A Gate of Night (A Shade of Vampire #6)(51)
Author: Bella Forrest

“Vampires don’t have fevers.” Claudia wrinkled her nose. I thought she had half a mind to break Landis’ neck.

His jaw tightened. “Exactly. It feels… strange.” He groaned as he tried to get up. “Ugh!” he exclaimed. “My head feels like it weighs a million tons.”

“Derek, you didn’t kill them. They’re all right.” I turned toward my brother, but he lay unconscious in my arms.

“They’re human,” Corrine explained.

I almost jumped out of my skin. I hadn’t even felt her approach behind me. “How is that possible?”

“Derek’s powers mixed with mine. It burned the Elders’ magic away from them—including the original curse that turned them into a vampire.”

“His powers? How on earth does he have powers?”

“We don’t have time to…” Corrine stopped her sentence short. Her eyes widened with shock. My eyes followed her gaze and found a woman with stunning silver hair standing right before us.

“What have you done, Corrine?” the woman asked. “Do you know what your intervention just cost us? Do you have any idea at all…” The woman’s voice broke.

Corrine stood to her full height before bowing her head slightly. “I am sorry. I know I have done our kind wrong, but my loyalty is to this clan as my ancestor’s was.”

“Cora’s loyalty was to the vampires!” The strange silver-haired woman attempted to keep her calm. “Do you honestly realize what you have just done? You have exposed Derek Novak to the Elders. You have made them weak and aware that they can be killed. The Elders are now out to kill him and the Guardians. Who knows what they will do once they know?”

“I had to help. They’re family.”

“I’m sorry this has to happen, Corrine. I should’ve done this to Cora when I had the chance.” The woman breathed in some air and began to mutter inaudibly.

I saw horror in Corrine’s eyes. “No. Please. Please…”

I was expecting something to happen. Wind. Fire. Anything to match or even exceed the display of power shown by my brother only moments ago. Nothing.

“I’ll send Ibrahim to watch over you. When he deems that you can be trusted, then you’ll have what I say you have the right to have. If you want to be a witch again, you have to earn it, Corrine.”

Corrine swallowed hard, tears running down her face as she steeled herself against what the strange woman was saying. Just like that, the woman disappeared, replaced by a handsome-looking man with a black goatee.

“I’m sorry it had to be this way, Corrine,” he said.

“What is going on?” I spat out. “Who was that, Corrine? What did she do to you? And who is this?”

“That was the Ageless, leader of the witches. This is Ibrahim.” Corrine trembled as she revealed to me the price she’d had to pay in order to help us. “The Ageless just took away my powers.”

“And she’s going to have to spend her whole life atoning for her choice. I hope it was worth it, Corrine.”

Corrine stared at Derek’s unconscious form. She grinned. My heart leapt when she said with conviction, “Trust me, Ibrahim, if this helps save Sofia, if it helps save the Novaks, then yes… it was worth it.”

Chapter 36: Aiden

When I woke up to find Derek Novak lying on the cot across from mine, barely breathing, I almost lost it. I wasn’t a stranger to loss and grief, having been surrounded by violence and warfare all my life, but something about seeing my son-in-law, proud and powerful, looking as weak as he did just rubbed me the wrong way.

I sat up over the edge of my bed and scoped the room. No one was there aside from us. What happened?

We were no longer at The Shade. That was for certain. We were in a closed, windowless room. I had a feeling we were on some sort of vehicle. The submarines. We’re moving.

The door swung open and Vivienne appeared. She seemed surprised to see me awake.

“What happened?” I asked. “Are we in one of the subs?”

She nodded slowly, eyeing her brother with concern. She motioned for me to follow her. I obliged, overcome by curiosity, not only at what had occurred during my sleep but also at what their submarines looked like. The last time I’d been in one, I was unconscious.

Vivienne led me to a small living area where Claudia sat on one of the lounge chairs, her eyes fixed on vacant space. Zinnia and Craig were also there, along with Gavin. All had loss written all over their faces.

Vivienne sat on a wooden chair and motioned for me to take the seat across from hers. She began to recount what had just happened, from the Elders’ attack at The Shade up to Derek’s arrival and eventually what had happened to Corrine, and how we now had another witch amongst us—one we weren’t certain we could trust.

I found it difficult to swallow everything that she was telling me. “So where is this Ibrahim person now?”

“He’s with Corrine.” Vivienne’s eyes were unfocussed, her brain likely recalling the eventful afternoon. “You should’ve been there. Derek… these powers he has… I think he’s even more powerful now than he ever was as a vampire.”

“That’s good, is it not? That means we have a better chance of rescuing my daughter.”

“I’m not sure, Aiden. All of these… I don’t understand. I just have a bad feeling about all this. Especially Sofia. We’ve just discovered that Derek can kill Elders. That makes him the largest threat to their kind. Do you really think they’re not going to use Sofia against him?”

A sick feeling settled at the pit of my stomach. Derek Novak had just became the hunters’ most valuable weapon. I wondered whether Arron even knew about this. Where is he anyway? I was sickened to think that I had given so much of my life serving the cause of this coward, someone I used to fear and respect. All the years I lost running after the hunters’ cause… years I could’ve spent with my daughter.

“We need to save my daughter and her child, Vivienne. We just have to.”

Vivienne’s face twitched. I could tell there was something she wasn’t telling me.

“What is it?”

“That’s the thing. Right now, we’re headed toward hunters’ headquarters. Derek doesn’t know. Soon after what he did at the Catacombs, he lost consciousness. With him out, we thought of bringing him to Sofia’s quarters at the caves, but the Elders returned. We were barely able to escape. They have The Shade now and everyone we left behind.”