Chapter 29 Lone hunt

Joana continued the rest of her training with Dana and Edmund, while she continued studying during the day. For the past weeks, she had to get used to life in the castle without Derick, the one that had showed her the way to this new life of hers. At first, she found it hard, but in the later days, she found she was able to cope.

Derick, much to her surprise had asked Edmund to help her with the rest of her training. So, most of her time in the castle was now spent with Edmund and Hillary, as they would go hunting together in the evening, and then begin training into the night.

As for Derick, she wasn’t seeing much of him anymore, she didn’t like the fact that they couldn’t even greet each other when they saw, but it was what he asked for and she had to respect that.

On the day she completed her final round of training, Edmund declared her a powerful vampire after she fought down a pack of wolves they practiced with in a forest nearby. She was now able to defend herself unassisted.

Now that her training was over, she could now devote more of her time to studying and finally, she could get some sleep. She moved her studying to the night time so she could sleep during the day. Things were going fine and she hoped that very soon, she would be able to visit the evergreen river.

On one of such nights, she woke up late, she went over to Edmund and Hillary’s room to see if they were still around, they had already gone out to hunt without her, probably didn’t want to wake her up, she thought.

What was she going to do now? She had never gone out hunting on her own, in fact, she had never gone out of this castle alone since the time Derick saved her from those wolves. She knew she could defend herself and all now but probably thought it would be better not to experiment with that tonight. She then went over to Dana’s room to see if she was still around so they could go together. She wasn’t there either.

She was down to her last option; Derick, but she didn’t want to consider him an option at all. He asked that they should stay away from each other, and she had to keep to it no matter what. She didn’t want to put him in any uncomfortable situation, especially tonight that they were both alone in the whole castle.

She went back to her room and put on her cloak, went outside and flew out to the forest near the side of the mountain.

She landed and hid after spotting her prey, she waited for the right time before attacking, she then killed the animal with her fangs and after she drank to her satisfaction, she disposed off the remaining and was about to head back home before she heard something moving in one of the bushes surrounding her.

She got scared and thought it was a wild animal, there were too many trees where she was, and now she couldn’t fly here, she would have to walk for a while before she found an open space to take off.

She looked around and tried to see where the sound was coming from, so she could walk away from it. She heard it coming closer and before she could take off on her feet, Derick came out from the bushes, much to her surprise.

“What are you doing here?” She asked him.

“I should be asking you the same thing. What are you doing out here alone in the woods?”

“I came here to feed.”

“Did Edmund and Hillary not follow you?”

“No, I woke up late and they had already gone, even Dana had left. I had to come on my own since none of them were around.”

“Did you check to see if I was in the castle?”

“No.”

“Look, I know you needed to eat and all, but you shouldn’t have come out here on your own. You should have at least come to check if I was around.”

“After what you said about staying away from each other? Yeah, I don’t think so. And why did you come out here anyway?”

“It doesn’t matter why I came here; the fact still remains that you shouldn’t be out here on your own.”

“Look, I don’t know who you think you are Derick, telling me what to do and all. You were the one who said we should stay away from each other, and I kept to that because I didn’t want to hurt you anymore, and now you complain about me not coming to meet you when everyone had disappeared, where were you five weeks ago when I needed you? Do you know how hard it was to adjust without you?”

She stopped talking, realizing what she had just said and hoping that he hadn’t heard the last two questions she asked, of course it was just wishful thinking.

Derick didn’t answer, there was a long moment of silence as the two of them kept staring at each other. Derick decided to break the silence.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know it would be that hard for you, it was hard for me too.”

The silence continued as none of them knew what to say next to the other. Joana walked closer to him, and decided to say something too.

“I really don’t like it when we fight, and I would like us to start communicating again, if you don’t mind.”

“Yeah, I would like that too,” Derick said with a smile that made Joana melt.

“But what about our feelings for each other?” Derick asked her.

She knew very well what he was talking about, she knew how fast his heart was beating just by her standing so close to him, she saw the look of need in his eyes, she needed him too, and for just once, she decided to break the rules.