginning to rise.

Any thought of leaving The Shade ended when after a handful of hunters attempted to escape, Clara arrived, bled each hunter dry, and with a bloody mouth and a blood-curdling grin, announced that anyone who tried to leave the island was going to answer to her.

“We have plans for you little hunters,” she said to those who remained at The Shade. “You didn’t think that you could just get away with everything that you did to us vampires, do you? No, each of you is going to pay very dearly for all the vampires you killed.”

Her words were a bone-chilling clue to what the Elder had planned for his captives.