“What are you trying to tell me, Natalie?” I asked, growing weary of the conversation.
“Gregor and Borys are alive and no one knows where they are. Other covens are beginning to suspect the Novaks’ loyalties, because of the fact that you appeared at The Oasis on the exact same day the hunters attacked. Some don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
“What do you expect me to do about that?” I could practically feel the darkness coming and all I could think about was how much I wanted to hold Sofia in my arms. I inwardly groaned because just the thought of her made my heart pound and crave for her blood. It was this blood thirst that reminded me why it was necessary for me to leave her.
Natalie must’ve sensed my tension, because uncharacteristically of her, she brushed a hand over my shoulder. “All I’m saying, Novak, is that The Shade won’t be safe for long. I think you should expect that the coven leaders will eventually attack the island.”
At this statement, I could only scoff in response. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”
At that moment, I could almost envision the future and all the bloodshed ahead. I wanted to laugh at the prophecy once spoken about me: The younger will rule above father and brother and his reign alone can provide his kind true sanctuary.
Considering what was up ahead, the prophecy sounded to me like one big cosmic joke. How could all this darkness be true sanctuary?
CHAPTER 4: AIDEN
I stared at the lifeless corpse of the hunter whose life Derek Novak claimed. The hunter had a wooden stake grotesquely buried into his skull. I wondered to myself if I ought to tell Sofia about what had happened. Perhaps I should explain to her how the love of her life, or so she claimed, had fought against the hunters, killed one of them, took one of them hostage before taking their belongings and leaving them in the middle of nowhere.
We’d been following his tracks ever since. I gave strict instructions that Derek Novak was to be kept under surveillance until he returned to The Shade. I was desperate to know the location of the island and I wanted Derek’s every movement tracked, but now, they were giving me news that they’d lost him.
Incompetent fools! Of course, I kept my calm in front of my men. I learned long ago that my cool silence scared them far more than an angry outburst.
“Surely your daughter knows where the island is,” Ivan, the hunter whom Derek took hostage, suggested. “Can’t we pry information out of her?”
“I believe she’s been brainwashed by the vampires. She is far too in love with Derek Novak to ever give the location of the island.”
“Then maybe we can reverse the effects of the brainwashing…” Ivan pressed. “Surely there’s a way…”
“I’m not going to subject my daughter to any more damage. Know your place and stay in it. Do not discuss Sofia anymore.”
He backed down just as I had expected, forcing me to turn my thoughts toward my daughter and how she seemed to hate the very sight of me. Since our confrontation, I placed her under lock and key. She wasn’t allowed to go anywhere nor do anything without my express approval.
I kept her under a routine of training at the atrium as a new recruit, being taught how to defend herself against vampires and how to fight against them. I kept an eye on her, expecting her to keep to herself, to distance herself from the other recruits and the more trained hunters—young men and women devoted to the eradication of her beloved vampires. Thus, I was surprised to find how easy it was for her to strike a friendship with everyone she came across with. It didn’t take long for her to build a rapport with her trainers and the other recruits.
I realized what was so attractive about my daughter. She was a ray of sunshine, always accommodating and with a ready smile to those who approached her. She was beautiful and she was definitely catching the eye of several young men.
Pathetic saps. As if they could ever be deserving of my daughter… I was surprised by my own sense of overprotectiveness for her.
I found it ironic that I was thinking of her in that way, considering how the only person she seemed to loathe and avoid was me. In fact, when I first visited her at the atrium, she wouldn’t even look at me. She treated me like I was invisible.
All I could do was watch her interact with the other people around her while the head director of training, Julian, updated me about her progress.
“She’s learning fast,” he said. “She says that Derek Novak already gave her some basic training on how to defend herself against vampires before.”
“Why on earth would he do that?”
“She told me that he wanted her safe. I asked her why she never used it against the vampires who attacked her and she just shrugged and told me that they were all stronger than she was, and that she’s a pacifist at heart and kept forgetting to bring her wooden stake with her.” There was no mistaking the hint of amusement in Julian’s voice. Clearly, he was fond of my daughter. “Were you aware that she’s been stabbed with one before?”
I found it hard to process this information. “Stabbed? By a wooden stake?”
Julian nodded. “The stake was meant for Derek Novak. She pushed him away and was stabbed instead. He fed her his blood to heal her.”
I found the thought that she would risk her life on his behalf sickening—the fact that she’d been drinking his blood was even worse. I hated even thinking about the things she’d been through during the period he had kept her captive at The Shade.