A Castle of Sand (A Shade of Vampire #3)(11)
Author: Bella Forrest

I almost choked at her statement. “Sam?”

She looked at me with panic-stricken eyes. “You’re not going to tell anyone, are you? Only Kyle and Eli know how I feel for Sam…not even the girls know…not even Sofia!”

I was having trouble wrapping my mind around the whole thing. I knew of her closeness to both Kyle and Sam, but I had no idea that she’d also developed a bond with the island’s resident scholar, Eli Lazaroff, who along with his brother Yuri, were part of the island’s Elite. I’d been sending Ashley to Eli for a while so she would divulge everything she knew about the hunters’ operations.

“What do you think you’re doing, Ashley? Are you on some sort of quest to divulge your deepest secret to every male vampire on this island?”

She hit me lightly on the shoulder and pouted in that strange way teenage girls have a habit of doing. “Shut up.”

“You’re one of the craziest people I’ve ever met,” I teased. “That’s saying a lot, considering how long I’ve been alive.”

“Come on…the four hundred years you spent snoring doesn’t count.” She scowled at me.

“I don’t snore.”

“M-hm…can you get Sofia to vouch for that?”

I paused before changing the subject. “Look, Ashley, if you want to be with Sam, why do you want Kyle to turn you?”

“Well, Kyle’s like a protective older brother to me. I’m not sure about the rules on the island, and you made it sound like whoever turns me becomes my family.”

“What?! I never said anything like that.”

“You told me that if you turned me, I was going to be Ashley Novak!”

Hard as I tried, I couldn’t hold back the laughter. The look in her eyes was too precious, the secret she’d just divulged too sacred. Her face deadpanned as she watched me try to hold back the snickers.

“I’m so screwed.”

“Seriously…I’m just surprised that you would entrust me with information on this schoolgirl crush of yours.” Sam was in his mid-twenties when he got turned. I honestly doubted that he saw Ashley as anything other than a sister.

Before Ashley could react to my statement, Paige and Rosa stepped in.

“Could we please go now?” Ashley stomped a foot. “His highness has once again proven to be the most irritating creature on earth.” She began to walk toward the doorway.

Paige and Rosa exchanged knowing glances, smiles forming on their faces. As they followed their friend out, brushing past me, I could hear both girls mutter, “What’s new?”

CHAPTER 9: SOFIA

The moment Derek stepped into the penthouse, I began tapping my foot on the hardwood floor, showing him my impatience. I crossed my arms over my chest, before demanding, “What’s going on, Derek? You’ve been acting really strangely lately.”

Since Ashley announced that she was going to be a vampire and the subject of my eighteenth birthday was broached, it was almost as if Derek had been avoiding me.

He was barely ever home. I was asleep by the time he arrived and he was gone when I woke up. He kept me busy with either the girls or the guards and when I began questioning him about it, he gave me a string of words that barely constituted a decipherable answer before sending me to Corrine.

I wondered if it had something to do with my birthday, if he was concocting some sort of elaborate surprise. For a few days, that appeased me. Still, as far as I was concerned, it didn’t excuse how aloof he was being toward me. At a certain point, I just about gave up trying to figure him out. I wasn’t much of a fan of surprises when I was the one being surprised—even more so when I was left out of the preparations for the surprise. I told him that, but it didn’t seem to make a difference to him.

Derek took a quick look at me, before diverting his eyes elsewhere. “I’m tired,” was all he said, his voice cold and calculated.

“This is your way of making it up to me?” I took a couple of quick steps forward in order to block him from walking off toward his bedroom. That was another thing that had changed since that day. He’d moved me out of his bedroom. It left me utterly confused, but I obliged. A succinct “it’s better this way” was the only explanation I received from him.

He tried to side-step me, but I blocked his way once more, staring him down. “I don’t care if you’re tired. You’re immortal. I’m tired of you avoiding me.”

“I’m not avoiding…”

“Yes. You are. You can’t just walk away from me. Not again.”

His shoulders sagged and he looked at me with longing. I couldn’t help but feel butterflies inside my stomach at the sight of those blue eyes on me. It seemed I could never really get used to the powerful effect his mere presence had on me.

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.”