A Shadow of Light (A Shade of Vampire #4)(32)

“Don’t look at me like some monster, Aiden.” She shook her head. “It’s not like you didn’t know that I wanted Sofia to end up with Borys all those times we made love. Does it really make a difference now?” She drew close to me, pressing her body against mine.

This time, however, I found myself repelled by her. I pushed her away. “This ends now, Ingrid. No matter what we’d been doing these past days, my loyalty remains with our daughter. You were right all along. You lost me to Sofia, and make no mistake about it… If she ever asks it of me, I wouldn’t think twice about killing you.”

Fury unlike anything I’d ever seen before sparked in her eyes as she bared her fangs, poised to attack me, not quite remembering that I was a formidable hunter and compared to other vampires I’d fought before, a decade-old vampire like her was no match for me. As she was about to sink her teeth into my neck, I grabbed her head with both my hands and used all my strength to twist her head and snap her neck in two.

Quickest way to maim a vampire. I thought as she dropped to the ground. She was still alive, but once I instructed someone to snap her neck back into place, she would realize that she had just lost all leverage she had gained from my renewal of love for her—or perhaps lust.

She was going to wake up in a dungeon, her fangs ripped from her mouth, regretting the day she had ever tried to harm my daughter.

CHAPTER 21: SOFIA

Since my confrontation with him, Aiden kept me locked in my bedroom. The only person coming and going was Zinnia, and she usually came only to bring me food or take the dirty dishes away. During this time, she would barely speak to me or even look at me.

“How long is he going to keep me here?” I asked once after she had brought me breakfast on a tray. It was the morning of the second day after my botched escape attempt.

She glared at me. “Until you die, I hope. Ben gave up his life in order to get you safely back here, and this is how you repay him? By bolting the first chance you get so you could go back to that vampire boyfriend of yours?”

“You don’t know Ben as well as I did, Zinnia. You weren’t there with him at The Oasis. He didn’t risk his life to get me back here. He gave it up so I could be happy, so I could be with Derek.” I was choking up with tears at the memory of my best friend.

“Ben was loyal to the cause of the hunters. He never would’ve wanted you to end up with Derek.”

“Really? Is that why he chose to stay with me at The Shade instead of returning here? Is that why he agreed to give me away on my wedding day, with Derek as my groom?”

Her eyes widened. “You married Derek Novak? Your father knows this?”

I shook my head. “I am engaged to Derek. I was abducted and taken to The Oasis before we could actually get married.”

Zinnia narrowed her eyes at me, the disgust and criticism in her voice unmistakable when she said, “What is wrong with you?”

“I don’t need to explain myself to you. I want to see my father.”

“He doesn’t need to explain himself to you either. You may be Reuben’s daughter, but you’re nothing like him.”

Thank heavens for that. I grimaced. I never could quite get used to what they called my father at hunter headquarters. Reuben. I wondered what kind of a life my father had lived even before my mother went crazy and became a vampire. Aiden and Reuben—two sides of a coin, my father’s double life—both sides of him a complete mystery to me.

Zinnia left me with one final glare. I didn’t expect Aiden to arrive at all, knowing that Zinnia most likely wouldn’t deliver my message to him, but later that afternoon, he stepped into the bedroom, looking rather uncomfortable.

“So Zinnia did send you my message after all…”

“You sent me a message through Zinnia? She didn’t tell me anything… I just arrived from a business trip abroad. Has she been taking care of you?”

I was taken aback by the idea that he came to me out of his own volition. “Yeah. She’s been feeding me regularly, if that’s what you mean by taking care of me.”

“So what was your message?”

“I told her to let you know that I wanted to have a word with you.”

“Well, what do you want to talk about?”

“You have to realize that I will jump at any chance I get to find Derek. You locking me up here and keeping me from doing that only makes me want to do it more. That’s like Raising Teenagers 101.”

“You’re eighteen, Sofia. Technically, you’re already considered an adult.”

“So treat me like one. Let me make my own decisions and my own mistakes. This is my life, a life you chose not to be a part of for the past nine years. Now that I have my own mind and have been making my own decisions, you can’t just step in and call the shots.”

One corner of his lips twitched as he nodded. “I understand what you’re saying, Sofia, but I’m doing what I believe is best for you, and in that, I cannot waver. I know the vampires far more than you do, and in good conscience as your father, I cannot allow you to throw your life away because of this infatuation you have toward this creature. It doesn’t matter how much you love him, Sofia. You can love a vampire and still find that your love doesn’t keep him from being a monster.”

There was so much sadness in his voice, almost as if he was going through what he was saying himself. I wondered once again if this reaction of his had anything to do with Ingrid knowing how to get to that garden. Not quite sure if I wanted to clarify my musings, I crawled to the edge of the bed and sat over it. “Every day you keep me apart from him, you’re killing a part of me.”