by Sarah Piper
If only his fucking heart wasn’t on fire, Dorian might’ve believed it too.
Chapter Eight
Despite a monumental amount of complaining from the so-called most ruthless Redthorne Royal, Sasha got her way in the end, and Gabriel took them for an early lunch at a gourmet soup-and-salad café near Charley’s building—the first meal she’d been able to keep down all day.
The food perked her up, but the post-lunch ride to Ravenswood in Gabriel’s BMW was long and awkward, with Sasha happily chatting away from the backseat while Gabriel attempted to drown her out with the news radio. It was the same story on every channel—something about a raid at a popular nightclub in the East Village, resulting in a major drug and sex trafficking bust. Charley couldn’t imagine why he was so interested; she’d assumed vampires like Gabriel would be above the city’s human dramas.
Still, Charley would rather listen to the depressing news than try to make conversation with Dorian’s youngest brother. He’d never been particularly warm toward her—toward anyone, as far as she could tell—and the fact that he was suddenly following Dorian’s orders without pushback meant the situation was even more dangerous than she’d feared.
She almost preferred the Redthornes to be at each other’s throats. That, at least, would’ve felt normal.
Normal. Right. Like being attacked by crazy vampires and demons was normal. Like being threatened by her uncle was normal. Like confessing to Dorian that she’d been plotting to steal from him was normal.
Nervous energy zipped through her limbs, and she fidgeted in the front seat, alternately pulling threads at the hem of her sweater and wiping her damp palms on her jeans. She didn’t even have a phone to distract her now—another situation totally stressing her out. She’d have to see if Dorian had been back to his penthouse—maybe he’d picked up her purse. If not, she’d have to send Rudy a text from Sasha’s phone tomorrow. She didn’t want to risk going off the radar for more than a day—not after his antics this morning. Plus, she wanted him to know Dorian had invited her and Sasha for a visit; she planned to spin it as an opportunity to gather more intel and charm Dorian into the idea of a future family getaway. Maybe it would keep Rudy off her back a few extra days.
By the time they pulled into the manor’s circular drive, Charley’s nervous system was damn near shot. The only thing that kept her from completely falling apart was Sasha—the girl was over the moon at the sight of the manner, her slack-jawed appreciation of its grandeur making her look like a kid at Disney World.
“Holy balls,” she whispered, taking it all in as they got out of the car. Charley kept stealing glances at the front doors, hoping Dorian would emerge, but the only vampire who’d shown up to greet them was Aiden.
“Good afternoon, Ms. D’Amico,” he said with a cautious smile. “And this must be Sasha. Welcome to Ravenswood—we’re so glad you could join us.”
“This place is freaking amazing,” Sasha said, her megawatt smile brightening the gray day.
“Wait until you see the grounds,” Aiden said.
“Charley told me there’s a pool?”
Aiden laughed. “Would you like the tour? I’m Aiden, by the way—friend of the family. I’d be happy to show you around, if it’s okay with you, Ms. D’Amico?”
Charley nodded, grateful for his kindness. Pressing a kiss to her sister’s cheek, she said, “I need to find Dorian. We’ll catch up with you in a few minutes, okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” Sasha said. Then, leaning in to whisper in Charley’s ear, “I’m officially mad at you for not warning me about the hotness level here. Had I known, I would’ve put a little more effort into my hair.”
Charley laughed and pulled her in for a hug, squeezing extra tight. “Behave yourself, young lady.”
“I may be young, but I’m legal,” Sasha whispered, and with that, she twirled out of Charley’s embrace and headed for Aiden, looping her arm through his and following him along the path into the gardens.
“How old is he, anyway?” Charley asked.
“An antique, like the rest of us,” Gabriel said. “Why do you ask?”
“My sister’s already smitten, and she doesn’t even know he’s a vampire. That would send her into crush territory in a heartbeat.”
Gabriel grunted. Or maybe it was a laugh—hard to tell. “You’ve nothing to be concerned about. Aiden is a perfect gentleman—which is more than I can say for the rest of us. Especially our king.”
His eyes glinted, but beneath all his cold, sharp edges, Charley had no idea if he was teasing her… or warning her.
A chill rattled through her bones, and she tugged her sweater sleeves down over her hands. “Where is he, Gabriel?”
“He’s asked me to escort you to the dining room.” Gabriel took her elbow, steering her toward the grand stairs that led up to the main entrance. “He’s wrapping up a business call and will join you momentarily.”
“What business call?” she asked. How could he think of business at a time like this? Didn’t he have dangerous enemies to chase down?
“That’s not your concern. Nor mine, frankly.”
“Wait—what about our bags?”
“Someone will bring them in later.”
“But I—”
“Ms. D’Amico, I realize you’re used to a certain degree of latitude with my brother, but I have many things to do today, and answering questions in Dorian’s absence is not one of them. My orders were to bring you to Ravenswood and deliver you to the dining room. If there is anything you’d like to discuss beyond that, discuss it with him.”
Charley gaped at him, shocked by his blatant rudeness. She would’ve loved to tell him right where to stick it, but she didn’t want to delay her reunion with Dorian another minute. So, zipping her lip, she nodded and followed him up the stairs and into the manor, where he led her through a set of carved pocket doors and into the massive dining room.
She’d gotten a brief glimpse of it the night of the fundraiser, but absent the guests and caterers, it looked even larger than she remembered, with stately, opulent furnishings, exquisite landscape paintings, and a large stone fireplace. Glass doors lined the far wall, opening onto a secluded rose garden whose blooms were still full and bright, despite the lateness of the season and the chilly nights. She wondered how they’d stayed alive so long.
Magic, perhaps. Another trick of the witches.
Rubbing a new chill from her arms, Charley paced the room, stopping before a rich mahogany sideboard along the wall opposite the rose garden. A large antique mirror hung overhead, reflecting the dark reds and pale pinks of the blooms outside.
Charley gave her own reflection a once-over, tugging down the collar on her cable-knit sweater to check her bruises. They were even more glaringly obnoxious now—a wide necklace of angry, purple blotches, courtesy of her uncle.
Somewhere in the distance, Sasha’s laughter floated like a bright yellow bird on the air, but here in the dining room, Charley felt trapped and suffocated.
Tears stung her eyes. The dread of the morning weighed heavily, further solidifying her resolve to confess to Dorian. He wouldn’t take it lightly, but he wouldn’t turn his back on her either—not without hearing her out.
Of that, she was certain.
But the longer he kept her waiting, the less certain she became. She continued to pace, running her fingers along the gleaming oak table and chairs, admiring the artwork on the walls, counting the roses still clinging to the thorny bushes.
Ten minutes turned to thirty. When another fifteen minutes passed without word from anyone, she headed for the pocket doors, ready to go out in search of her man.
But instead, he’d finally come in search of her.
He opened the doors and stood before her, his gaze sweeping her head to toe, his golden eyes filling with relief.
At the sight of him—tired but nevertheless polished, dressed in a tailored charcoal gray suit and cream-colored dress shirt, hair sticking up as if he’d been runn
ing his hands through it—Charley nearly wept. She went to him, unable to hold back her smile or her tears.
But as soon as she reached for him, Dorian turned his back and closed the doors, locking them inside.
When he faced her again, the relief in his eyes had turned to ice, his mouth set in a grim line.
He folded his arms across his chest and glared at her, and Charley knew—before he uttered a single word—that something was very, very wrong.
Chapter Nine
“Dorian?” she whispered, her heart skipping, arms hovering in the space between them, still waiting for his touch.
But Dorian was unmoved.
It didn’t make sense. Even when they were total strangers, he could barely keep his hands to himself. Now, after everything they’d shared—after last night’s brushes with death—he was cold-shouldering her?
“Take a seat, Charlotte.” He stalked past her and headed for the glass doors on the other side of the room. “We need to talk, and I prefer not to complicate matters with emotional outbursts.”
Emotional outbursts?
She folded her arms across her chest, doing her best to hide the sting of his comments. “But I—”
“Sit down,” he said again.
The seriousness in his tone left no room for argument, so Charley did as he asked, taking a seat at the head of the table in a stiff, high-backed chair, waiting for him to continue.
It felt like hours before he finally spoke again, and when he did, he kept his back to her, gaze fixed on the rose garden outside.
“That day in the mountains,” he said, “you asked how I came to be a vampire.”
Charley’s breath caught, her heart thudding ominously. As badly as she’d wanted to know this part of Dorian’s long, dark history, something about his tone and the tight set of his shoulders told her this wasn’t the right time—not for either of them.
“Dorian, we don’t have to talk about this.”
“Oh, but we do.” He finally turned to face her. The ice had melted from his gaze, but now it held fire instead, a sharp anger simmering in its golden depths. “You need to understand how we got here, Charlotte. How I got here. And how everything that happens after this moment, for good or ill, can be traced back to a single point in time, long before the parents of your parents were even born.”
The ferocity in his eyes silenced her protests, and she sat back in the chair and held her breath, waiting for him to unleash the terrible truth.
“I was betrothed,” he began. “Before.”
Charley’s eyes widened, a flicker of jealousy flashing through her heart. “Before?”
“When I was human. Her name was Evelyn—Evie.”
“Wow. I… I had no idea.” A million new questions exploded in Charley’s mind. Betrothed… Did that mean they’d never actually married? Did she pass away? Did he love her?
Did he touch her the way he touched Charley?
Silently, she cursed herself, ashamed that her mind had even gone there. But she couldn’t help it. She missed that touch, now more than ever.
“Evie was passionate and exuberant,” he said, “but also evasive and prone to bouts of deep, dark melancholy. Being with her… Sometimes it felt as if I were standing on the shoreline just out of reach, watching her drown, knowing there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to save her.”
He lowered his eyes and shook his head, and Charley let out a broken sigh, wishing she could save him. But she knew all too well that no one could save you from your own darkness.
All she could do was keep the lights on and wait for him to return—to be here for him when he did.
If he did.
“She’d always told me she was estranged from her family,” Dorian said. “In those days, it was unusual for a woman of noble birth to be on her own, but I took her at her word, never pushing for the details. But if I had…” He let out a bitter laugh. “Seems I’ve yet to learn that particular lesson.”
Charley swallowed the tightness in her throat, her mind connecting the dots. “Your fiancée… Evie… She’s the one who turned you?”
She couldn’t even imagine the pain of something like that. No wonder he didn’t like to talk about it.
But Dorian shook his head.
“Evie didn’t turn me. She merely lied to me.” He glanced out again at the roses, sighing against the glass. “She was a vampire, Charlotte, as I’m sure you’ve deduced. But not just any vampire—the sole daughter of the king. I was ignorant, of course—too smitten to poke round the many holes in her story. Father wasn’t fooled, though. As I learned later, he was quick to uncover her secrets.”
“What did he do?” she whispered.
“What any doctor long obsessed with outrunning his own mortality would do. He tracked down her estranged family and brokered a deal with the vampire king: Grant the Redthornes the gift of immortality, and in exchange, the Redthornes would serve the king’s house—House Kendrick—for ten years.”
“Oh my God.” Charley rose from her chair. “And you and your brothers had no say? No idea he’d made the deal?”
“My father was never one for consultation, particularly among his children. My mother was also kept in the dark.”
“What happened when he finally told you?”
Dorian’s chin dropped to his chest, and again, Charley wanted to go to him, to take him into her arms, to save him from the darkness before he drowned in it.
But she didn’t dare.
Instead, she returned to her chair and took a deep breath, trying to keep calm, knowing the story was only going to get worse from here. It didn’t help that the confession locked inside her was banging on the walls of her heart, desperate to break free. But how could she bring that up now? Her bullshit schemes, her struggles with Rudy, her father’s death… In the shadow of Dorian’s terrible past, her own bleak personal history felt like a fairytale.
“I suppose you never got the official tour,” he continued, “but Ravenswood is a precise replica of our estate in West Sussex. My father worked for years coordinating the transport of our furnishings. The table, the sideboard, the chairs, the art, all of it. Back then, there were only ships and trains. Can you imagine?”
“Really?” It was all she could manage, the apparent shift in topics giving her whiplash.
“This room is a mirror image of the dining room we shared in England. It’s where we held our engagement dinner—an intimate gathering, just the family and Aiden. My mother sat where you’re sitting now, as proud and happy as I’d ever seen her, the fire crackling behind her. Colin, Gabriel, Malcolm—all of us toasted with fine wine and a decadent meal, revisiting family stories from our childhood, sharing our hopes for the future. The twins were there too—William and Fiona, the youngest Redthorne siblings, sixteen years of age. They’d always been enamored of Evie. And though she was in one of her low moods that night, I was still so happy, Charlotte. I truly thought it would be a turning point for us. For all of us.” He glanced up at her, pain swimming in his eyes. “And it was.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, unsure what else to say. The torment in his eyes made her ache, her own eyes burning with fresh tears.
“Toward the end of the evening, when the staff had served the cake and we’d just opened the brandy I’d been saving for the occasion, there came a knock at the door. Father answered, promising us we were in for a rare surprise. The moment he ushered in the new guests, Evie bolted from the table in terror.”
“Her father?” Charley guessed.
“Along with his three sons, yes. They’d come to honor the agreement—four royal vampires promising to sire the noble Redthornes, swiftly and thoroughly. They attacked us. They bit. They forced us to drink. They…” His voice broke, and he shook his head, as if that alone could erase the terrifying memories. “It was a slaughter, Charlotte. A brutal, horrifying slaughter that forever altered the course of our lives. Yet for House Kendrick and its king, it was no more than a business transaction, over and don
e in a matter of minutes.”
Tears spilled unbidden down Charley’s cheeks, splashing onto her jeans. “What about Evie? She didn’t try to… to stop it, or change her father’s mind, or… anything?”
A dark look crossed Dorian’s face, and again his head dipped low. “In her father’s eyes, Evie’s desire for a normal life was an insult to her family and a dereliction of her royal duties. For the crime of falling in love with a mortal man, he ordered his eldest son to behead her. She turned to ash before her head even hit the floor.”
Charley gasped in horror.
“My mother and the twins did not survive. William succumbed to his wounds almost immediately. Fiona held on a bit longer. Long enough for me to go to her. Her last words, as she lay dying in my arms, her blood spilling through my fingers like bathwater… Those words haunt me still. Why didn’t you help us, Dori?”
Charley couldn’t sit there another minute. She rose and crossed the room, joining Dorian at the glass doors and reaching for his hand.
He stiffened at her touch, but she laced their fingers together anyway, holding tight. Eventually, he relaxed and leaned in close, his cheek brushing the top of her head, his body trembling with sorrow and rage and a bitterness that had been festering for two-and-a-half centuries.
God, how she broke for him. Her heart and mind were shattered, the story hollowing her out inside. How had he lived for so long with so much pain? So much anguish? How had he not succumbed?
“I despise this room,” he said softly, his breath warm in her hair. “Before today, I can’t even recall the last time I set foot in here. Many times, I thought to burn it down, but I knew my father would only rebuild it. He always said it was a monument. To me, it’s nothing but a tomb.”
He pulled away from her touch and met her eyes.
“You absolutely enchant me, Charlotte,” he whispered, cupping her cheek. “You have from the very start. Even now, it’s all I can do not to strip you bare, bend you over the table, and fuck you until it breaks beneath us.”