Dark Seduction (Vampire Royals of New York #2) - Sarah Piper Page 0,24

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, a sharp anger simmering in their 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 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 now 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 odd for a woman of noble birth to be on her own, but I took her at her word, never pushing for the details of a situation that so clearly upset her. 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 up 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