Page 33 of Sophie’s Ruin (Crimson and Shadows #2)

SOPHIE

Iwill hunt every last one of them like the savage animals that they are, I thought with a snarl as I walked through the Black Forest without a destination in mind. At least, it had stopped raining.

“Sophie?” came a male voice from behind me.

I spun around and faced the woods just as Damien stepped out of them.

He was garbed in a black cloak, the darkness of his clothing highlighting his white hair and pale skin.

With eyes fathomless and black, he looked much like a vampire, and I saw red for a second before I breathed through the blinding rage, telling myself to calm down.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked when he approached.

“I heard a whisper in the wind. Did you summon me?”

I thought about it for a moment. “I did want to see you.”

“Then you must have projected it into the world around you.” His bottomless gaze flicked over me. “Something’s different about you,” he observed.

I lifted my chin. “I saved my lover.”

“Alone?” His brows shot up.

I shrugged. “I had my magic.” And the darkness. “So, no. I wasn’t truly alone.”

Damien appraised me from head to toe. The look he gave me was one of impressed appreciation. He suddenly struck me as someone who was drawn to power and wanted to be in the orbit of the one wielding it.

“Tell me what happened,” he asked in a hushed tone.

I told him everything in every gory detail. He didn’t recoil from any of it. If anything, he seemed to be feeding off the pain and suffering I described. The look on his face was one of depraved pleasure as I talked about killing Camilla, Moreau, and Beatrice.

“The other three clan leaders…they escaped,” I finished the story as rage surged again. I couldn’t believe I’d let them get away.

“I see,” Damien said low, his eyes dimming as if he were disappointed the bloody retelling had come to an end. “What do you want to do now?” he asked, and seemed to have stopped breathing, waiting for my answer.

“I want to find them and make them pay,” I told him vehemently. “I need your help hunting them down.”

Damien’s face lit up at my words as his mouth curved into a sinister smile.

Malevolent energy emanated from him, and I knew it should raise the tiny hairs on my body, but I was unaffected.

I’d been growing closer to the darkness, getting more comfortable with it.

Dark things didn’t affect me anymore like they’d used to.

I knew Damien’s reaction should bother me, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.

I only cared about revenge, and Damien could help me get it.

“So, what do you say?” I asked him.

“Well, Sophie…to accomplish what you want, you need powerful magic, and powerful magic rarely comes without a price—”

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” I interjected. I would not stop now. And I wouldn’t be stopped, either.

“Whatever it takes…” Damien murmured, his gaze dropping to the Tear on my chest. “You know a thing or two about sacrifices, don’t you.” A statement, not a question.

“I do,” I said, as a cold feeling of foreboding flared in my chest. I ignored it. “So, what sacrifice will I have to make this time?”

“We’ll get to that,” Damian said, with another chilling smile.

I couldn’t help but feel like I was exactly where he wanted me to be. He was looking at me like a spider who’d trapped a fly in its web. What his agenda was, I had no idea, but as long as I was getting what I wanted, I didn’t care.

“First, you need to use your magic to track the other clan leaders. Whom do you want to hunt down first?” Damien asked.

It really didn’t matter; they would all die in the end.

“Emeric.” I blurted out the first name that came to mind.

“Very well,” Damien drawled darkly. “Close your eyes and concentrate. Now that you know how to glimmer…very impressive, by the way. This is very similar. Picture the vampire you want to find and cast your magic out, but instead of focusing on one place, cast it wide like a net. Imagine its tendrils reaching far and wide, looking for the one you want to find.”

With a nod, I closed my eyes and called upon my magic.

It flared to life, slithering through my veins.

The rush I felt was both powerful and overwhelming in the most beautiful way.

Concentrating, I pulled on the dark, pulsing strings of my power, gathering them in my center.

I imagined holding the shadowy threads in my hands like a net a moment before I cast them out.

Like trails of dark blood, they began spreading outward…

on the hunt for my next victim. As the black rivers of my magic poured out into my surroundings, I felt the darkness inside me sink in deeper.

It burrowed into my flesh and settled in my heart, but I wasn’t concerned.

I knew it was a give-and-take. The darkness gave me power, and I had to give something in return.

Perhaps that was the sacrifice Damien had mentioned.

Even if it was, I was prepared to pay the price if it meant keeping Henry safe.

My eyes moved under my eyelids as the tendrils of my magic searched, pushing and prodding, sniffing and tasting, looking for Emeric. Suddenly, I gasped, and my eyes flew open—they’d found him. I knew where he was.

“He’s hiding out in the Maivayan Mountains,” I declared.

“Excellent.” Damien’s glossy black eyes shone brighter. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” I said, as my pulse quickened in anticipation.

My mouth watered as if I could taste the blood I was going to spill. I closed my eyes and felt my skin tingle and hum as the shadows of my magic began churning around me, about to take me to my destination. Before they could, though, Celeste’s voice reached me from my right.

“Sophie?” she said urgently, and my eyes snapped open. The space in front of me was empty; Damien was no longer standing there.

“To whom were you speaking?” Celeste asked.

I turned to the witch and found her watching me, her luminous blue eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Damien,” I told her. I didn’t see a reason to lie anymore. “Agatha’s son. He’s been helping me with my magic. Doing what you’ve failed to do—helping me grow stronger.”

Celeste’s warm complexion became leached of all color in the light of the moon.

“Agatha doesn’t have a son,” she said. “And there is no one by that name in the village.”

A strange feeling washed over me at her words.

I knew what she’d said was the truth. Deep down, I’d known it all along.

Terror didn’t seize me like it should. Instead, I felt numb.

What Celeste had revealed would not change what I was going to do next.

I wouldn’t let it. I would have my revenge, consequences be damned.

“How long have you been communicating with this…being?” Celeste asked in a hollow voice.

“A few days. He was willing to help me when you weren’t.”

“Help you? Sophie, whatever he said…whatever he promised you—”

“He didn’t promise me anything. He simply told me how to tap into my magic, using my emotions.”

“Emotions? We don’t use our emotions because doing so makes magic unpredictable.”

“Even if it does, it’s better than no magic at all.”

“You’re wrong…what emotions did he tell you to channel to bring your magic forth?”

Her bright blue eyes narrowed to thin slits, but the question was not truly a question—she already knew the answer.

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is, it worked. I was able to save Henry.”

“But at what cost?”

“Do you still not understand? The price doesn’t matter. I would do anything for him.”

“You are blinded by your love for him.”

“No, I see more clearly now. My ancestors suffered so much and for what? I rid the world of the Dark Witches, but the humans are still not free. I will free them when I destroy the clans.”

“Don’t masquerade your thirst for revenge as a noble cause.”

“Why can’t it be both?”

“Because only one will set you free. The other one will make you a prisoner to the darkness.”

“What do you know about the darkness, witch?” I challenged.

“Enough to know it’s tempting you. Don’t give in to it, Sophie. Because if you do, there will be no going back.”

“See, that’s the problem with you, Celeste. You always tell me what I shouldn’t do. Always imposing limits.”

“Limits are what keep this world in balance.”

“Limits almost cost Henry his life! I almost lost him!” I shouted.

“But you didn’t. Though now, you are at risk of losing your soul.” Celeste said. Her voice was still measured in spite of my outburst.

“I’m a vampire. Who knows if I still have my soul,” I pointed out.

“Don’t be so eager to condemn yourself.”

“You’re the one condemning me.”

“No, I’m the one trying to save you from yourself.”

“I don’t need saving!” I threw the words in her face as I summoned my shadows.

“Sophie, wait!” Celeste lunged for me. She grabbed my tunic, but I shook her off and glimmered out, leaving her behind in the woods.

When I appeared on the tallest peak in the Maivayan Mountains, my skin instantly prickled with awareness.

The sunrise was approaching; I could feel it.

My breath caught as I took in the view below me, my gaze gliding over the tapestry of valleys and peaks bathed in the glow of the moon.

The light from the stars sluiced over the steep slopes and sharp, jagged ridges.

I lifted my eyes to the night sky. It stretched indefinitely, making me feel infinite as I stood on the peak, barely feeling the harsh wind whipping around me.

My gaze trained on the horizon, I thought about Henry.

I wondered how he would feel if he could watch the dawn from this height.

It had to be devastatingly beautiful from this vantage point as the sun crested the horizon, open and unobscured.

I wished that Henry could experience it.

What I wouldn’t give to see his face bathed in the first rays of a new day.

But while my new powers made me feel limitless, some things were still out of my reach.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” I heard Damien say to my left.

“You lied to me.” I glanced at him.

“About some things, yes. I didn’t lie about your power. You feel it, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“And now you know who I am.”

“I do.”

“Does it scare you?”

I thought it over for a moment.

“No. I’m learning that nothing really scares me anymore,” I said, rolling the shadowy tendrils of my magic over my knuckles.

“Ah, but that’s not entirely true, is it? You’re scared of losing Henry.” Potent fear pierced my heart at his words.

“I won’t lose him.” My brows pinched. “No one will ever get close to him to make that even a possibility.”

“And what are you prepared to do to ensure that?”

“Anything.” There was no hesitation, only resolve.

Celeste thought my love for Henry blinded me, but she was wrong.

I’d never been so sure about my purpose before.

Even when I’d thought that saving humanity was the most important mission of my life, I’d been wrong.

Fighting for Henry and our future together was the only thing that truly mattered.

“Excellent.” The word left Damien in a strange mix between a hiss and a whisper. “Let’s get started. You know where he is?”

I nodded. “He’s hiding in a cave on the right side of the mountain.”

“He’s not alone,” Damien said, and my brows shot up. That was news to me.

“He brought his clan with him?”

Damien nodded. “All five of them.”

Emeric’s wife and daughters. I’d met them all before.

A part of me wished he hadn’t brought them here, because by doing so, he’d sentenced them to death, but another part—the blood-thirsty one—rejoiced that he had.

There was duality inside of me—a human heart against a vampire’s viciousness.

The battle of warring emotions ensued but didn’t last long as the vampire side prevailed, squelching the human one.

Damien watched me closely, as if waiting to see if what he’d told me about Emeric’s family being here would change my mind.

I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. “What are we waiting for?”