Chapter 4: Aiden
I stared at the lifeless corpse of the hunter whose life Derek Novak claimed. The hunter had a wooden stake grotesquely buried into his skull. I wondered to myself if I ought to tell Sofia about what had happened. Perhaps I should explain to her how the love of her life, or so she claimed, had fought against the hunters, killed one of them, took one of them hostage before taking their belongings and leaving them in the middle of nowhere.
We’d been following his tracks ever since. I gave strict instructions that Derek Novak was to be kept under surveillance until he returned to The Shade. I was desperate to know the location of the island and I wanted Derek’s every movement tracked, but now, they were giving me news that they’d lost him.
Incompetent fools! Of course, I kept my calm in front of my men. I learned long ago that my cool silence scared them far more than an angry outburst.
“Surely your daughter knows where the island is,” Ivan, the hunter whom Derek took hostage, suggested. “Can’t we pry information out of her?”
“I believe she’s been brainwashed by the vampires. She is far too in love with Derek Novak to ever give the location of the island.”
“Then maybe we can reverse the effects of the brainwashing…” Ivan pressed. “Surely there’s a way…”
“I’m not going to subject my daughter to any more damage. Know your place and stay in it. Do not discuss Sofia anymore.”
He backed down just as I had expected, forcing me to turn my thoughts toward my daughter and how she seemed to hate the very sight of me. Since our confrontation, I placed her under lock and key. She wasn’t allowed to go anywhere nor do anything without my express approval.
I kept her under a routine of training at the atrium as a new recruit, being taught how to defend herself against vampires and how to fight against them. I kept an eye on her, expecting her to keep to herself, to distance herself from the other recruits and the more trained hunters—young men and women devoted to the eradication of her beloved vampires. Thus, I was surprised to find how easy it was for her to strike a friendship with everyone she came across with. It didn’t take long for her to build a rapport with her trainers and the other recruits.
I realized what was so attractive about my daughter. She was a ray of sunshine, always accommodating and with a ready smile to those who approached her. She was beautiful and she was definitely catching the eye of several young men.
Pathetic saps. As if they could ever be deserving of my daughter… I was surprised by my own sense of overprotectiveness for her.
I found it ironic that I was thinking of her in that way, considering how the only person she seemed to loathe and avoid was me. In fact, when I first visited her at the atrium, she wouldn’t even look at me. She treated me like I was invisible.
All I could do was watch her interact with the other people around her while the head director of training, Julian, updated me about her progress.
“She’s learning fast,” he said. “She says that Derek Novak already gave her some basic training on how to defend herself against vampires before.”
“Why on earth would he do that?”
“She told me that he wanted her safe. I asked her why she never used it against the vampires who attacked her and she just shrugged and told me that they were all stronger than she was, and that she’s a pacifist at heart and kept forgetting to bring her wooden stake with her.” There was no mistaking the hint of amusement in Julian’s voice. Clearly, he was fond of my daughter. “Were you aware that she’s been stabbed with one before?”
I found it hard to process this information. “Stabbed? By a wooden stake?”
Julian nodded. “The stake was meant for Derek Novak. She pushed him away and was stabbed instead. He fed her his blood to heal her.”
I found the thought that she would risk her life on his behalf sickening—the fact that she’d been drinking his blood was even worse. I hated even thinking about the things she’d been through during the period he had kept her captive at The Shade.
“What do you plan to do about that?” Julian asked with hesitation.
“About what?”
“The fact that your daughter is in love with a vampire—and not just any ordinary vampire… She’s in love with Derek Novak.”
“I don’t know.” I groaned. This reality was haunting me. If I were to be honest with myself, I highly doubted that she was brainwashed. She wasn’t exhibiting any signs of having been brainwashed. She didn’t have the twitches, the paranoia, the confusion… She never spaced out into blank gazes. It was hard for me to accept, but it seemed her love for Derek Novak was genuine. It seems that I would have to brainwash her in order to get rid of her love for that vampire. The idea turned my stomach, and I wondered if I could really do that to my own daughter.
“She could make a great hunter.”
“Trust me when I say that she is never going to be one of us.” I’m afraid she loves him too much. I stood to my full height, squaring my shoulders as I let my gaze linger over Sofia, overcome by the force of emotions that coursed through me whenever I looked at her. I made a mistake abandoning her, but how could I have kept her with me? She reminds me so much of how beautiful and vibrant Camilla was.
“Are you alright, Reuben?”
“Of course.” I nodded. “Give me a regular report on her progress. Tell her that from now on, she is to keep a stake on her person at all times. Also, make sure that she learns how to use the guns. I won’t have her defenseless against those creatures again.”
After the conversation with Julian, I found myself aimlessly wandering the corridors of the headquarters, the inescapable ache caused by all the time I had lost with Sofia at the forefront of my thoughts. Somehow, my meandering brought me to the last place I thought I wanted to be: Ingrid’s cell.
I came just in time to see her finishing up a packet of animal blood. She grinned when she saw me enter the room.
“Wow. Aiden Claremont finally pays me a visit.” She tilted her head to the side, her beautiful eyes set on me, her long auburn hair falling to one side. “What did I do to deserve such an honor?”
“What happened at The Oasis? Why was Sofia there?” I pulled up a chair and sat down, gearing myself up for a conversation I wasn’t even sure I wanted to have.
“Why don’t you ask your little princess?” she pouted.
“She refuses to talk about it.” I drew a breath and revealed the thought weighing on my mind. “Do you not feel even a thread of affection for her? For me?”
Ingrid’s eyes softened for but a moment before the familiar manic look returned. “I’m sure Camilla adored her and on her good days, I’m sure she also had some love for Sofia.”
It hurt her being referred to as Camilla, like her former self was completely gone. “Camilla was the love of my life.”
I was surprised when Ingrid scoffed at this. “Sure she was.”
I frowned. “You don’t believe me?”
“You were the love of Camilla’s life, but I doubt she was yours.”
I gave her a confused look. Did I fail to show Camilla how much I adored her? I doted on her. I practically worshipped the ground she walked on.
Ingrid rolled her eyes. “It’s obvious that you have no idea what to do with that little princess of yours. It’s not like I can help you with that. If you ask me, what you should do with her is place a white gown on her and offer her up to the man she belongs to.”
The image her words painted in my mind was sickening. I found myself seething with anger. “And that would be who?”
“Borys Maslen. Borys owns her. I gave her to him.”
She was a stranger, not a trace of the woman I had loved left in her. “What have you done with my wife? Is there any trace of Camilla left in you?”
A bitter smile formed on Ingrid’s face. “Camilla is dead. She died the day Sofia was born. That spoiled little brat stole your heart from me. Every time she had to share you with Sofia, Camilla died a little. Hers was a slow and painful death. There was no way for her to survive.” She paused and gave me a penetrating gaze that would haunt me for days after. “You were simply too blind to realize, Aiden, that your love for Sofia killed Camilla.”