“I thought so as well,” Dorian admitted, returning to his chair.
“And if that’s true,” Gabriel continued, “tonight is just the start of what awaits us.”
“Agreed,” Malcolm said. “We have no idea who else is coming for us, what dangers lurk around every corner. We’re going to need security, as well as—”
“We’re the fucking royal family!” Dorian hurled his drink into the fire. It exploded in a burst of glass and flame, but quickly petered out, just like his ire.
For all the fury, his words were empty.
Long ago, House Kendrick was the royal family. Then Augustus Redthorne slaughtered them in the night, stealing the crown and everything that came with it.
What was to stop another ambitious house or supernatural faction from doing the same to the Redthornes? Especially now, when they were at their most vulnerable? His father had been a formidable force—a vampire whose methods of torture and brutality put warmongering generals and lone serial killers alike to shame. But Dorian?
He was as wet behind the ears as a newborn. He’d spent the better part of his immortal life trying to stay ahead of his father’s long shadow, only to wake up one day and realize he’d been chasing it all along.
And now, that shadow belonged to him; too dark and vast to wrangle, too cold to embrace, but his nevertheless.
Augustus Redthorne had only been dead a week, yet his house was nearly as powerless as if he’d never taken the crown at all.
Dorian knew it. His brothers knew it. And more importantly, so did their enemies.
“Father was… he was ill,” Dorian finally admitted, his voice dark and low once again. “He spent the last few months of his life searching for a cure for a human sickness that had taken him—one he’d worried might be genetic. One I worry might be our downfall.”
The admission felt like a death, a dark burden torn from his heart, scraping the soft parts inside until there was nothing left but blood and agony.
Tears of frustration blurred his vision. In all his long years, he’d never felt so helpless, so useless.
“And you’re telling us now?” Gabriel demanded. “How long have you known?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Not with any degree of certainty. I didn’t want to speak of it until I had more information.”
“When might that have been? When we were all lying beside father in a pile of smoldering ash?”
“No, Dorian. You’re wrong.” Colin, who’d remained lost in thought since he’d returned from the crypts an hour earlier, suddenly spoke. “I’ve seen the journals. I haven’t been able to piece everything together, but I don’t think he was trying to cure a human illness.”
Memories flickered through Dorian’s mind.
His father, staring into his microscope, muttering about curses and cures.
Boxes of needles and syringes and tourniquets, fresh medical supplies arriving at Ravenswood nearly every day.
Blood draws—his fathers and his own—every crimson drop examined and measured and catalogued.
“From a strictly medical perspective,” Colin continued, “nothing I’ve seen in his notes points to any known human ailments—cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, HIV, any number of neurological diseases one might look for in these situations. His research protocols may be mysterious, but they don’t support your theory.”
“Are you certain?” Dorian asked.
“If I were a human doctor, I’d say yes. But my very existence is proof that science and medicine have a great many gaps.” Colin gave a thoughtful shrug. “Clearly there’s more to the journals than meets the eye. I need more time with them.”
“Of course,” Dorian said, not sure whether he should be relieved… or terrified. If his father wasn’t suffering from a human ailment, then what had killed him?
And what had he meant when he’d said it was genetic?
“What of the woman?” Malcolm asked, glancing up at the ceiling as if he could hear Charlotte’s very heartbeat. “She’s a distraction we can’t afford.”
“She’s more than that,” Gabriel said, amber liquid sloshing over the sides of his glass. “Dorian told her about us. That makes her a liability.”
“She broke the compulsion,” Dorian said. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Gabriel unleashed a bitter laugh. “You never have a choice, do you, brother? Everything that’s happened, all the darkness you’ve brought upon us, and it’s never your fault.”
Dorian seethed, but he didn’t argue the point. How could he? Gabriel may have been the only one ballsy enough to speak it aloud, but all of them were thinking it. Even, Dorian guessed, his dearest friend Aiden.
“She knows about us now,” he said calmly, “and she’s clearly a target for Duchanes, regardless of who gave the order. Beyond that, I… I care for her.”
It was another admission, another death, and Dorian didn’t have the courage to meet their eyes.
“She’s your responsibility,” Malcolm said.
“One I gladly accept.” Dorian rose from his chair and headed toward the door, done with his brothers, done stewing in his shame and guilt. Just before he made his final exit, he dropped a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder, still not meeting his eyes, but needing to say the words anyway. “I appreciated your assistance out there tonight. She would’ve died without it.”
“I didn’t do it for her.”
“That doesn’t change my gratitude, nor the fact that I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’m not doing this for your gratitude, either.” Gabriel jerked away from his touch. “When the dust settles and you’ve finally secured the bonded witch, I’m leaving. And I never, ever want to see you, hear you, or smell your traitorous blood again, your highness.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Don’t take another step, dickhead.” Charley stood in front of the bedroom door, stake at the ready.
“Dickhead?” Dorian glanced at her weapon, a smile quirking his lips. “I see we’re feeling rather confident now.”
“I swear on my father’s grave, Dorian Redthorne. I will stake you.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubts about your intentions, Buffy.”
“So you have a death wish?”
He strode toward her, stopping only when the pointy end of her makeshift stake was pressed against his sternum. “That depends. Are you strong enough to break through the bone and pierce the beating heart behind it?”
“Test me and let’s find out.”
Dorian raised his hands in mock surrender. “By all means—have a go. But Charlotte?” He grinned again, fangs descending before her eyes, sharp and terrifying in the moonlight. “Don’t miss.”
Her whole body trembled, their gazes locked in a fierce battle of wills, her stomach flip-flopping. Never before had she felt such an acute mix of terror and exhilaration. It rendered her speechless and paralyzed, lost to the magnetic pull of a dangerous monster she should’ve run from.
Should’ve killed.
You are my ocean tide, Dorian Redthorne, come to steal my soul…