“You’re a hunter.” I said. It was rhetoric. I wondered what was keeping her from driving the stake right through my heart. Was it because I just saved her life from that panther? She didn’t even seem to be grateful for it back at the shore.
“You’re cursed.”
“That I am.” I scoffed.
She pushed the stake forward, just enough to break my skin and draw blood. I saw bewilderment in her eyes.
“You just killed a panther with your bare hands…” she spoke. “What’s keeping you from killing me?”
“I’ve never killed a human being in my life. I’m not about to start today. If your conscience can take ending my life, then go ahead and be done with it.”
I wondered what was keeping her from killing me. Back when I was a hunter, I wouldn’t have given it a moment’s thought before ending a vampire’s life – and I ended many. I saw them as cursed, remorseless, wicked creatures who took life without inhibition – the same way one of their kind took my mother’s life. I saw vampires as immortals dead to their conscience. I never thought they were capable of emotion until I became one of them.
I looked into this young woman’s brown eyes and wondered what all the vampires I murdered felt when they looked into my eyes. Did they feel as I felt at that moment? Did they anticipate the moment the stake would drive through their heart? Were they begging to be freed from their accursed immortality?
It felt like an eternity before our eyes unlocked and she sank into the ground, pulling the stake from my chest. She watched as the wound caused by her stake healed.
“I’m not a hunter,” she admitted.
I smirked. “I can see that. If you were a hunter, I’d be dead by now.”
“You’re not what they say you are, not what I expect you to be.”
I couldn’t find a proper response to that statement, so I introduced myself instead. “I’m Derek Novak.”
She stared at me for a couple of minutes before finally deciding that I deserved a name to call her by.#p#分页标题#e#
“You can call me Cora.”
The lighthouse became my refuge through all the terror and bloodshed that happened in that forsaken island in its first hundred years. The people who got to enter it were the people I trusted enough to completely let into my life. Only two had made it within its walls. Cora and Vivienne.
That night, a third person was about to enter my sanctuary. She was the first person I allowed in by choice. As I gently laid a hand on the small of Sofia’s back, guiding her up the winding staircase that would lead to its topmost room, I realized that I was something that I hadn’t been in a very long time: terrified.
Chapter 37: Sofia
I raised the lantern Derek gave me over my head as we continued to climb to the top of the lighthouse. I found myself a bit confused and more than a little surprised. I thought I was imagining things, but I could swear that the hand Derek laid on my back was shaking.
Derek Novak? Nervous? Will wonders never cease?
As we neared our destination, I felt a mixture of dread and anticipation. It was obvious that this place held a lot of meaning to Derek and I was excited to find out why, but there was also a sense of foreboding that came with it, as if the lighthouse also housed something dark and disturbing.
I was relieved – and out of breath – when we finally reached the top of the lighthouse. Derek, who was at my rear the whole time, took the lead during the last few steps. He retrieved a metal skeleton key from his jeans’ side pocket and unlocked the arched rosewood door.
His hand was already on the latch that would open the door, but he took several breaths before finally pushing it open.
I sensed his anxiety. “Derek?” I asked as I stepped beside him. “Are you alright?”
I kept my gaze on his face, paying no attention to the room I just stepped into. Considering the unexpected turn of events that welcomed me to The Shade, it was the first time since I got back that I found myself once again struck by his appearance. He towered at least half a foot over me. His hair was as black as night, his skin as pale as snow. His blue eyes changed shades with his mood. This time, they were a deep dark shade of blue as if a storm was brewing in them, with his pupils as the storm’s center.
He faced me and gave me one small smile. Bitter. Heartbroken. Disturbed. Afraid. He didn’t say anything. He just stepped aside to give me a better view of the room.
The octagonal room had four large windows on every other wall. Each window had heavy red drapes drawn to the sides, allowing us a view of the starry night skies within the lines that defined the island. The strange thing was that from our vantage point, it was clear to see where the night stopped and where the day began. Miles away from us was a bright, sunny day, marking the boundaries where the light cast out by the lighthouse’s lantern was wholly unnecessary.