by Sarah Piper
Which meant one of two things:
Either Duchanes truly hadn’t known about the attack, and his men had mutinied, or Duchanes was willing to take such an insane risk because someone even more powerful than the royal vampire family was backing him.
Dorian recalled the altercation in Central Park. Duchanes had shown up at precisely the right moment to intervene with Chernikov’s demons. His timing was almost too perfect; it couldn’t have been a coincidence.
Bloody hell.
Webs of lies and deceit, power games, shifting alliances, innocent people caught in the crossfire… Dorian didn’t know how his father had managed it for so many years—or why he’d wanted any of this responsibility in the first place.
Dorian certainly hadn’t. But with his father dead and his brothers awaiting his orders, what else could he do but shoulder it?
“We cannot afford a war, Dorian,” Malcolm said now, pacing the study. “We’re still unallied, and after tonight’s disastrous turn, what are the chances Isabelle Armitage will join us?”
Malcolm gave voice to Dorian’s exact thoughts, but that didn’t mean Dorian would accept them.
“Renault Duchanes’ sired dung beetles attacked my companion at my own manor,” he said. “You expect me to let such an infraction go unpunished?”
“Unpunished, no. But a war? Over a woman whose last name you didn’t even know until this very evening? We should at least wait until we hear Renault’s version of events.”
“I would love to, but… Oh, that’s right. Your new mate has mysteriously fled the scene of the crime.” Dorian shook his head, disgust souring his drink. “Why are you so eager to take his side?”
“You’re bloody mad, Dorian.” Malcolm folded his arms across his chest, looking down his nose at Dorian in a manner he’d spent centuries perfecting. “The only side I’m on is House Redthorne’s. Forgive me if I don’t wish to send my brothers to the slaughter because you couldn’t keep your cock out of some human woman’s hot little—”
Dorian was out of his chair in a flash, slamming Malcolm into the wall beside the fireplace with a fist around his throat and a hand against his heart. “Do not finish that sentence unless you wish to receive the same treatment as our Duchanes guests.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Aiden rolled his eyes. “You lot have been repressing your emotions since you were humans bickering at the dinner table. Why stop a good thing now?”
A log toppled from the fire, shooting a rain of sparks from the fireplace.
Malcolm continued to glare, but finally raised his hands in surrender, and Dorian backed off.
“That’s better,” Aiden said. “Now, allow me to offer a perspective from someone who isn’t part of this house of complete dysfunction.” He jerked the fire poker from the wall, where it’d remained like an arrow since Dorian had chucked it there, and pushed the fallen log back into place. “I don’t believe the attack was about Ms. D’Amico specifically—she was just an easy target. My feeling is, whoever’s behind this wanted to make House Redthorne look weak—to sow discontent about the royal family’s ability to protect its own and lead the supernatural communities into a peaceful future.”
The brothers considered Aiden’s theory. With the recent demise of their father, there was bound to be some upheaval—minor skirmishes, like Dorian’s encounter with the demons in Manhattan, or some grumbling among the greater vampire covens who saw themselves as better leaders. But an attack on the royal family’s home turf?
“It makes sense that Duchanes would test us,” Malcolm said, “considering the refusal of the alliance.”
“You think House Duchanes is the only house that wants to see our heads on pikes?” This, from Gabriel, who was unapologetically working his way through Dorian’s collection of scotch. “Sure, he’s the most likely suspect, but he’s also got a few bats in the belfry. Something tells me the order came from someone higher on the pay scale.”
“I thought so as well,” Dorian admitted, returning to his chair.
“And if that’s true,” Gabriel continued, “tonight is just the start of what awaits us.”
“Agreed,” Malcolm said. “We have no idea who else is coming for us, what dangers lurk around every corner. We’re going to need security, as well as—”
“We’re the fucking royal family!” Dorian hurled his drink into the fire. It exploded in a burst of glass and flame, but quickly petered out, just like his ire.
For all the fury, his words were empty.
Long ago, House Kendrick was the royal family. Then Augustus Redthorne slaughtered them in the night, stealing the crown and everything that came with it.
What was to stop another ambitious house or supernatural faction from doing the same to the Redthornes? Especially now, when they were at their most vulnerable? His father had been a formidable force—a vampire whose methods of torture and brutality put warmongering generals and lone serial killers alike to shame. But Dorian?
He was as wet behind the ears as a newborn. He’d spent the better part of his immortal life trying to stay ahead of his father’s long shadow, only to wake up one day and realize he’d been chasing it all along.
And now, that shadow belonged to him; too dark and vast to wrangle, too cold to embrace, but his nevertheless.
Augustus Redthorne had only been dead a week, yet his house was nearly as powerless as if he’d never taken the crown at all.
Dorian knew it. His brothers knew it. And more importantly, so did their enemies.
“Father was… he was ill,” Dorian finally admitted, his voice dark and low once again. “He spent the last few months of his life searching for a cure for a human sickness that had taken him—one he’d worried might be genetic. One I worry might be our downfall.”
The admission felt like a death, a dark burden torn from his heart, scraping the soft parts inside until there was nothing left but blood and agony.
Tears of frustration blurred his vision. In all his long years, he’d never felt so helpless, so useless.
“And you’re telling us now?” Gabriel demanded. “How long have you known?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Not with any degree of certainty. I didn’t want to speak of it until I had more information.”
“When might that have been? When we were all lying beside father in a pile of smoldering ash?”
“No, Dorian. You’re wrong.” Colin, who’d remained lost in thought since he’d returned from the crypts an hour earlier, suddenly spoke. “I’ve seen the journals. I haven’t been able to piece everything together, but I don’t think he was trying to cure a human illness.”
Memories flickered through Dorian’s mind.
His father, staring into his microscope, muttering about curses and cures.
Boxes of needles and syringes and tourniquets, fresh medical supplies arriving at Ravenswood nearly every day.
Blood draws—his fathers and his own—every crimson drop examined and measured and catalogued.
“From a strictly medical perspective,” Colin continued, “nothing I’ve seen in his notes points to any known human ailments—cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, HIV, any number of neurological diseases one might look for in these situations. His research protocols may be mysterious, but they don’t support your theory.”
“Are you certain?” Dorian asked.
“If I were a human doctor, I’d say yes. But my very existence is proof that science and medicine have a great many gaps.” Colin gave a thoughtful shrug. “Clearly there’s more to the journals than meets the eye. I need more time with them.”
“Of course,” Dorian said, not sure whether he should be relieved… or terrified. If his father wasn’t suffering from a human ailment, then what had killed him?
And what had he meant when he’d said it was genetic?
“What of the woman?” Malcolm asked, glancing up at the ceiling as if he could hear Charlotte’s very heartbeat. “She’s a distraction we can’t afford.”
/> “She’s more than that,” Gabriel said, amber liquid sloshing over the sides of his glass. “Dorian told her about us. That makes her a liability.”
“She broke the compulsion,” Dorian said. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Gabriel unleashed a bitter laugh. “You never have a choice, do you, brother? Everything that’s happened, all the darkness you’ve brought upon us, and it’s never your fault.”
Dorian seethed, but he didn’t argue the point. How could he? Gabriel may have been the only one ballsy enough to speak it aloud, but all of them were thinking it. Even, Dorian guessed, his dearest friend Aiden.
“She knows about us now,” he said calmly, “and she’s clearly a target for Duchanes, regardless of who gave the order. Beyond that, I… I care for her.”
It was another admission, another death, and Dorian didn’t have the courage to meet their eyes.
“She’s your responsibility,” Malcolm said.
“One I gladly accept.” Dorian rose from his chair and headed toward the door, done with his brothers, done stewing in his shame and guilt. Just before he made his final exit, he dropped a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder, still not meeting his eyes, but needing to say the words anyway. “I appreciated your assistance out there tonight. She would’ve died without it.”
“I didn’t do it for her.”
“That doesn’t change my gratitude, nor the fact that I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’m not doing this for your gratitude, either.” Gabriel jerked away from his touch. “When the dust settles and you’ve finally secured the bonded witch, I’m leaving. And I never, ever want to see you, hear you, or smell your traitorous blood again, your highness.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Don’t take another step, dickhead.” Charley stood in front of the bedroom door, stake at the ready.
“Dickhead?” Dorian glanced at her weapon, a smile quirking his lips. “I see we’re feeling rather confident now.”
“I swear on my father’s grave, Dorian Redthorne. I will stake you.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubts about your intentions, Buffy.”
“So you have a death wish?”
He strode toward her, stopping only when the pointy end of her makeshift stake was pressed against his sternum. “That depends. Are you strong enough to break through the bone and pierce the beating heart behind it?”
“Test me and let’s find out.”
Dorian raised his hands in mock surrender. “By all means—have a go. But Charlotte?” He grinned again, fangs descending before her eyes, sharp and terrifying in the moonlight. “Don’t miss.”
Her whole body trembled, their gazes locked in a fierce battle of wills, her stomach flip-flopping. Never before had she felt such an acute mix of terror and exhilaration. It rendered her speechless and paralyzed, lost to the magnetic pull of a dangerous monster she should’ve run from.
Should’ve killed.
You are my ocean tide, Dorian Redthorne, come to steal my soul…
“Lesson one,” he said, and the room spun into a smudge of indiscernible shapes and colors. Before Charley could suck in another breath, she was face-first against the wall on the other side of the room, his body pinning her in place, her pathetic stake clattering to the floor.
Dorian gripped the back of her neck in one impossibly strong hand, the other capturing her wrists behind her back. Then, mouth close to her ear, “If you’re going to threaten an apex predator after he specifically warned you not to, best to follow through.”
“Fuck… off.” She jerked against his hold, but it was no use. He was a wall of solid muscle and supernatural strength, and he had her exactly where he wanted her.
Trapped. Helpless. Vulnerable.
“Quite the conundrum, isn’t it?” He dragged his mouth along the curve of her neck to her shoulder, then back again, pausing behind her ear, his breath hot. “You’ve managed to trigger the predatory response in a beast that could kill you faster than you could draw your next breath.”
“Do it, then, you fucking monster!” she cried, tired of the power games, the secrets, the lies. She’d come all this way to spy, to help her crew rob him blind… Maybe she deserved to die at his hand. At his bite. “If you’re so set on killing me, finish it!”
“Killing you? Now that doesn’t sound like any fun at all.” He spun her around, then pushed her back against the wall, wrists pinned above her head as he shoved a muscular thigh between her legs.
She squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to look into his eyes. Refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her fear.
Her desire.
“What am I to do with you, little prowler?” he asked, lips brushing her mouth, her jawline. His thigh pressed closer, teasing her. “Posing as a guest at my fundraiser. Snooping around my manor. Threatening to stake me in my own bedroom.”
“I don’t care what you do with me.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” He shifted his thigh, sending a zing of pleasure through her core.
Charley fought off a shiver. It took her a full beat to realize her hips were moving, rocking against the delicious pressure of his thigh, desperate for the heat, the friction.
She knew she should stop. Beg him to let her go. To forget they’d ever crossed paths.
But she couldn’t.
Because deep down, beneath all the bravado and F-bombs, Charley wanted to be here. Wanted him.
“Look at me, Charlotte.”
“Go fuck yourself, highness,” she muttered, but there was no fire behind her words, and they both knew it.
Dorian released her wrists and hooked a finger under her chin, tilting her face up, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Look at me.”
She finally opened her eyes, and Dorian stared at her with such intensity, she thought she might catch fire. His eyes were golden and fierce, his mouth an invitation she wanted to accept, again and again and again.
“Option one,” he breathed, “or option two?”
The reminder of their stolen moments in the penthouse made her heart stutter. But tonight, he wasn’t just asking for a forbidden rendezvous in the closet. He was asking her to forget everything she’d witnessed, everything he’d done, everything he was.
He was asking her to submit, completely and without reservation.
And in that moment, despite all the dangers, despite all the warnings clanging in her head, Charley knew that when it came to Dorian Redthorne, there was only one answer.
There would always be only one answer.
“Two,” she whispered. “Fucking two.”
His mouth descended in a hot rush, crushing her lips, owning her. He fisted her dress and tore it in half, pushing it down to her hips as his mouth continued to devour a hot path along her flesh—her neck, her breasts and… oh, fuck… her nipple…
She slid her hands into his hair and lost herself to the delicious pain of his teeth grazing the stiff peak, his tongue soothing the ache. Without breaking his kiss, he gripped her hips and spun her away from the wall, moving them toward the giant bed.
“What’s… what’s happening?” she breathed, every nerve sizzling with heat.
He pulled away from her nipple, then slid his hand between her thighs, dragging his fingers over her soaked underwear.
“Remind me again how you like to be fucked,” he replied, his tone dark with desire. “Soft and slow was it? Wait, no. That’s not right. I believe your exact words were… ‘I like it rough. Don’t you dare disappoint me.’”
Charley didn’t have time to confirm. In another impossibly fast blur, he pushed her onto the bed, then flipped her onto her stomach, running a hand up her back and fisting her hair. Climbing on top, he licked the back of her neck, then pulled her hair just right.
“Put your arms above your head, Charlotte. Now.”
She did as he asked, and he tore the remaining scraps of the dress from her body, binding her wrists to the bed with a piece of the black satin. She was powerless beneath him, her hand
s tied, her body pinned by his impossibly strong form, her breath coming in short, wild bursts.
The mattress shifted as Dorian rose from the bed and stripped off his clothes. Charley tried to turn over to watch, but before she could get a good look, he was on her again, one hand tangled in her hair, the other smacking her ass.
“I did not give you permission to move.” He smacked her again, then brought his mouth to her flesh, soothing the white-hot sting with soft, luxurious kisses. Electric jolts of pleasure zipped across her skin, making her shiver.
Another slap, another kiss, and Dorian slowly worked the underwear down her hips, tossing them to the floor.
Sliding his fingers inside her, he shifted positions and brought his mouth back up to her ear, his voice so sexy it almost made her come.
“Whose pussy is this?” he demanded, thrusting in and out, deep and perfect.
“Yours. God, it’s yours.”
“Whose?”
“Yours, Dorian.”
“You mean yours, Mr. Redthorne.”
She tried to turn over, but he pushed her back down again, hand wrapped around the back of her neck. “My bed, my rules. You’ll call me Mr. Redthorne tonight. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
He squeezed her neck, making her gasp.
“Yes, Mr. Redthorne,” she tried again, wanting nothing more than to please him.
“That’s better.” He slid his fingers out, then fluttered over her clit, sending another jolt throughout her body before plunging back inside.
Holy shit, did he know how to work her.
Charley was face down on a bed of black satin sheets, her gasps muffled by the pillow, still in her bra, ass in the air, every inch of her body craving his touch. Hard, then soft. Fierce, then soothing. The flood of sensations made her drunk and dizzy, desperate for more.
