A Gate of Night
By Bella Forrest
A Shade of Vampire #6

The cure to vampirism has been found and everyone thinks that the prophesy about Derek Novak and his one true love, Sofia, leading his people to Sanctuary has been fulfilled. After 500 years of being a vampire, Derek is now a human. He and Sofia were married and are now on their honeymoon on a beach in Tahiti.

But things are not resolved and the people of their kingdom on the island called the Shade are in trouble. Things were precarious before Derek and Sofia ran off to their honeymoon but Derek thought his sister, Vivienne and his father-in-law, Adrian could handle the island for a month while he was gone but he was wrong.

When they left, the hunters were on the island under the command of someone named Arron who wanted to take Anna, Kyle, Sofia and Derek to Hawk Headquarters to study them. Derek talked Arron into giving Sofia and him a month first but Arron did take Anna and Kyle to his headquarters. Hunters are what they sound like. They are vampire hunters but since a cure has been found, the hunters are willing to work with the vampires for now. Anna and Sofia are immunes which are humans who are immune to being turned into vampires. They are the key to the cure of vampirism.

There are other immunes in the world but the Elder or Original vampire has been gathering them up and keeping them in his castle called the Blood Keep but nobody knows where the Blood Keep is located. I think there is more to why he is keeping immunes but the author has not let that secret out of the bag yet.

After Derek and Sofia go on their vacation, Vivienne and Aiden have a meeting with other leaders of the Shade. She thinks they should rebuild the Shade for when Derek returns since the Elder’s vampires destroyed most of it. In my mind, I was thinking that these vampires and humans need to do things for themselves and quit depending on Derek and what he thinks. I mean, yes, he helped them build the Shade with the help of the original witch by basically enslaving humans and working them to death. Until this book, the author wrote that Derek did so many horrible things like enslaving and killing humans that he didn’t want to go on living anymore so the witch put him into a 400-year slumber. Now, the author says most of the humans were enslaved hunters. I think she may be trying to make the vampires look better if the humans were hunters instead of regular human beings but nobody deserves to be treated the way those humans were treated. It’s just strange that the clarifier has just been thrown in. Anyway, my original point was that the inhabitants of the Shade have kind of let Derek get away with a lot. He may have been a leader for 100 years but then he took a 400-year nap while his father and Vivienne led the people. Then he left to go on a month long honeymoon in the middle of a crisis. It just seems like maybe his loyal subjects should be looking out for their own selves now. I was glad when someone else voiced that same concern.

The Elder is now furious at Derek and Sofia for finding the cure but he also has plans for them. He sends Kiev, one of his children who he sired, to spy on them while they are on vacation and tells him to nab them the moment Sofia becomes pregnant because their children will be too much of a threat unless they are raised by the Elder and his children.

Derek and Sofia weren’t on vacation very long before Clara and Kiev abduct them and take them to the Blood Keep. Sofia wakes up in some kind of dungeon and finds Abby there. Abby is a seven-year old girl who is like a little sister to Sofia because Sofia was raised by Abby’s parents since she was nine years old. Abby tells her that they (probably Clara and Kiev) killed her mom and dad. It was really sad. Kiev throws Derek who has been beat and tortured into the room. Derek and Sofia have no clue that Sofia is pregnant. Clara tells Abby to go with her and Sofia realizes that Clara was using Abby as a spy.

Kiev comes into the room and forces Sofia to leave Derek lying on the floor. Sofia tells him that she doesn’t want to leave Derek and Kiev tells her she has no choice and that he doesn’t want to be around when Derek wakes up. He takes Sofia to the lab to draw blood. Sofia realizes she is pregnant.
Derek wakes up and, although he was tortured, is completely healed. A beautiful white-haired woman pops into the room and tells Derek to come with her because he will be killed if he stays. She convinces him that Sofia will be safe at the Blood Keep. Derek leaves with her and she takes him to another realm. She is called the Ageless and she is the top witch.

Derek learns that he is more powerful now than he was when he was a human and now he has the power of fire. Unfortunately, he can’t control the fire and is a danger to everyone and everything around him. He keeps losing control and burning things. The Ageless sends a warlock named Ibrahim to help teach Derek but Derek still cannot control the fire. The Ageless and Ibrahim keep telling him to relax and calm down and he keeps telling them that he needs Sofia because she is his calm. They ignore him and tell him he still has time. He still has no idea that Sofia is pregnant so he doesn’t get what they mean when they tell him he still has time.

Meanwhile, things have gone crazy on the island. The Elder’s vampires have attacked them to get control of the portal, something none of them knew was there except for Corrine, the witch. The portal is a gateway to other realms and the Elder wants to bring others of his kind into the human realm…as if one Elder wasn’t scary and destructive enough!

Arron, the leader of the hunters, abandons the hunters on the island when the Elder’s vampires showed up. Earlier, Vivienne had noticed his eyes turned orange and thought he might not be human.

Five months later, Sofia is still at the Blood Keep. Her only contact is with Kiev and his servant, Olga. Oh, and the vampire dog who guards her. It attacked her one time when she got too close to the border where the dark meets the light. Kiev is certifiably crazy. One minute he is nice to Sofia and the next he is beating her. When Olga pointed out that he could hurt Sofia’s baby, Kiev beats Olga. He tells Sofia that any time she displeases him; he will take it out on Olga and if she tries to escape, he will kill Olga.

Kiev tells Sofia she is having twins, a boy and a girl.

Sofia decides that she needs to escape because she can’t wait for Derek to come to her rescue but she doesn’t know how to do that without getting Olga killed but the castle is wearing her down and she is starting to think maybe Olga will have to be the sacrifice it takes to save her unborn children. That thought is what allows the darkness in and the Elder is able to get to her.

Sofia kept worrying about Olga but she never thinks about Abby or what will happen to her or even about trying to save her. Abby is only mentioned once after the time in the dungeon and that was to say that Sofia had not seen her since then. After that, Abby just kind of disappeared from Sofia’s mind. I, myself, would have been more worried about an innocent child than a grown servant who has grown up with the horrors of the castle.

There are so many things that went on in this book that I can’t tell you because it would spoil the ending but I can tell you things get a lot worse for everyone.

I am telling you, that I am getting a little depressed and overwhelmed with this series. Someone told me that this is actually a Young Adult series and I was shocked. I did notice that the sex scenes are rather vague and definitely not graphic but the gore and subject matter is really dark. I am just afraid there might not be any light at the end of the tunnel. I knew there were quite a few books (31) in the series but thought that they were broken up into sections, starring a new hero and heroine after so many books but I may be wrong. I could have sworn that I saw, at the end of the last book that Derek and Sofia’s story ends at the end of book 7 and then the characters begin a whole new adventure. I just don’t know how much more I can take of the gloom and doom.

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