Free A Shade Of Vampire 5: A Blaze Of Sun by Bella Forrest Page A

couldn’t keep myself from asking either.
    “Don’t you?” was his response. “You said so yourself so many times… we belong together.”
    At that, I couldn’t help but give in. It was hard not to with him being so loving and tender and sweet. Why resist it? Why not now? Still, I couldn’t deny to myself that I felt a cold sense of foreboding regarding the whole thing.
    I tried to shake it off a s we spent more time together that night, but I just couldn’t. When we ended up in his couch and he began to tug at my shirt to expose my neck, my heart sank when I realized what he was doing. He didn’t ask for my permission or consent. He just bit into my neck and began feeding on my blood.
    As I sat there, feeling his body pressed against mine, his teeth sinking into my skin, I couldn’t help but wonder: If he never becomes mortal, is this how it’s going to be? Is this going to be what life is like?
    For the first time in a long time, I saw him as a predator and I, his willing prey.

Chapter 12: Ian
     
    Screams were a common thing within The Catacombs. They were as familiar to the Naturals as an ambulance’s siren would be to people outside of The Shade – or so the books say. While someone screaming with terror was a cause for alarm, a Natural never quite runs to the rescue unless they fear that the person screaming was one of their loved ones.
    So , for a guy like me, who was orphaned at fourteen and didn’t have any loved ones to worry about, screams never really became a source of alarm.
    One particular night, I realized that things were different, because when I heard a piercing scream, I immediately found myself sitting up on my mat, blood pounding and heart racing. One name began echoing in my head. Anna.
    Ever since Sofia led the rebellion against Derek’s father, Gregor, and his idea of another culling in The Shade, things had been very different around The Catacombs. I was already leading a group of rebels – mostly teenagers like me – against the idea of a culling ever being done again. Once was enough and the horror it brought all of us was still fresh in our hearts and minds. During a culling, all the humans of The Catacombs deemed to be weak or in any way useless, were killed. Their blood was harvested and preserved for future consumption by the vampires.
    Sofia, who m I wasn’t much of a fan of in the beginning, was instrumental in getting Derek Novak, then prince of The Shade, to stand with the humans against the culling. Of course, where Derek stood, a whole bunch of the vampire elite followed.
    Since then, the huma ns had gotten more of a voice in The Shade, and thanks to Sofia, mine was one of them. For the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to hope once again that things could turn around on the island. More than all of that, I hoped once again that perhaps I could have the old, vibrant, carefree and joyful Anna back. This hope was sparked further when one night when Anna found her way to my quarters. She was carrying a rose with her. She knelt on the ground and shook me awake. At first, I was annoyed, but when I saw that it was her, I once again found myself catching a breath over her beauty.
    “Anna? What is it?”
    She laid the white rose in front of me and smiled. “You don’t have to cry anymore, Ian. Everything’s going to be alright. I promise.” Her tone was childlike, her eyes wide with excitement.
    I wondered where she got the rose, but I thought better not to ask. I was too busy choking back the tears as I remembered her being the adored beauty of The Catacombs, back before Felix broke her.
    “Thank you, Anna.”
    She lay on the stone ground beside me, rolling to her side to face me. “Can I sleep here, Ian? I don’t think Felix will mind as long as we don’t touch. I’m afraid to sleep alone tonight.”
    I nodded, careful not to touch her, knowing how erratic her moods were. I liked this docile version of her. “You can sleep here, Anna, but not on the