The muscles of his jaw twitched at my touch. His looked murderous and yet severely conflicted. His hand closed down on my neck, threatening to choke me.

"Answer my question and choose your words well, because they might just be your last. How did you find your way back here?"

I kept my hand on his wrist, my fingers caressing his skin, hoping to soothe him. "Vivienne showed me the way."

The misty haze in his eyes cleared and the darkness lifted to once again show me a spark of his bright blue gaze. Right then, he quickly stepped away from me, wriggling his wrist away from my touch as if mere contact with me would somehow burn him. "How did she..."

His question faded into the background the moment I saw a wooden stake, clutched by two trembling hands, rise in the air, poised to stab Derek in the back, right through his heart.

"Ashley? No!"

I pushed Derek to the side and found myself startled when he actually budged, perhaps more out of surprise rather than my strength or ability to push him aside. With him out of the way, the wooden stake Ashley meant for him dug its way through my right shoulder.

I screamed in pain the moment my flesh tore and blood rushed out. I clasped the stake with my left hand. The throbbing pain was making my head spin.

Ashley's eyes grew wide with surprise. "Sofia?"

I looked up to face her, only to watch with horror as Derek approached her. The stake had come from his personal stock. Each of us had one. He taught us how to kill a vampire before I left The Shade. I remembered him warning us that if we ever used it against him, he would kill us himself and that's exactly what he was going to do to Ashley.

When his hands rose in the air, poised to hold her by the neck, I gasped at what I was certain he was about to do. He was about to break her neck and he was perfectly capable of doing it with barely any effort at all.

"Derek, don't..."

His one hand grabbed a fistful of her blonde hair, while the other gripped her jaw tightly. "She was about to kill me."

"She was defending me!"

I drew a breath when he pulled her head back and his hand closed tighter over her jaw. Conflicted wasn't a good enough word to describe the expression on Derek's face.

"She's a hunter..."

The stake in my shoulder was agony, but seeing Derek kill a dear friend right in front of me was something I could not survive. Desperate, I staggered forward and gently held the wrist of the hand he had over Ashley. "Please."

Forgetting just how strong he was, he pushed my hand away and the motion sent me tumbling to the floor. I whipped my head toward Ashley, fearful of the worst. To my relief, Derek threw her toward the direction of the bed. Not very gentle, but at least she'll live. She fell to the bed face forward. I then saw the hawk on her lower back. Hers was a tattoo and not an iron brand like Derek's but it was the exact same symbol. The hawk... what does it mean?

Derek's focus was now on my injury. He knelt on the floor in front of me. Concern and guilt traced his stunning blue eyes when he saw the blood gushing from my shoulder. His jaw locked. "This will hurt."

Before I could even react to his warning, he pulled the stake out of my ligament in one quick motion. I cried out, certain that I would faint, but I wasn't given that reprieve. The pain the stake caused going out was twice the pain it dealt me going in.

I wished that I could somehow shut down one or more of my senses, but awareness sometimes felt like a curse I would forever have to deal with.

"You have a punctured ligament and a displaced shoulder," Derek informed me upon closer inspection of my injury. "I'll need to put your shoulder in place before healing you."

He pulled my shoulder in place with one strong thrust, causing my mental carousel to go spinning out of control. I bit my lip until it hurt, refusing to cry or scream any more than I already had. Seemingly satisfied that he'd done his part, Derek stood up and headed for the bed. I was afraid that he was going to once again turn on Ashley. She moved as far away from him as she could until her back hit the headboard. She was still wearing nothing but her underwear. Derek glared at her but relief washed over both of us when he picked up the shirt that was hanging over the edge of the bed. He put the shirt on before retrieving a Swiss knife from his pocket. I knew what it was for.

"No. I don't want to drink your blood."

"Why the h.e.l.l not?" He cut a gash in his palm anyway and shoved his hand in front of my face. "Drink, Sofia." He sounded more authoritarian than he ever did before.

I sealed my lips shut as I glared at him. It was my act of defiance. It was my way of telling him that I wasn't back at The Shade to be his slave.

"You're trying my patience." He withdrew his hand from me and glared at me as if I was the most exasperating, stubborn creature he'd ever laid eyes on. "Whose blood do you want to drink then? Or would you rather just bleed to death? If it's the latter, you might as well just let me feed on you. That way, your bleeding to death could at least serve to satisfy my hunger."

Derek was definitely making no effort to hide his irritation. I noticed how he gulped at the sight of my blood, and I wondered how much self-control it was taking him not to have a taste of it.

"Help Ashley first."

Blood was still trickling from Ashley's neck and she looked pale as a ghost. The expression on her face made it clear how horrified she was by the idea of drinking Derek's blood.

"You're joking." Derek's face deadpanned.

I shook my head. I kept one hand on my wound, applying pressure to it.

He muttered several curses under his breath before grabbing me by my uninjured arm and pulling me up to a standing position. The blood rush caused by the sudden motion made me too dizzy to stand on my own and I found myself falling against him. He half-carried, half-dragged me to the bed, sitting me non-too-gently over its edge before shoving his palm toward Ashley.

"Drink." He ordered her. "Make it quick. Sofia's losing a lot of blood."

Ashley gave him a murderous look before holding his wrist and fingers with each hand. Then she drank. The pink was returning to Ashley's skin, a contrast from the pale white it was only seconds ago. I looked at the bite marks on her neck. They weren't closing yet. "Why isn't she healing?"

"She is." Derek a.s.sured me as he pulled his palm away from Ashley. The gash on his palm was already closing. "She takes more time to heal than you."

"Why?"

"I haven't the slightest clue." He took out the Swiss knife and cut another gash in the same palm. "Your turn." He offered his hand up to me. "Now drink."

I grumbled as I took his hand in mine. I saw amus.e.m.e.nt flicker in his eyes once I started drinking his blood.

"Stubborn girl."

It took about half a minute of drinking before my punctured ligament repaired itself. The skin over my wound was just about to completely close when Kyle showed up by the door. He had a smile on his face. He was most likely expecting that I had a joyous reunion with Derek. It was agonizing to see his smile fade away, a pained expression replacing it when he saw Ashley, in her state of undress, inside the room.

"Take her to the Cells." Derek commanded the moment he realized the guard was there. "She will stand trial in front of the council tomorrow for attempting to kill me."

Kyle's eyes grew wide with shock. "Of course, your highness." He approached Ashley and gently helped her up. I noticed the pained look in his eyes when he saw the bite marks on her neck.

"Wait..." I could feel Derek's frustrated glare on me as I stood up. Ignoring him, I rushed to Ashley and embraced her, water moistening my eyes. I wanted to say something to a.s.sure her, but I found myself at a loss for words.

She was stiff against my embrace, refusing to return the gesture. "Now you return?"

"I couldn't stay away even if I wanted to," I whispered back.

We pulled away from each other. She looked at me coldly, her expression far too close to hatred. Unnerved by her eyes on me, I shifted my gaze toward Derek. "Let her put on something first... It's cold there." I could almost feel the chill just remembering what it was like to wake up in one of the dungeons.

Derek seemed to give it some thought first. He looked annoyed but gave Kyle a curt nod. "See it done."

They both left the room. That left me with Derek and all the unanswered questions we had between us. Even with my back still turned to him, I could feel his eyes on me. Just knowing that I was standing in the same room with Derek caused a wave of unfamiliar sensations to course through my veins. My breathing grew heavy when I sensed him approach. When I felt his large hands on my waist, pulling my back against him, his breath chilling the nape of my neck, breathing proved to be quite a task.

"You're here." He sounded just as breathless as I was.

"Is that a good thing?"

"You tell me."

All of it was too much for me to handle. I'd been pining for him since I left the island. I didn't know exactly what to expect upon returning, but I certainly wasn't expecting to find Derek about to murder one of my friends. The sensations caused by his hands on me, holding me, and the feel of his lips brushing the back of my neck, breathing my scent in ... it was all too much in too little time.

"Do me a favor, Sofia..." his voice broke through my silence. "I don't know if you can, but please, for a few hours... try to forget what you just saw. Forget what just happened. If only for a short time, be with me. Please." In a choked, husky voice, he admitted, "I missed you so much."

His plea gave me the escape I needed from all the thoughts plaguing me over what I just witnessed. One emotion came to the forefront and that was the deep longing I had to once again be in his arms. I took his hands from my waist and wrapped his strong arms around me.

"Are you still the man I left behind, Derek?" I dared to ask.

His arms around me tightened, clinging to me. "No."

My heart dropped. I didn't quite expect him to be so blunt in his honesty. "Then who are you?"

His lips pressed against the back of my head, before he held me by the shoulders and forced me to face him. Behind his blue eyes, I saw a galaxy of questions unanswered, doubts unsettled, guilt and shame deeply felt.

"Who do you want me to be, Sofia?"

I saw so much anguish in his handsome face, I could barely comprehend his question. At that moment, he wasn't the prince of The Shade, the strong and powerful Derek Novak. The man who stood before me was one weakened and wearied by the daily battles he was fighting. He was a broken being, trembling beneath my touch. He bowed his head, his forehead pressing against mine as I ran my hands over his muscular arms.

"I want you to be you, Derek."

We both began to sway gently to music I couldn't hear, but knew was playing inside his creative mind. His hands once again engulfed my waist as he led me to a dance. We were trying to return to the way we used to be, dancing to music that only he could hear, in an attempt to erase from our minds what just happened.

When his lips found mine, however, the pain in my heart was too much to contend with and I couldn't help but step away from him. "I can't do this." I brushed my fingers over the upper lining of my mouth, my lips still throbbing from once again feeling his lips pressing against them. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He shook his head. "I understand."

He looked at me with longing that seemed to dwarf the longing I felt for him. Intense. Consuming. Painful. I wanted to explain that I shied away from his touch not because I didn't want to be with him, but because I couldn't just turn a blind eye to what I walked in on him doing.

"I'm going to win you back, Sofia."

I planted a gentle kiss on his cheek. "I don't understand why, but somehow ... you never quite lost me."

CHAPTER 33: DEREK.

Seated on the edge of my bed, waiting for Sofia to emerge from the bathroom, I wondered if she had any idea how much her words meant to me.

You never lost me.

It was admittance that after everything that happened, after everything she saw, she was still mine. It completely eclipsed what I felt over Vivienne's disappearance, something I thought ought to make me feel guilty. However, all I felt was a distinct sense of gratefulness that Sofia was back at The Shade with me. Not long before she arrived, I was h.e.l.l bent on punishing her for being the reason behind my losing Vivienne. Now that she was here, everything inside me was screaming for a way to atone myself for the things I'd been doing since she left.

The bathroom door opened and she emerged wearing a towel around her slender form, her long auburn hair still dripping wet. I caught my breath at the sight of her. Is she really so oblivious to the effect she has on me?

"I can't find the hair dryer..."

I frowned. "I had it removed." Along with everything that reminded me of you.

Her nose wrinkled. "I'll have to towel dry then."

She headed for the bed and picked up the clothes she laid out over it before she went for her bath. Her proximity was testing all my self-control. Reminding me of how comfortable we used to be around each other, she went straight to the walk-in closet to get dressed. It didn't take long for her to reappear, wearing a red b.u.t.ton down blouse over tight jeans, combing her hair with her fingers. As she came closer, her eyes rose to meet mine and she took a seat next to me.

A sighed heavily. "What now, Derek Novak?"

Unable to keep my hands away from her, my palm ran the length from her knee cap to her thigh while I brushed a strand of her still wet hair away from her face. "I don't know. I'm honestly still trying to figure out if you're really here or if this is all just a dream."

She held the back of the hand I was using to caress her face, as if relishing the feel of my touch. "Vivienne convinced me to come."

Though it was painful to hear her say my twin's name, it didn't quite have the infuriating effect I thought it should've. Something about having Sofia around made everything that was going on feel so much lighter, so much easier to bear. Sofia must've noticed my unease at the mention of Vivienne, because her free hand squeezed the hand I had over her thigh.

"I'm so sorry, Derek. I know how much she meant to you."

"I don't know if she's still alive or not. Either way, I'm going to make the hunters pay..."

Her cheeks paled at my words. "This cycle of vengeance between hunters and vampires... will it ever end?"

I withdrew from her touch, running one hand through my hair and fisting the other over my knee. "You can't talk me out of this, Sofia. Vivienne is too precious for me not to avenge her."

"I'm not trying to talk you out of anything, Derek. I doubt that I could make you do anything you don't want to do."

I held back the urge to scoff at her words. "You underestimate yourself, Sofia. You've consistently been able to make me do things I wouldn't normally do."

She chuckled. "Oh yeah? Like what?"

"I just spared Ashley's life, didn't I?"

She fell silent at the mention of her friend. My gut clenched at the thought of what I was doing when Sofia suddenly walked in on me just another addition to the growing pile of issues I was contending with. This one, in particular, I wasn't yet willing to talk about.

Desperate to divert her attention, I brushed my thumb over her lightly freckled cheekbone. I loved seeing how her cheeks once again blushed red the moment I touched her. "I still can't believe that you came back."

"Vivienne made quite a compelling case..."

"Tell me what happened, Sofia... Between you and Viv..."

"Could we talk somewhere else? Please? I look around here and all I can think of is..." she paused.

...Ashley, my mind finished for her. I nodded. "Of course." I rose from the bed and she took my hand as we walked out of the room. "Where do you want to go?" I asked when we reached the living room.

"The Sun Room maybe?" she eyed me hopefully.

My heart broke as I told her the truth. "I had it destroyed and stripped to a blank room."