I was still musing over her words when Aiden showed up, messing with my conflicted emotions even more.
“How could you do this to me?” I glared at him.
He just stared as he stepped in. The bars behind him shut closed and we were left alone.
I tried to hold my glare at him as he stared right back. I knew, however, that it was a battle of wills I couldn’t win. I shuddered as I looked into his green eyes, butterflies fluttering in my stomach—a sensation I hadn’t felt since I turned into a vampire. I couldn’t help but break the stare as I bowed my head, my eyes downcast. “What do you want from me, Aiden?”
“Can you never be Camilla again?”
“Isn’t that what you’ve turned me into? Am I not once again human? Weak and vulnerable to your every advance? Pining for you? Unworthy of you?”
“Is that what you felt all those years we were together, Camilla? That you were unworthy? That you were weak?”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t believe my ears. How could he not know the answers to the questions he was spouting out? How could he not know that that was exactly how I had felt? More than that, I couldn’t believe that he had actually called me by that name again. Camilla. I couldn’t understand it, but my heart leaped at the sound of him saying that name again.
“I never saw you that way. You were vibrant and strong-willed and adventurous. You were sweet and kind. You were beautiful in every way as Camilla Claremont, and then you became Ingrid Maslen and now, look at you…”
His words stung. All these years, I looked down on the person that I was. To be told that he found that person beautiful was daunting to me. How on earth could he have seen her as beautiful?
“What do you want from me, Aiden?” I asked him, hoping to end the confrontation as soon as possible. “I’m human now. Shouldn’t I be released from this prison by now? Or do you torment and brainwash humans too?”
Aiden shook his head slowly. “What do I want from you? I just wanted you to know that what you wanted—Sofia ultimately belonging to your beloved lord, Borys…it’s not going to happen. We’re about to turn Derek Novak into a human being—just like you—and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
I was surprised by the effect those words had on me. I was made livid by the idea, reinforcing that a part of Ingrid Maslen still remained with me. “She belongs with Borys Maslen!” I screamed at him.
Sadness unlike anything I had ever seen before filled his eyes. “I wish you wouldn’t say that. I guess human or not, you will always be Ingrid Maslen. Goodbye.”
Left to myself, I felt the hopelessness of my defeat. It felt like Sofia had won over me. She took everything from me. I had nothing left. Nothing. Sofia, on the other hand, was about to get everything she had ever wanted. It didn’t seem fair, but there was nothing I could do about it.
Why live to see her celebrating her triumph over me?
Desperate, I took a shard of glass from the ground, left over from a glass of water I’d thrown against the wall. I tried to recall the last time I had felt pain as a human. Horrible memories I had long buried flashed through my mind, reminding me how cruel humans can be, how coldhearted and merciless they were. I don’t want to be among them. I slashed the glass over my wrist, wincing at the pain.
I waited, as I watched the blood gush out of my wrist. I was expecting to immediately sense the call of death upon me, but nothing happened. The blood just kept gushing out and trickling onto the ground until to my shock, the gash on my wrist slowly began to close.
I stared at my wrist in horror. What’s going on? I slashed the knife through my skin again—this time a deeper, more lethal gash. Within minutes, the same thing happened.
I had no idea what was going on, but one thing seemed certainly true despite what they had done to me: I was still immortal.
CHAPTER 35: DEREK
I did not know how it had happened or who instigated the news, but word of the hunters coming to the island spread like wildfire. As was expected, the news came with several degrees of mixed reactions—mostly negative. The vampires who remained neutral were beginning to question my sanity. Those who were loyal, on the other hand, did not find it hard to voice out their concerns on the matter. While some were quick to assure me that they had my support, I knew that their trust in me was wavering.
The arrival of the hunters seemed to spark hope of escape from The Shade from some of the Naturals. Gavin and Ian were trying to take my side in explaining to them that hunters didn’t exactly see humans taken captives by vampires as citizens of the outside world worth saving. They were made examples of, the human slaves of The Oasis, when they were massacred right along with their vampire lords. This knowledge didn’t serve well to quell the hopes of those who would rather cling to the unknown brought about by the hunters rather than to the chaos they were so accustomed to at The Shade.
I myself was questioning my own judgment, but I knew Sofia, and I knew that she would not suggest something she believed could ever bring The Shade harm. Unless of course they’d gotten to her somehow and turned her against me…
“Am I making the right decision?” I asked Corrine, after having found my way to her home at The Shade—The Sanctuary.
She shrugged as she stared at me warily. We both knew that my coming to her for advice or any kind of conversation was completely out of my character. Still, she gave me a piece of her mind. “Well, I think you’re doing what you need to do in order to get Sofia back here. That’s what’s important—that she gets back here.”