She’d already read it in his eyes, and it broke her fucking heart.
Chapter Eighteen
The rose garden was covered in a layer of fine black ash—all that remained of Dorian’s epic bonfire. Someone—Aiden, he’d guessed—had hauled away the smoldering remnants of the dining room and boarded up the shattered glass doors.
Beneath the blackened ruins, the roses bloomed anew, their perfect beauty unmarred by his tempestuous rage.
And there, standing upon the charred cobblestones, cupping a blood-red bloom in her hands, was the woman who’d claimed his heart.
In her haste to escape his overbearing ridiculousness, she hadn’t bothered with a coat or shoes. Dressed in a red flannel button-down and faded jeans, auburn hair loose around her shoulders, she looked to Dorian like the very picture of autumn.
“Aiden told me you’d burned them,” Charlotte said as he approached, her voice touched with wonder.
“I did. Quite thoroughly, at that.” Dorian took the rose from her hands and brought it to his nose, inhaling deeply. The scent would always remind him of Rosalind—the bonded witch who’d died in his arms, right in this very garden. “The rose garden was always Rosalind’s favorite place. She tended to every bloom as if they were her own children. After her death, I tried to have the garden plowed under—the reminder was just too painful. But no matter what I did to destroy it—the plows, a flood, fire—the roses always returned.”
“Rosalind,” she whispered.
A light breeze ghosted through the trees, and Dorian’s heart warmed as he thought of Rosalind’s kindness. Whether or not she’d ever forgiven him, he hoped she was in a better place.
“The suite with the LaPorte painting—that was hers. It looks out over her roses. I’ve kept it up for her, changing out the artwork every few years, thinking maybe she… I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Sorry. I realize it sounds ridiculous.”
“I think it’s lovely,” she said. “And obviously she’s still with you. The roses are her way of letting you know.”
“Even in the cruelest winters, they continue to bloom beneath the snow.” Dorian’s chest tightened, and he returned the rose to Charlotte, his eyes never leaving hers. “It’s a remarkable sight.”
Charlotte smiled, and he swore the roses surrounding them brightened.
He didn’t think he’d ever stop marveling at the fact that she’d come into his life at all. That she’d remained. Moments earlier, he’d worried he’d finally chased the warmth from her eyes for good, yet there she was, still shining like the brightest star in his sky.
“I look forward to seeing it,” she said.
Look forward…
The words held so much promise, it terrified him.
Could hekeepthat promise? Could he tell her, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that when the first snows of winter blanketed Ravenswood, she’d be here to bask in the magic of it?
Or would she be in hell, serving the demon lord who’d claimed her?
“Charlotte, being a vampire…” Dorian closed his eyes, desperate to find the right words this time. Determined not to screw it up. “Itwillmake you stronger. But it won’t make you any less terrified.”
“No?” She shared another smile, all for him, and took a step closer, the air carrying her sweet scent. “So you’ve always been fearless? Even as a mortal man?”
“I’ve never claimed to be fearless. The same things that terrified me as a man terrify me as a vampire—perhaps even more so.”
Charlotte let the rose fall to the ground and looped her arms around his neck, her coppery eyes bright as she gazed up at him. In the barest of whispers, she said, “What are you afraid of, Dorian Redthorne?”
He closed his eyes, unable to bear the intensity of her scrutiny. Her kindness.
“I can’t protect them,” he confessed. “No more than I could back then.”
“Can’t protect who?”
“Any of them,” he continued. “House Kendrick murdered half my family and turned the rest into vampires, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop them. To save my mother and my youngest siblings, even to ease their suffering… And here in this very garden, Adelle… She killed Rosalind, and I…” Images of the past rushed at him from all sides, dragging him back into the depths of his despair.
Two hundred fifty years on this planet, and the story of his life had been written in the blood of everyone he’d ever loved.
Everyone he’d ever failed.
