Dorian felt pain surge through his torso. He looked down and instinctively reached for the dagger, but more than the pain, he could not believe what was happening.
This woman had stabbed him.
Charlotte.
The woman he had kept barely alive for his own purposes. The woman who had been reduced to skin and bones, barely capable of speaking coherently.
She was out. Free. And somehow, she had found the strength to try to murder him.
Before Dorian could grab the dagger, Charlotte seemed to draw strength from the madness consuming her. She yanked the blade free and drove it into his abdomen again.
Dorian gasped.
His eyes fell on the dagger. Something about it looked familiar. For several seconds, his mind struggled through the pain before the memory finally surfaced.
It was his dagger.
