We remained silent for a few more moments, just staring. I couldn’t comprehend what was going through his mind, but this was the longest time I’d been able to spend with him for the past couple of days and truth be told, despite the silence, I was satisfied just to be there with him.

Suddenly Derek squared his shoulders and stood to his full height. He grabbed me by the wrist and nodded. “Fine. Come with me.”

“Where are we going?” I asked as he began pulling me outside.

“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.

My gut clenched when I saw the bite marks on her neck. I grabbed Derek by the arm for support. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the girl even as I bowed my head in reverence toward the king of The Shade.

“Father.” Derek’s entire demeanor tensed.

Gregor’s eyes were on me. Cold. Cruel. Condescending. When he touched me, brushing his fingers over my cheek, I couldn’t help but flinch.

“Jumpy, isn’t she?” He chuckled.

Derek glared at his father, his sovereign. “Don’t touch her.”

“What is it with you and this consuming urge to protect this little firebrand?” Gregor kept his steely eyes on me, amusement and mockery dripping from his every word. “What’s so special about her? What makes her so different from all the other women you’ve brought to your bed?”

My eyes shot toward Derek. I knew that I wasn’t the first woman he’d had in his bed, but to hear someone call him out on it felt different. I could practically sense how torn apart Derek was at being reminded of his past. He just hung his head, staring into space as Gregor drawled on, this time addressing me.

“Do you have any idea how many lovely ladies have graced the presence of your prince here? Do you know the kind of women whose pleasures he’s willingly partaken of? Do you really believe an immortal could stay faithful to a mortal like you?”

I hated the way he was talking. I knew it was meant to cause doubt in me, but more than that, it was meant to inflict pain on Derek. I gave Gregor the sweetest smile I could manage before turning my eyes toward the man I loved. I hated how dejected he seemed when all his past weaknesses were slapped right into his face. I brushed a hand over his cheek and tilted his chin so that he would look at me and see me smiling.

“I don’t have a single doubt in my mind that he can and he will be faithful to me,” I spoke the words with conviction emanating from every fiber of my being. I knew then that the words were true and from the spark in Derek’s blue eyes, I could tell that he too knew that I meant every word.

Gregor laughed wryly. “Sure. You must be really good in bed if you think you can keep him interested for…”

“Enough,” Derek spoke up. “You don’t talk about Sofia that way. Ever.”

“What? You deny that she isn’t the first whore you’ve taken to bed? That she’s just one among many who…”

“I said enough.” Derek’s glare was so menacing, even I stepped back. “She’s not one among many, father. She’s the only one, the only woman I have ever been in love with.”

“In love?!” Gregor exclaimed. “Do you even know what that means, son? Is that what you think you feel whenever you have this nubile body of hers writhing beneath yours?”

“It’s got nothing to do with sex.” Derek looked around at the crowd now beginning to form around us—made curious by the argument going on between king and prince—and raised his voice, “In fact, I vow that I will no longer take her to my bed and make love to her until she’s become my wife…until the world knows that Sofia Claremont alone owns my heart.”

My eyes widened with surprise. His eyes met mine and if he didn’t know it already then he was a fool, but I was his. I was forever his.

Still, he wasn’t done astounding me. He looked deep into my eyes and I found my mind reeling at the next words he spoke, “I’m going to marry you someday, Sofia Claremont. I don’t know how it will happen, but it will happen. We belong together and you know it.”

I tried to say something, but I had no idea what to say, so my jaw just hung loosely as I gaped up at him.

“Until that day, Sofia, I can’t treat you the same way I treated all the other women who came before you. You’re too precious for that, but be sure of one thing…I will pursue you. Relentlessly. I will pursue you until death pulls us apart. I will find a way, Sofia. I’ll find a way to make what we have last forever.”

I shuddered at what he was trying to tell me. He knew that I could never become a vampire, an immortal like he was, so how he thought that the words he was speaking could possibly become true was beyond me. Still, the determination in his eyes told me that he meant everything he had said.

Moved, I caressed the side of his face with my hand, enjoying the feel of his skin beneath mine. “No matter what happens, Derek,” I tried to assure him. “Remember that my heart belongs to you, and it could never belong to any other.”

A smile formed on his lips. “That’s all I need to hear.”

Given that statement, every single person present that night was made aware that Derek’s pursuit of me had just begun.

CHAPTER 10: LUCAS

I didn’t know what to expect after the Maslens—our clan’s archenemy—offered me sanctuary. It felt like such a gamble, but having been informed that my father would rather send me back to The Shade and face death at Derek’s hands instead of taking me under his wing, I really had no other choice. The Oasis, home of the Maslen clan, became my sanctuary.