“Why does it matter what I, or anyone else, think?”

“It matters to me…because I think it matters to her.”

“Okay then…honestly? Nobody here believes that what you have with Sofia will last.”

I shook my head in disgust. “I hate hearing that. I’m so tired of everyone saying that—including her! You’re wrong…all of you…what we have should last.”

“Will it? When she’s a wrinkled eighty-year-old woman and you’re still looking like that…will you still love her?”

I opened my mouth to answer with a confident “Yes” but was distracted by a guard showing up by the door. It was one of Felix’s men.

“The king summons you to the dome, your highness.”

I rose to my feet, surprised that my father would call for me. I turned my eyes toward Gavin. I felt a strange sense of dread. “If she returns before me, tell Sofia that I’ll be back.”

Gavin nodded. “Sure.”

Every fiber of my being told me not to go, but I was already in enough trouble with my father. I didn’t want to irk him any further. I really should’ve just listened to my gut feeling.

I was about to find out how grossly I had underestimated Gregor Novak.

CHAPTER 27: SOFIA

I made myself comfortable in the red loveseat that Corrine had in her study. She was looking through some books when I arrived, black-rimmed glasses over the bridge of her nose as she looked up what was likely to be some ancient spell for another one of her projects.

“To what do I owe the honor of this visit?” she asked as she shut the book she was holding and gave me her full attention.

For the next ten minutes, I poured my heart out to her—my concerns over my relationship with Derek, the culling, the revolt…I told her everything, not withholding a single detail, giving her my complete trust.

“I have no idea what I’m going to do, Corrine. The culling is wrong. How could the witch before you have just stood there and done nothing? Is there anything you can do to stop this? I mean, if these people go on with a revolt, they’re done for! It’s suicide…”

Corrine patiently laid her palms over the top of the wooden desk she was seated behind. “There are some things you can’t change here at The Shade, Sofia. One of them is that the vampires need to feed on human blood. Take that away from them and everything falls apart.”

“So it’s okay for them to massacre the weak and the defenseless?” I spat out.

“Can you think of a better alternative?”

I stared at Corrine with utter disbelief. “Well, yeah! Force the vampires to live on animal blood!”

“Trust me, Sofia. That would cause more chaos than you can possibly wrap your mind around, but if that’s what has to happen.” She shrugged. “Then so be it.”

I couldn’t understand her nonchalance. We were practically talking about genocide and she was just sitting there talking as if life didn’t matter. “I can’t believe it. Doesn’t life matter to anyone here at The Shade?”

“It’s going to be over soon, Sofia,” was the only assurance I got from the witch.

I stood from my seat and began pacing the marble floor. “What does that even mean?” I muttered through gritted teeth.

I could feel Corrine’s eyes on me as I paced the floor anxiously. I didn’t bother to hide my irritation from her. My heart broke just thinking of what a culling could mean for the people I’d begun to care about.

“Do you have any idea why I’m here, Sofia?”

I paused to glance her way. “Yeah. They took you from your university, because the last witch was about to pass away. They need you to keep the protective spell over the island going.”

She chuckled dryly. “I could leave this island anytime I want. Derek knows that. You know that. Why do you think I don’t?”

“I always assumed it’s because you want to look after the humans of The Shade, but considering how apathetic you are over this whole culling business, I’m not so sure anymore…” I was surprised by my own bluntness. Perhaps Gavin has begun to rub off on me.

“That’s one reason, yes. I’ve tried to do my part in making the lives of the Naturals a bit more comfortable. As for the Migrates, there wasn’t much I could do for them. They were trapped prey inside a den of beasts from the moment they stepped onto the island. You weren’t supposed to survive, Sofia. You were supposed to get killed like everyone else. Derek Novak’s nature dictated that he suck the blood right out of you from the first moment he laid eyes on you, but he didn’t. Why is that?”

I pursed my lips, unable to come up with an answer. I recalled the conversation I had with Vivienne when she risked her life—and lost it to the hunters—just to get me back to The Shade.

“Derek thought he’d already fulfilled the prophecy when we established The Shade. The island, he thought, was our true sanctuary. Cora knew otherwise. She knew that he wasn’t done, so without his knowledge, she tacked on an end to her spell. Derek was to wake once it was time to find the girl who would help him fulfill his destiny. It was Corrine who signaled that he was about to wake and she made it very clear that the girls taken on a certain night were to be reserved for him.” Vivienne said.

“My birthday…” I threw the words out there, remembering the way I felt that night.

“Yes…your birthday…” she said the words as if she found it amazing that Lucas abducted me and brought me to The Shade on that particular day. “Derek hadn’t fed on human blood for four centuries. You couldn’t possibly understand how difficult it was for him not to feed on you. When he slammed you against that pillar, I thought you were done for. But he spared you. I don’t know what you told him, but you got to him in a way no other person was ever able to. Not our father or our brother or me or even Cora was able to get through to him the way you did…”

The conversation I was having with Corrine felt eerily similar to that conversation I had with Vivienne at the coffee shop near the stadium where Ben was having his championship football game. I remembered how I felt back then, how confused I was when Vivienne looked me in the eye and told me that I wasn’t just a pawn present at The Shade to keep the board moving. I was “the queen.”

I looked at Corrine and answered her question. “I’m the girl meant to help him fulfill the prophecy.” That was the moment I snapped out of my denial and actually embraced that what Vivienne told me at the coffee shop could actually be real.

“Exactly.” Corrine nodded. “I am the final witch, Sofia. After me, there will be no other. The prophecy has to be fulfilled in my lifetime, or The Shade will no longer have anyone from my lineage powerful enough to keep it protected. I chose to be here because I want to watch it all unfold. To be honest, I doubted the prophecy. I doubted that Derek could bring the prophecy to completion. He seemed too far gone in darkness—like Claudia and Lucas, Felix and Gregor—vampires who have lost all touch of their humanity and conscience. I took one look at Derek’s sleeping form when I first came here at The Shade and I scoffed. I saw so much darkness in him. I convinced myself that Cora believed what she wanted to believe about him because of her famed unrequited love for Derek…”

I frowned at that statement. Cora was in love with Derek?

“After I saw the way Derek was with you, however,” Corrine continued, “I had to believe that there was still goodness in him. He wasn’t too far gone.” She must’ve noticed the glazed look on my eyes, because she furrowed her brows and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I just had no idea…Cora and Derek?”

“I thought you knew. Derek was the love of Cora’s life. Everything she did for The Shade was out of her love for him. He never did quite return her love though—not the way she wanted to at least. He protected her. She was his best friend, but no…he never loved her, not the way he loved you.”

My heart broke for Cora, and yet to be once again assured that I was the love of Derek’s life was something that made my spirits soar.

“For a time, Cora thought that she was the woman who would help him fulfill the prophecy. It took years before she realized and accepted that she wasn’t and that his heart would never be hers. I think you already know this, Sofia, but Derek has been with countless women throughout his lifetime, but he never did fall in love until you came along.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but no words came out. How was a girl to respond to a revelation like that? To my relief, it seemed I didn’t need to come up with a reply, because within seconds of her finishing her last statement, Corrine’s brown eyes grew wide with utter panic as she stood on her feet, her hands clutching the edge of the desk until her knuckles grew a pale white.

“Corrine?” I asked, my concern immediate.

She swallowed hard. “Something’s wrong. Something is very, very wrong…”

Before I could even react, a blow to my head knocked me unconscious and everything that surrounded me succumbed to darkness—a phenomenon that seemed inevitable in a place like The Shade.

CHAPTER 28: DEREK

Over the past five hundred years, my father had already given me many reasons to hate him, but I never did quite hate him as much as I did that night.

I was intrigued to say the least. I was no fool. I was gearing myself up for a fight—an argument at the least—once I reached the dome, but what greeted me was something that was far beyond my expectations.

The moment I walked through the large oak doors of The Shade, multiple tranquilizer rifles—the same ones used by hunters—were fired at me before six guards jumped at me to chain me up and restrain me from fighting back. I was still able to severely maim one of the guards who attacked me, but I was outnumbered and weakened by the suppression serums the tranquilizer darts injected into my system. It was the same serum used to inhibit a vampire’s healing abilities—the same one used on Claudia when she was whipped for her defiance toward me. The serum also worked to suppress a vampire’s strength.