It’s that I’m so in love with you, I feel as if my heart might burst.
It’s that I would die before I let him take you from me.
It’s that I can’t bloodyexistwithout you, Charlotte D’Amico…
“When I say you’remine, Charlotte,” Dorian said, “do you have any idea what that really means?”
A faint smile touched her lips. “That you’re a possessive, overbearing caveman? A trait I’m learning to love about you, but—”
“It means you’re my heart. My soul. My absolute…obsession.” Dorian closed his eyes. Bloodyhell, how had it even happened? Wasn’t he the one who’d sworn off love forever?
He recalled that first night with her in Central Park, when he’d compelled her to forget the Chernikov demon attack. Even then, when she was merely a sexy, feisty stranger he’d ravaged in a closet, he’d wanted so badly to protect her from the darkness of his supernatural existence.
Little did he know then, she was already on a collision course.
“Losing you…” Dorian’s throat closed on the words, but he shook his head and swallowed hard, forcing himself to continue. “It wouldendme. Do you understand?”
Her smile faded, and she turned away from him. “I’m not the one who’s lost. Sasha—”
“Will be found.” He reached for her face, turning her toward him once again. “And her tormentors will be brought to their knees, kept alive just long enough to look upon the face of their executioner, who will show themnomercy.”
A soft sigh. Another smile.
Both melted him.
“My very own vampire hero,” she said, “charging in to smite my mortal enemies.”
“I’m quite adept at smiting mortal enemies. If only it were as easy to vanquish theimmortalones.”
Her brow furrowed, an she opened her mouth to question him, but Dorian spoke first.
“You’re right, love. I’ve been keeping something from you. Dodging it for days, trying to find a way around it, but thereisno bloody way around it.” He was still holding her face, and he forced himself to keep his touch steady, knowing this moment wouldn’t get any easier. Not 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 moresecondbefore 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… Bloodyhell.” 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.
Thedemon’sslave.
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.
