A Blaze of Sun (A Shade of Vampire #5)(27)
Author: Bella Forrest

He stared at me for what felt like hours, studying me, maybe trying to figure out what I was saying, what my game was. “Okay, Camilla…” He nodded. “I’ll play whatever game this is. You really want me to trust you? Oh wait…” he mocked me “…not want… you need me to trust you. Is that right?”

I didn’t respond. Instead, I just lifted my eyes in order to meet his cold, mocking glare. I would’ve given anything at that moment to once again have him look at me the way he did before I became a vampire.

Aiden began to nod slowly. “Fine. I will trust you on one condition, Camilla.”

“What is it?” I didn’t think he could ask something of me that I couldn’t give. I was desperate enough to add confidently, “I will do anything.”

“Bare yourself completely to me. Tell me about your past. Tell me why you’re so broken. Tell me what you never had the guts to tell me before. Let me in, Camilla. I want to know everything.”

I stared at him in horror. He asked of me the one thing I could never give. He was asking me to live out my greatest fear of being discovered for what I really was. He was asking me to relive the horrors of my childhood and revisit my brokenness. I shook my head. “I can’t do that, Aiden. You’re practically asking for my soul.”

“That’s the price of trust, Cam. Openness. Vulnerability. The ability to risk getting hurt. And don’t think for one second that you can lie to me. I know you well enough to know if you’re just giving me some crap story that you made up. Tell me the truth about who you are. The whole truth. Can you do that?”

“What if I can’t?”

“Then I can’t trust you, can I?”

“Aiden, please…”

“I’ve given my condition, Camilla.”

I shook my head and buried my face in my palms. It felt like defeat. I never felt weaker than I did at that moment.

When I didn’t respond for what felt like an eternity, Aiden nodded and motioned to leave. “Let me know when you’re ready to give in to my condition, Cam.”

Cam… He hasn’t called me that in years… Not since… I held my breath when he turned his back on me. He was about to call for Yuri when I did the most courageous thing I’d done in years. “Wait…”

Slowly, Aiden turned to face me. His brow rose at me in question.

I nodded, letting him know that I was agreeing to his condition. It was perhaps the most painful night I ever had in years and it took hours. It took many tears. I told him everything. He held me. He gave me the comfort that I was deprived of through all those years of abuse at my foster parents’ hands.

I knew that what I was telling him made Claudia’s experience seem like child’s play. My foster parents were violent, merciless people and growing up with them was a living nightmare. They helped me through high school and even got me a scholarship for college, but nothing came for free around them. Everything had a price and I was often the payment they required. Not money, definitely not gratefulness – me, all of me – my body, my dignity, my very soul.

No man had ever stood up for me before. I knew what it was like to feel helpless and abandoned. Even when I got away from their grasp, I was still haunted by what they put me through. Then came Aiden.

Aiden was the man of my life. I never felt like I deserved him. Surely someone as perfect as him didn’t deserve someone as broken as me, but he came into my life and he made me feel like I could be whole again. Still, around him, I was pretending. I knew that I was a broken creature, and my full awareness of that reality couldn’t allow even his love to fix me.

I told Aiden what it was like to be married to him, what I felt like around him – how unworthy I was.

That night, Aiden listened. He barely even said any words of comfort. He just held me and let me cry into his shoulder as I told him horror story after horror story of all the terrible things I went through as a child and how it made me the woman I was.

When I finally finished telling him my story, he kissed me on the forehead and told me that he still loved Camilla and that he always will.

“Your past can never change that,” he assured me.

I gained his trust that night and in doing so, I had to pay the ultimate price. I had to bare my soul to him and let him see all its emptiness – an emptiness that his love and acceptance was able to fill. I knew what that meant. I knew that should I become vulnerable to Aiden – completely vulnerable to him – it would make what I had to do even harder than it already was.

He made love to me – gentle and tender as always – but not lacking in passion. When I woke up next to him, I realized that I was now faced with a new dilemma. Secured by the love Aiden still had for me, I searched myself for any hatred I still harbored toward my daughter and found not a single trace of it left. I no longer wanted to kill Sofia, but I was still forced to.

Chapter 19: Vivienne

I sensed her presence the moment she was brought within the vicinity of the island. Emilia. My heart began to race and my pulse doubled its pace. I dropped my shearing scissors and bolted out of my greenhouse.

“She can’t be back,” I began to mumble. “She can’t be here in The Shade.” Following my instincts, I sped towards The Sanctuary and sure enough, I found Xavier gently laying an unconscious Emilia on the bed inside one of the chambers.

Derek and Sofia stood nearby. Ashley was standing by the bed, holding a packet of blood, which I was certain was meant to heal Emilia. Corrine, on the other hand, was seated on an ottoman by the wall, staring suspiciously at Emilia.

“What’s going on?” I demanded. All eyes turned toward me as I stepped forward. “What is she doing back at the island? At the The Sanctuary of all places?”

“She needs care, Vivienne…” Sofia explained.

“Then she should get it from her own people, not from us. I don’t trust her.”

“Neither do we, Vivienne,” Derek spoke up, “but what are we going to do with her? She washed up on the shore and she’s beaten to a bloody pulp. We can’t just leave her out to die…”

That’s exactly what we should do. I knew that I was being ruthless, perhaps even dark and cold, but every fiber of my being wanted Emilia off the island. I turned my eyes toward the witch for help, but Corrine just gave me a shrug in response. I stared at Emilia’s motionless form. I shook my head. “This doesn’t feel right. It’s too much of a coincidence…”