A Shade of Blood (A Shade of Vampire #2)(16)

CHAPTER 12: DEREK

I spat on the dirt ground and threw my opponent a disgusted glare. Across from me on the make-shift circle that served as the training grounds’ fighting arena, Xavier Vaughn was trying to catch his breath, his right arm hanging limply at his side with his hand clutching the hilt of his katana like his life depended on it. He was exhausted, bloody, and bruised.

I couldn’t stand the sight of him. Before my sleep, he would’ve bested me in any sword fight nine times out of ten. After four centuries, it took half a dozen strikes from me to completely wear him down.

“We’ve only been at this for about ten minutes, Vaughn.” I watched as the fresh wound the tip of my katana most recently inflicted upon him quickly closed up and healed.

“I haven’t done this in centuries, Novak.” Xavier never did address me as his prince or superior. It was one thing I liked about him. “I’m a little bit rusty.”

I tilted my head to the side in scrutiny of him. “A little bit? Is that a joke? Where’s the warrior that I once knew? If you fought this way during the Battle of First Blood, we’d all be dead by now.”

A hint of amusement showed in the corners of his tired, steel gray eyes. He seemed to suddenly gain a bit more strength, because he raised his katana and lunged forward to attack me.

It took about a minute for me to slash an ugly wound across his back and have him lying face down on the ground. I was annoyed watching the wound heal. The blood that spilled from his back tainted the ground, mixing with that of the others who fought me before him.

What have they been doing for the past four hundred years? My merciless stare followed Xavier as he dragged himself out of the arena. “Looks like we’ve got a lot of work to do. Who’s next?”

Eli Lazaroff stepped into the arena, looking more like a librarian than a warrior. I honestly felt sorry for one of our Elite’s most valuable strategic minds, because as Eli approached me, it was clear to anyone watching that he was shaking like a leaf, mortified by the idea of close combat with me.

I flexed my neck muscles before taking a step toward him. That one motion caused him to visibly flinch. That was enough to make me suck up any guilt that I felt over what I was about to put him through. Raising my weapon, I dealt him the first blow.

Whether I liked it or not, as ruler of The Shade, I needed to remind my subjects what pain felt like. They needed to remember what it was like to fight for their lives and bleed for a cause.

The year was 1512. The battle would always be remembered in our hearts and minds as the Battle of First Blood. It was the first battle ever to take place on the island, the battle that marked the day we decided to stop running. We all agreed that it was high time to fight back or die doing it.

We were quite a sorry bunch, huddled within the caves that would eventually become the Black Heights, home to The Shade’s prisoners and slaves.

It’d been two years since I found myself shipwrecked on that island, thinking that I’d lost all of my loved ones to yet another cruel and bloody hunter attack. The only companion I had during my first year marooned on the island was an olive-skinned, brown-eyed, black-haired beauty. Her name was Cora and she was the only reason I was able to keep sane and alive after I thought I lost everything worth fighting for. I had no idea then exactly who and what she was, or how valuable she would eventually be to our cause.

Two years after the shipwreck, sitting in that cave, I realized that we still had a lot to fight for. I was seated on the ground, leaning against the cave wall, with Cora sitting right next to me.

My father, Gregor, sat opposite us. A huge scowl on his face showed how hungry he was. His appetite was further confirmed by the ravenous stare he was sending Cora’s way.

Cora was the only human among a cave full of hungry vampires. None of that fazed her. At my father’s predatory glare, she just smirked in response. I admired how it was practically impossible to intimidate her.

Liana Hendry was sitting near the cave entrance. She pulled her knees to her chest, shivering due to the cold. She stared blankly toward the cave opening, worry that Cameron hadn’t yet arrived evident in her eyes. He left the cave with Lucas and Xavier to scout the hunters’ location hours ago.

Beside Liana, sat Vivienne, looking unnervingly serene, her head rested on Liana’s shoulder. In the depths of her blue-violet eyes were mysteries we could only wonder about, because I couldn’t even remember the last time I heard my twin speak.

Two or three feet away from the women, Eli was drawing some sort of map on the ground with a stick. So wrapped up was he in whatever scheme he was concocting that he barely noticed how peeved his younger brother, Yuri, looked when Claudia began chatting him up and making suggestive gestures toward him. Yuri eventually snapped at her and from the look on Claudia’s face, it seemed he said something rather cutting, because it was the first time I could remember seeing such a murderous glare on her pretty face. It was only the first among many that I would see.

They comprised only some of the twenty vampire clans hidden with me in the mountain caves. Most were terrified by what the break of dawn would usher in. We were losing hope. Most of them barely made it to the island, with the hunters in relentless pursuit of them. We managed to create a diversion to give us time to hide away in the caves, but the sun was about to rise and it seemed the hunters weren’t about to give up their chase until every single one of us was destroyed.