The realization blasted her in the face.
That’swhy he hadn’t mentioned his father’s lab before.
He hadn’t trusted her.
But now…
She glanced up into his eyes again, and he nodded once, almost imperceptibly, as if he could read her thoughts.
He trusted her—with his life.
Just as she’d trusted him with hers.
Tears blurred her vision, but she quickly blinked them away. “How did the cure kill him?”
“It worked—well, technically speaking. Itdidcure him. But absent the magic and power of vampirism, he went through a rapid aging process. It was as if his body was trying to catch up with its sudden human reality. He was in his sixties when he turned. By the time he took the cure, he was nearly three hundred years old.”
“Three hundred,” she whispered. “That’s… wow.”
“It’s a lot to wrap your head around. Some days, I barely manage it myself.”
Charley touched Dorian’s face, marveling once again at his existence. He would always lookexactlythe same. Ten years, fifty, a hundred—he wouldn’t age a day.
How was it even possible? Even now, after everything she’d seen and experienced, she still couldn’t believe it.
“So there’s truly no going back?” she asked.
“Becoming a vampire isn’t a costume, Charlotte.” Dorian closed his eyes, his voice dropping to a dark whisper. “It’s a life sentence. Animmortallife sentence.”
“Do you ever wish… I mean, if youcouldgo back. Be human again—no side effects. Would you?”
“There was a time… I thought…” Dorian shook his head. “I’ve been a vampire for well over two hundred years—almost the entirety of my life. The truth is, Charlotte…” He opened his eyes again, their honey-brown depths threatening to swallow her whole. “I don’t know how to be anything else.”
“Neither do I.”
Pain flickered through his gaze, but he quickly shut it down, forcing a smile. “Of course not. You’ve only everbeenhuman.”
She’d been referring to her life as a thief, not her life as a human, but Dorian must’ve thought she was talking about becoming a vampire—rather, aboutnotbecoming a vampire.
They’d never really talked about it. About what came next. Everything had happened so quickly between them—from lust to love in a blink. Deep love.Reallove. The kind Charley used to think was a fairy tale.
And now…
God. Why did everything have to be so complicated? She was in love with a vampire. A fucking vampire! And Dorian was right—she’d only ever been human. Even if she survived her uncle, even if nothing bad ever touched her again, Charley would eventually die.
But Dorian wouldn’t.
Charley’s head spun. She wasn’t ready for this conversation. Wasn’t ready to think through the implications. She wanted to explain herself anyway, if only to take back the pain she’d inadvertently caused him, but before she could find the words, Dorian was moving on.
“Aiden tells me you’ve got a plan for our friend Vincent Estas,” he said.
“He told you that, huh?”
“Among other things.”
Charley tensed for the fight. “If this is the part where you try to talk me out of it, forget it. Not happening.”
“I suspected as much,” he grumbled. “And if I had any doubts, Aiden drove the point home with a quote. Let’s see if I’ve got it right… ‘Charlotte isn’t the sit-home-with-her-thumb-up-her-ass type, you git.’”
