A Shadow of Light (A Shade of Vampire #4)(74)

I didn’t know exactly what caused her tears, but I liked to believe that we were crying over the same thing. We were crying over the many lives lost, the many broken souls, the many more that would be lost and broken in the days to come.

CHAPTER 50: DEREK

The silence was worse than the bangs and the screams coming from that room. It left too much room for my mind to concoct horrible images of what Borys was putting Sofia through. And now, Vivienne’s under his mercy too.

“They’ve been quiet for too long. What’s going on in there? I can’t stand this.” I began marching toward the room, ready to put up a fight.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Aiden motioned to stop me.

“I can’t take it anymore. I have to do something.”

“You said so yourself. That monster might kill Sofia if you screw up.”

“Do you hear that silence, Aiden? She might be dead already!” I choked on the words the moment they came out of my lips. The idea of Sofia being gone was something I couldn’t allow myself to accept. I shook my head against my own thoughts. “No. She’s fine… She’s fine…” I shot a quick look at the vampires surrounding me. “We’re going in.”

Unlike Aiden, they knew me well enough not to protest, so they just nodded and we began to walk toward the corridor that led to the room. The corridor was guarded by Borys’ minions.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Ingrid got in my way.

“You know for a fact that I can easily destroy you, Ingrid,” I snarled. “Since you’ve made it quite clear how indifferent you are to the plight of Sofia, I don’t think she’ll mind my killing you either, so get out of my way.”

“Borys will kill my daughter the moment he sees you walk through that door.”

“Your daughter?” I hissed. “You talk as if you care about what happens to her.”

“Don’t do anything rash,” she warned.

“Let me talk to him…”

She gave it a moment’s thought and looked at the vampires standing behind me. She nodded and motioned for me to follow her.

As we walked past the other vampires, I couldn’t help but feel something was amiss. There was something different about them. I had no idea if I was just imagining things, but it almost felt as if they were looking at me with admiration. One of them particularly caught my eye. A man would have to be blind to not notice how gorgeous she looked. Our eyes locked and I knew without a doubt that she too was attracted to me.

I swallowed hard, guilty that I was checking out another woman—an enemy at that—while Sofia was most likely going through hell. What’s wrong with you, Novak?

I followed Ingrid into the room and practically bumped into her frozen form when she suddenly stopped in her tracks and stared at something on the ground. I side-stepped her and my jaw dropped wide open when I saw Borys’ dead body on the ground and a broken and bruised Sofia sobbing next to him. Vivienne was sitting a couple of feet away from Sofia, looking absolutely distraught.

I couldn’t understand what was going on. I was wrought with a mixture of shock, absolute joy and confusion over the reaction the women had to Borys’ dead body.

Before Ingrid, frozen with shock, could gather her wits about her, I rushed toward Sofia, making sure that she was safe. I grinned triumphantly at Ingrid as I bellowed a command, “Take them all captive! Now! Kill them if you have to!”

Chaos erupted outside the room. Ingrid seemed to have all the energy drained from her as she threw herself at Borys’ body, her entire form racked with deep, broken sobs. I embraced Sofia, unable to bear looking at the bruises—though slowly healing—all over her body.

“Are you alright?” I whispered into her ear, tightening my embrace around her, feeling her tremble against my body.

She nodded into my shoulder.

“You did it, Sofia. I don’t know how, but you ended Borys Maslen!”

“They might need you out there…” she whispered hoarsely.

I knew she was right, so I pulled away from her. I directed my attention toward Vivienne. “Keep an eye on Ingrid. Keep her away from Sofia.” Satisfied that my sister was capable of getting a handle on things, I stepped out of the room to find all of the other vampires dead. All but one—the beautiful brunette who had caught my eye earlier as I passed her by…

She glared at me, eyes blazing—this time, with anger instead of attraction…

“You’ve no idea what you’ve done and what you’re up against.” She shook her head defiantly at me even as she motioned to attack me. She, however, was being held back by Xavier and Sam.

I narrowed my eyes in scrutiny of her. I could tell that she was more powerful than she was letting on. I knew by instinct that she could’ve easily gotten out of their grips if she wanted to. “Who are you?” I asked.

“You don’t remember, do you?”

I frowned in confusion. “Remember what?”

“Emilia. I’m Emilia. You made a huge mistake today, Derek, but don’t worry…you’ll get back on track soon enough. For now, I’m warning you. He won’t stop until he gets a hold of her.”

“He? Who’s he?” I tightened my jaw. “I don’t even care. Let him know that ‘he’ will never get a hold of Sofia. I would sooner wage war on anybody who threatens her than let her go.”