A Shade of Blood (A Shade of Vampire #2)(74)

“Ben… You have to tell me where Sofia is.”

The worry she had over my best friend was unnerving. “Sofia is of no concern to you.”

“She’s supposed to be with Derek.” Her voice was childlike and vulnerable, but what she said was the last thing I wanted to hear.

I lunged her way and gripped her chin, forcing her to look me in the eye. The light blues and purples of her eyes turned into a deep violet and I was taken aback when I saw fear in their depths. “What do you mean she’s supposed to be with Derek?”

I wanted to see a spark of Claudia in her. I wanted to find the madness that I saw in my captor’s face – when she would be a cold, heartless bitch one moment and a broken, whimpering child the next. Looking straight into Vivienne’s face, however, not a single trace of Claudia could be found. Instead, I found purpose and a deep, mysterious sorrow.

“I never thought I would see my brother fall in love. He was too broken, too jaded... but he loves her and she loves him… And I don’t think they even fully realize it yet…”

Her words were acid to my still fresh wounds. Before I could think straight, I slapped her right across the face with the back of my hand. I was surprised to find her crashing to the floor. All those times I hit Claudia in an attempt to fight back, she barely even budged. She just laughed at me.

I rose to my feet and stood over Vivienne as she began coughing blood. Guilt took a hold of me and I began mentally justifying my actions. I reminded myself that she was a vampire. She wasn’t some random innocent. I had every right – even a responsibility – to break her.

I tried to shut away Sofia’s words. Please find Vivienne. And make sure they don’t harm her. I steeled myself against my own conscience. Vivienne had information I needed and I was going to do everything possible to get it from her.

“How do we get to The Shade, Vivienne?”

“Why don’t you just ask Sofia? I showed her the way to The Shade. She knows everything that needs to be known.”

I pictured her as Claudia – her dark hair becoming a blonde mass of curls, her heart-shaped face turning into Claudia’s round one, her long hour glass form transforming into Claudia’s lithe figure. They’re all the same, I told myself before kicking her in the gut.

She coughed before looking up at me. A faint smile crossed her face. “She went back, didn’t she? She returned to him?”

It felt like she was taunting me. My fists clenched and I was about to hit her, but then I saw it – a tear running down her eye. No matter what justification I had for causing her harm, no matter what torments Claudia put me through, Vivienne was a helpless, broken woman, and I was beating her up for crimes that she didn’t commit.

“Please…” Tears were streaming down Vivienne’s face as she tried to lift herself up from the floor. “Enough.”

I sat in front of her and once again gripped her jaw.

She moaned at the sudden action. I realized then that she’d probably been undergoing torture since they brought her here. Any move I made on her caused her pain.

“Only you can end this, Vivienne. Just tell us what we want to know. Tell us where The Shade is. Then all this will be over.”

“Tell me, Ben. If you knew that a group of thugs were intent on murdering your family and destroying your home, what could they possibly do to you that would make you give them your family’s address?”

My mouth twitched.

“Exactly. I could never give up my family, Ben.” Her sobs began subsiding.

I eased my grip on her jaw, unable to accept that a vampire could care for anyone other than themselves. Claudia painted a picture of their kind that made it hard for me to believe that the concept of family could mean anything to them.

“Sofia is my family, Vivienne. You took her away from me. If you had hold of someone who brainwashed your family into agreeing to slavery, what would you do to that person to get your family back?”

“Sofia returned to The Shade out of her own free will and we both know it.”

The truth of her words stung. I reluctantly let go of her jaw. I couldn’t even look at her, but I felt her eyes on me, searching me.

“You loved her, didn’t you?”

“She was supposed to be mine. She wasn’t supposed to choose him.”

She lifted a trembling hand and brushed the tips of her fingers over the fine ends of my hair. “I’m sorry, Ben. For everything The Shade cost you. But we were only doing what we needed to do in order to survive.”

“Don’t tell me that. What Claudia put me through had nothing to do with survival…”

“You’re right. It had everything to do with revenge. You reminded her of the man who once abused her.”

“I was not that man.”

She nodded. “And I am not Claudia.”

The point was a blow in the gut, but it was well taken. I finally looked her in the eye. To my surprise, after a couple of seconds, the violets of her irises had swirled into a bright blue. When her irises returned to their original blue-violet color, she stared at me as if I’d been made brand new. “Ben…”

I flinched when her thumb gently caressed the line of my jaw. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away from me. “What is it? What did you see?”

A lone tear fell from the corner of her eye to the tip of her chin before falling to the ground.