A Shadow of Light (A Shade of Vampire #4)(46)

A knock on the front door interrupted our conversation. I stood up to answer it despite Eli’s offer to get the door. I walked up to the front door and swung it open to find Xavier and Natalie standing at my doorstep.

“Look who’s back,” Xavier announced wryly, a weary look on his face. “Apparently, she can’t get enough of the chaos.”

“Or maybe she just misses you…” I shrugged.

Natalie stepped forward, rolling her eyes at both of us, before giving Xavier a glare that clearly showed there was little chance of her ever missing him. She then set her eyes on me. “You’re going to need a seat for what I’m about to tell you.”

I swallowed hard and waved toward my living room. Natalie seemed to be bracing herself for what she had to say. “I have two messages. One is from the vampire covens. The other is from Sofia Claremont. Which one do you want to hear first?”

I froze. I knew what to expect from the vampire covens. I had no idea what Sofia’s message would be. The unknown seemed to be a lot more fearsome than the immense threat that came with the known. “I’d like to hear what the other vampire covens have to say.”

Natalie cleared her throat. “Their message is simple. Three words. Prepare for war.”

“They sent you all the way here just to say that?” Xavier grimaced. “Not like we didn’t already know that.”

I straightened up in my seat and nodded. “Very well then. All I can say in response to that is another three words. Let them come.” I paused, surprised that war—something I feared would happen—wasn’t alarming me as much as it should have. I guess knowing that Sofia had me in mind was more rattling a thought. “The second message?”

“Understand that there was no way for me to meet with her,” Natalie explained. “It was too dangerous to see her personally, with her being in the hunters’ hands, so we had to communicate by phone.”

I understood the implication of that. If Natalie was somehow bugged by the other covens, then they had most likely heard what Sofia had said.

“Sofia says that she might have found a way for you and her to be together. She wants to meet with you at a hotel in Cancun.” Natalie handed me a small note. “Those are the details of the time and place.”

I took the note and drew a breath at what was written: They know the time and place. It’s too dangerous. Sofia is talking about the hunters having found a cure to vampirism.

It felt like a rock was somehow able to lodge itself in my throat as I read the last phrase over and over and over again. A cure to vampirism. Not once since I had turned into a vampire did it ever even cross my mind that there could be a cure. How is that possible?

I raised my eyes to meet Natalie’s. She tightened her lips almost as if to warn me to tread very, very carefully. The possibilities that came with a cure began to whirl around my mind. A cure. A cure! If I turned back into a human, I would be mortal. Sofia and I could get married, have children, grow old together… The deepest desires of my heart made possible.

Hope unlike anything I’d felt before surged within me. Could she have really done it? Could she really have found a way for us to be together?

“Well?” Natalie broke the tense silence, her eyes set on the piece of paper she had handed over to me. She noticed how much I was shaking as I held it in my hand. “What do you want me to tell her?”

“Tell her to come to The Shade. I can’t risk leaving The Shade. Not with an impending war. If I’m going to meet with her, then it would have to be here.”

“You do realize that she doesn’t plan to meet with you alone, right?” Natalie clarified. “The hunters will be with her—most likely her own father.”

“Derek…” Xavier was shaking his head, clearly about to object. “I know how much Sofia matters to you, but for crying out loud…she’s with the hunters. Is now really the best time to accommodate hunters here at the island? We can barely keep things together!”

A thousand possibilities crossed my mind all at once. Threatening. Overwhelming. Disturbing. I shook the thoughts out. There was no point in succumbing to the fears. “I need Sofia to find true sanctuary. The prophecy makes that clear. If the only way she can get back here is with the hunters, then so be it. Let them come. Let them all come.”

If war has to happen, I can’t stop it. I just know that I need Sofia by my side. If this is the only way, then so be it.

CHAPTER 33: CLAUDIA

I was their gift to him.

Yuri was celebrating his twenty-first birthday and his newfound friends wanted to give him a woman as a gift. The Duke decided that I would be the perfect gift for the young man who was already being acclaimed as an artist of great genius. Of course, my master also knew that Yuri meant so much more to me than that.

When I was presented to Yuri, I could tell that he was uncomfortable with the idea. I’d seen the same look in his eyes with countless other men before him. The uncertainty…that gut feeling that what they were doing was wrong. Still, most of the time, the gut feeling never actually stopped them.

Both of us were practically jostled and shoved into a room, with hoots and cheers for Yuri to enjoy himself. I could tell that he would be pressured to tell them what had gone on inside the bedroom. I stood there, trying to control the way my body was trembling. I often shook before the Duke, but in front of Yuri, it was for very different reasons. With Yuri, I never felt more vulnerable than I did at that moment.