“To take a walk,” he responded. “If we’re going to have this talk, it won’t be here.”
I creased my brows, trailing after him, wondering why on earth we couldn’t just have the conversation in his penthouse. I stared at the back of his head as I tried to keep up with his long, fast strides. What is going on inside that brain of yours, Novak?
We were already at the Vale, nearing the town square when I stopped in my tracks and pulled against him, trying to catch my breath. I looked around us and felt annoyed that he had dragged me to such a public place. People were beginning to look at us, but out of reverence for him, kept to themselves.
“What is going on, Derek?!” I managed to exclaim in between gasps. Frustrated, I placed both hands over my head, grabbing clumps of my hair to emphasize my point. “I can’t wrap my mind around what you’ve been up to lately.” I was desperately trying to fight back the tears as I leaned against the stone wall of one of the buildings bordering the town square.
His eyes softened and he heaved one deep sigh before finally addressing my concerns. “You’re moving out on your birthday, Sofia. We have to get accustomed to being apart from each other.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear from him. I shook my head and swallowed hard as I stood straight, digging my heels into the ground in irritation. “So it’s like that? Is that why you were saying sorry to me? Because you’re just going to abandon me? Is this some sort of punishment over my choice to live in The Catacombs and not get turned into a vampire?”
“It’s not like that…”
“Then what is it?!” I couldn’t understand what was going through his mind. He’d barely looked at me, much less touched me in the past week. My voice softened as I begged him to tell me, “What’s going on, Derek? Why are you avoiding me?”
“My father’s got me busy. You know what he’s like…”
I gently placed a hand on his arm and he flinched away from my touch. That sudden motion of his was painful to experience.
He must’ve noticed how my eyes were beginning to moisten, because he softened at the sight.
“Sofia…”
My sandcastle feels like it’s about to fall apart. “I always knew that I would lose you eventually. I just didn’t expect that it would happen so soon.”
“You know what, Sofia!” he snapped. “That’s just it!”
I gasped when he pushed me against the wall. Eyes blazing, he rested one hand against the stone so that he could have his face closer to mine, his breath cold against my skin.
“You keep talking about how we’re going to lose each other as if it’s something inevitable, as if it’s something we just have to accept. I dread the day I could lose you, Sofia. It would be like losing my reason to live, and for the past few days all I’ve been able to think about when I look at you is how you’re slipping away from me every second of every day.”
The urgency by which the words came out of his lips drew my breath away. Desperation oozed out of every syllable. I stared up at him, not knowing what to say.
He stepped forward and leaned closer so that he was looking right into my eyes. “Why can’t what we have last forever?”
A tear ran down my cheek as I spoke the sad truth, “Because we both know that it can’t.”
His jaw tightened and he began shaking his head furiously as he spat out through gritted teeth, “How could you say that?! How could you just give up like that?” Both his hands gripped the sides of my head and his lips crushed against mine. The kiss was passionate and forceful—as if he were punishing me for daring to resign myself to the eventual doom of our relationship.
I found myself frozen beneath his touch, a hundred thoughts warring in the battleground of my mind. I couldn't respond to his advances, but neither could I resist. I missed this, missed his touch so much that the only thing I found myself feeling at that moment was relief. He still wanted me. He wasn’t giving up on us.
When our lips parted, I was trembling and I could barely form words through my quivering lips. I stared up at him. “I thought you didn’t want me anymore,” I admitted.
Fire sparked in his eyes as they narrowed in question. “How could you ever think that?” His hands wrapped around my waist and he pulled me close. “I will always want you.” He once again pressed his mouth against mine—tender this time, before kissing my forehead.
Suddenly, we were interrupted by a loud clap. We both looked toward the direction of the noise and found Gregor Novak approaching with several members of the Elite council—members I wasn’t quite familiar with—trailing behind him. He had a young woman holding on to his right arm. He shrugged her hand off him and she stumbled backwards.