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?”#p#分页标题#e#
“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.
Five chains were placed on me—my neck was shackled, my wrists and my ankles. The five guards who jumped on me were holding the other ends of the chains, all of them pulling on opposite directions. It felt like they were trying to tear me apart. The guard I was able to take down was still writhing in pain on the ground, severely wounded, as he clutched a chain that I figured must’ve been for my waist. I knew them. Felix’s men.