A Trail of Echoes (A Shade of Vampire #18)(16)

The smile that spread across his lips warmed me. He reached around me and picked me up. Relieved, I heaved a sigh and rested my head against his chest as he carried me back toward the forest.

I cast one last glance toward the ships. As Derek sped up, I was about to look forward again when I spotted something odd just beyond the boundary.

“Wait,” I said.

Derek stopped, looking down at me in surprise. “What?”

He put me down on the sand so I could stand on my own two feet and then, grabbing his hand, I ran toward the water again. Just beyond the boundary, a smooth rounded surface stuck out from above the waves. It looked like… the roof of a submarine.

My heartbeat quickened.

“What is it, Sofia?”

I’d forgotten that Derek’s eyesight wasn’t as good as mine. “It looks like a submarine is trying to enter The Shade.”

Derek cursed beneath his breath. “So they’re actually trying to enter the island now…”

I moved into the waves until the water reached my waist. Something clicked, and a hatch opened. A head pushed out. The head of a man. I frowned in confusion as the rest of him was revealed and he stood up straight on the roof, his back facing us as he gained balance. He didn’t appear to be armed with any weapons at all, and he wore just a loose checkered shirt and jeans. The way he was dressed… he did not look like a hunter. When he turned slowly to face us, I used my acute eyesight to study his face closely.

And then I gasped.

“What is it?” Derek said, his voice a mixture of nervousness and impatience.

Vampire vision or not, I still wasn’t willing to believe my eyes until I was standing right next to that man.

“To the Port!” I said.

Grabbing Derek’s hand, I raced with him to the jetty and jumped into one of the submarines we had floating there.

“Navigate us toward that submarine,” I said.

“Sofia, what the—”

“You’ll see,” I said breathlessly. “Just get us there quickly!”

He gave up trying to get an answer out of me and just hurried us forward as fast as the vessel would go.

I could see the belly of the submarine beyond the boundary as we approached. It was a small one, and it was… oddly familiar. My heart pounded as we arrived right next to it. I left the control room and climbed out of the hatch. In the time that it’d taken us to travel here, another person had climbed out of the submarine—now there were two humans standing on top of its roof.

A man and a woman.

Almost twenty years older than when I had last seen them.

Cameron and Liana Hendry.

Chapter 11: Sofia

My voice caught in my throat, as did Derek’s when he climbed up through our submarine’s hatch and stood behind me.

“Cameron!” Derek gasped, his voice hoarse.

The redheaded man swiveled in our direction and looked around blindly.

“Derek?” he whispered, squinting. “Is that you?”

My heart leapt to hear his voice for the first time in so long. Cam’s Scottish accent was still as thick as ever.

Without warning, Derek dove into the ocean and resurfaced on the other side of the boundary. He gazed up at his two old friends whom he had shared centuries of his life with.

I leapt into the water too and swam until I bobbed in the waves next to Derek.

Cameron broke out into raucous laughter while Liana squealed at the sight of the two of us. The lines in Liana and Cameron’s aged faces showed as they beamed. The couple bent down and stretched out their hands to us—but Derek and I could manage without their help. If anything, we might cause them to slip and fall into the water.

We climbed up next to them. Liana pulled me in for a tight embrace while Cameron enveloped Derek in a strong hug.

When we drew apart, all four of us just stared at each other, speechless.

“What are you, King Derek?” Cameron asked, half grinning and half frowning. “You’re warm like a human, and yet you hardly look a day older than when we last saw you.”

“And Sofia?” Liana said. “You’re a vampire? I thought you both turned back into humans.”

Derek looked like he wanted nothing more than to just stand there and talk, as did I, but the two of us looked anxiously toward the direction of the hunters’ ships.

“It’s not safe out here,” Derek said, clutching Cameron’s shoulder. “Let’s get on the other side of the boundary first.”

“I guess it’s been so long since we were last here,” Cameron said, his voice reminiscent, “we don’t have permission to enter The Shade like we used to.”

“So many things have happened since you left, Cam,” Derek said. “So. Many. Things. The spell has had to be recast a number of times.”

We moved toward the hatch of their submarine, and the four of us slipped down into it and made our way toward the control room. I was surprised to see, sitting in two of the chairs behind the main switchboard, a young man and woman. They were in their teens, but they looked younger than Rose and Ben.

“Meet Cedric and Pippa,” Liana said proudly.

The girl and boy stood up and shook our hands. Pippa had blazing red hair, like her father, but she shared Liana’s light amber eyes. Cedric on the other hand had dark blond hair, with Cameron’s brown eyes.