Dark Obsession (Vampire Royals of New York #3) - Sarah Piper Page 0,29

for either of them. “Isabelle… She’s an empathic witch. She can sense things about people—about our souls.”

“Right. She mentioned something about it the other night when she was trying to do a locator spell for Sasha. Has she found something?”

“This isn’t about your sister, Charlotte. It’s about you. You’re…” Dorian closed his eyes, wishing he could hold onto this moment for just one more minute. One more second before he spoke the words that would shatter her world.

But time, as it so often did, had finally run out.

“When she was helping Colin heal you,” he said, “she found an anomaly in your energy. In your soul.”

“An anomaly?”

“You’re… you’re demon-touched. I suspect that’s why vampire compulsion doesn’t work on you—his claim essentially invalidates it. Perhaps only the demon himself can manipulate your mind. You were promised to him, and you… Somehow the mark… It’s all just… Bloody hell.” He was making no sense, all the words tangling up inside, his own terrifying thoughts bleeding into Isabelle’s interpretations until he could no longer find the beginning or the end of this dreadful story.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying, Dorian. Demon-touched? A claim? What?”

“You’re bound to a demon lord, Charlotte. Someone promised you to him. And according to Isabelle, the end of your term is… quite near.”

“But… but what happens then?” Her voice was a broken whisper, her eyes wide with the same horror coursing through Dorian’s own veins.

He did his best to explain, as Isabelle had explained to him—that Charlotte belonged to a lord of hell. That she would either die and become a vessel…

Or live and become a slave.

The demon’s slave.

Every word sliced through Dorian’s mouth, as if he were spitting out broken glass. He couldn’t tell which hurt worse—forcing those sharp, jagged-edged words through his lips, or seeing the raw fear and pain in her eyes as she tried in vain to make sense of them.

“I don’t know which lord,” he continued, “nor how to find him, nor how many demon lords even exist. I don’t know who brought this cruel fate upon you. I don’t know how much longer we have until the demon attempts to collect on his claim. But I do know this, Charlotte… I will not rest until I find a way to break this abominable curse.”

She turned away from him again, her breath shallow, her heartbeat as quick as a rabbit’s caught in a snare.

Rage boiled up from inside—at the demon, at hell, at whoever had made this promise.

Charlotte was not for sale. Not for trade. That such a bright, vivacious human soul could be so carelessly bargained away was a fucking abomination.

After an eon, she finally turned to face him again, her lashes wet with tears, eyes wide in the darkness. In a pained whisper that nearly gutted him, she said only, “And what if you can’t?”

Dorian reached for her hands and brought them to his mouth, pressing soft kisses to her palms. When he glanced up at her again, his own eyes blurred with tears, his voice shattering, his heart damn near exploding with the force of his conviction. “Then my last act upon this wretched earth will be to sign away what’s left of my soul. I will follow you to the depths of hell, Charlotte, because I love you, and I’ll continue to love you—in this realm or the next—for however bloody long eternity lasts.”

Chapter Twelve

You’re bound to a demon lord, Charlotte...

The words echoed through Charley’s nightmares, chasing her down every dark alley, into every fiery pit. She couldn’t escape them; even as Dorian held her in his strong embrace, tucked into his bed hours after they’d returned from Cole’s cabin, everything about his confession haunted her.

A demon claim. A slave of hell.

It all sounded so ridiculous and impossible—like something out of a low-budget horror movie. But she’d seen the fear in Dorian’s eyes when he’d said the words. She’d felt the desperation in his touch.

However impossible, it was real. All of her nightmares were real.

And all of them—Sasha’s kidnapping, her father’s murder, the attack by Rogozin’s guys when she was a kid, the demon mark—could be traced right back to Rudy. Charley might not know the specifics, but she was sure of it now.

Her uncle was a conniving, murderous, demonic shitbag who deserved to fester in hell.

The question was…

What the fuck was she going to do about it?

There was something supremely hopeful about the smell of coffee on a crisp fall morning, and when Charley made her way down to