A Shade of Blood (A Shade of Vampire #2)(14)
Author: Bella Forrest

We were quite a sorry bunch, huddled within the caves that would eventually become the Black Heights, home to The Shade’s prisoners and slaves.

It’d been two years since I found myself shipwrecked on that island, thinking that I’d lost all of my loved ones to yet another cruel and bloody hunter attack. The only companion I had during my first year marooned on the island was an olive-skinned, brown-eyed, black-haired beauty. Her name was Cora and she was the only reason I was able to keep sane and alive after I thought I lost everything worth fighting for. I had no idea then exactly who and what she was, or how valuable she would eventually be to our cause.

Two years after the shipwreck, sitting in that cave, I realized that we still had a lot to fight for. I was seated on the ground, leaning against the cave wall, with Cora sitting right next to me.

My father, Gregor, sat opposite us. A huge scowl on his face showed how hungry he was. His appetite was further confirmed by the ravenous stare he was sending Cora’s way.

Cora was the only human among a cave full of hungry vampires. None of that fazed her. At my father’s predatory glare, she just smirked in response. I admired how it was practically impossible to intimidate her.

Liana Hendry was sitting near the cave entrance. She pulled her knees to her chest, shivering due to the cold. She stared blankly toward the cave opening, worry that Cameron hadn’t yet arrived evident in her eyes. He left the cave with Lucas and Xavier to scout the hunters’ location hours ago.

Beside Liana, sat Vivienne, looking unnervingly serene, her head rested on Liana’s shoulder. In the depths of her blue-violet eyes were mysteries we could only wonder about, because I couldn’t even remember the last time I heard my twin speak.

Two or three feet away from the women, Eli was drawing some sort of map on the ground with a stick. So wrapped up was he in whatever scheme he was concocting that he barely noticed how peeved his younger brother, Yuri, looked when Claudia began chatting him up and making suggestive gestures toward him. Yuri eventually snapped at her and from the look on Claudia’s face, it seemed he said something rather cutting, because it was the first time I could remember seeing such a murderous glare on her pretty face. It was only the first among many that I would see.

They comprised only some of the twenty vampire clans hidden with me in the mountain caves. Most were terrified by what the break of dawn would usher in. We were losing hope. Most of them barely made it to the island, with the hunters in relentless pursuit of them. We managed to create a diversion to give us time to hide away in the caves, but the sun was about to rise and it seemed the hunters weren’t about to give up their chase until every single one of us was destroyed.

In cases like these, it seemed the sun was our greatest adversary. How were we to fight back and defend ourselves, when we had to keep ourselves hidden deep in the darkness of the caves just so the sun wouldn’t destroy us first?

The wind howled outside the cave, but then came the distinct sound of footsteps approaching. I rose to my feet, my hand gripping the hilt of my sword. I let a short breath out when Cameron, Lucas and Xavier appeared from the clearing. The grave expressions on their faces told me that I had no reason to be relieved.

“They’re approaching as we speak,” Cameron announced.

I gulped, knowing that escape was impossible. “How many?”

They exchanged worried glances.

“Four or five hundred…” Xavier estimated. “Maybe six.”

“How many of us are there?” I directed my question to Eli.

He didn’t even look up to face me. “Seventy-six. Seventy-seven, if you include her.” He was referring to Cora.

I stood to my full height, mustering all the courage I had to go through with what I had in mind. “How many of us can fight?”

“You can’t seriously be considering this!” Lucas stepped forward. “They outnumber us at least five to one. We have no choice but to run.”

“Run? Run where?” I shot back at him. “Lest you forget, this is an island we’re on. If we want to reach the ship that got you here, we’d have to walk right into the hunters.”

“Most of us aren’t trained to fight,” Lucas continued to object.

“They might simply burn us,” Yuri spoke up.

“That’s exactly what they’ll do if we just sit here and wait for them.”

“What are you saying, boy?” Cameron asked.

“I don’t know about you, but I can no longer run. I say we fight for this island. We make a refuge out of it.”

The other vampires were beginning to huddle around us, listening in, curious about what was going to unfold.

“How do you propose we do that, brother?” Lucas practically spat out the words.

“We’ll make an example of these hunters. We’ll send out a clear message. Any human who enters this island can never leave again.” The moment I said the words, I immediately took notice of the shock in Cora’s eyes. I tried not to worry about her. A decision had to be made and I was clearly the only one who would make it. There was no going back for me. “We need to fight back.”

“And if we don’t succeed?” This time, it was my father speaking as he rose to his feet. “What if the sun rises as we fight? It will be the end of all of us.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather die fighting than running.”

And so it happened that at the darkest time of the night, we took the offensive and ran straight to the hunters. Their surprise proved to work to our advantage, but they knew that there was no way for us to finish the battle before the sun would eventually rise and defeat us on their behalf. However, as we fought for our lives against some of the best and most fearsome hunters their order sent our way, we realized that our fear of sunlight proved to be unfounded. We fought for hours – for as long as it took to destroy every hunter who dared invade us, but dawn never came.

After the Battle of First Blood, the island became permanently enveloped by darkness. The moon became our sun. It would be years later before we found out why, about the hand Cora played in it all. Even after I found out that she was behind it, I couldn’t fully understand why she chose to spare our lives even though it meant losing the lives of hundreds of hunters.

The others lauded the strange occurrence as a miracle. They believed that the island was truly meant to be our sanctuary, and celebrated me for discovering it and leading them to fight for it.