by Moira Rogers
“It could be a difficult time for you, this new moon.” She caught his hand and held it to her skin. “Will you let me be the one to help you?”
Blood pounded in his ears on its way from his brain to his cock. He was hard in the time it took to ease his hand away, and his voice rasped out, hoarse and rough. “No, ma’am. I don’t figure that’s a good idea.”
She didn’t argue, just lowered her gaze and nodded. “You’ll need someone, Hunter. There’s no avoiding that. Is there anything you’d prefer? A—a redhead, perhaps, or…several?”
He damn near choked. It was hard to imagine that his life had once been so easy, so trivial, that such an offer would have eased all his troubles. Now… “A woman I can’t hurt, if there is such a creature.”
“Hurt?” Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Honey, that isn’t what the new moon is about. It’s hunger, yes, but for a partner’s pleasure. Nothing else will satisfy it—certainly not hurting someone.”
“I’m not a usual bloodhound,” he reminded her gently. “I haven’t got much control. Or any real sense at all, when the hungers take me. I’m not right.”
“I don’t believe that.” She swallowed hard. “If you won’t take me, maybe Sylvie will do. She has plenty of experience, with hounds and men.”
He couldn’t stand there and politely discuss the woman he was meant to fuck in two weeks’ time, as if it was as harmless a topic of conversation as the weather or the price of grain. “I’ll do as Wilder thinks best. That’s my lot now, is it not?”
“No, actually, it isn’t.”
“It is until I’m trained.” It had to be, if the last three days were any indication of the violence he held inside him.
She took a deep breath, then another. “If you fight this, pretend you don’t need it like you need air, then you will hurt someone, Hunter. I just don’t know how to make you understand.”
“I’ll try.” A reckless promise, but he’d do anything to erase that pained look from her eyes. “I’ll think on it, Miss Ophelia. I promise.”
“That’s all I can ask.” She turned toward the staircase once again, but stopped. “Bear it in mind, what I said. What I offered.” Light footsteps carried her down the stairs.
Exhaustion and fear carried him to his suite, and remained his companions as he undressed and set about finding clean clothing. Bearing her offer in mind would be no hardship. The difficulty would be wiping it from his thoughts.
A year ago, he would have accepted it in a heartbeat. He’d accepted offers like it—dozens of them, spending coin on the most expensive women money could buy and enjoying their pleasures like he enjoyed everything—recklessly and foolishly.
That man was gone. Matthew Underwood, heir to a banker’s fortune, had died in a cage in the Deadlands. Died, along with every scrap of civilization and every hint of self-control he’d had in him, and those scraps and hints had been dear enough to begin with.
There was no going back. He was a monster now. A hunter, just as Nathaniel had named him.
She couldn’t become his prey.
Chapter Two
Ophelia sat on the sofa, her ankles crossed beneath her skirt and her hands folded primly in her lap as she waited for one of her oldest friends to enter the parlor.
Sylvie always made an entrance, and now was no exception. The tall brunette swept through the open doors, her silk robe sheer enough to show off a sapphire corset that had no doubt been imported from France at great expense.
She also held a bottle in each hand. “Bourbon or whiskey, love?”
“At ten o’clock in the morning?” Ophelia smiled as she shook her head. “No, thank you.”
Sylvie pouted as she settled on the opposite couch. “So proper. Brandy, perhaps? Or shall I have someone bring you tea?”
“I’m fine. I only came by to ask whether Ivy will be available to entertain Archer during the next new moon,” she explained. “I believe his preference is that she bring a friend. Or two.”
“You know I always welcome bloodhounds.” A purely mercenary grin of pleasure curled the brunette’s lips. “And not just because they’re enchantingly vigorous. The state the books were in when I inherited this place… I tell you, Ophelia, Old Miss Molly barely had two pennies to rub together. I need all the credits with the Bloodhound Guild I can get.”
The words gave Ophelia the courage to forge ahead. “What about a personal assignation? A new hound?”
“So the rumors are true, are they?” Sylvie leaned forward, eyes alight with curiosity. “You know the town’s been talking. The old hound dies, and three young, strong men replace him?”
“The rumors aren’t unfounded,” Ophelia admitted, “though the Guild isn’t happy about it. Hunter was made without their sanction or control.”
“Truly?” Clearly Sylvie thought the confirmation worthy of celebration, because she uncorked one bottle and took a healthy swig. “I thought the official word from the Guild is that no such thing is possible. Can you imagine the panic if that little bit of news got around?”
“I don’t really want to.” Nor did she want to imagine what the Guild would do if they discovered Nathaniel hadn’t died in the Deadlands, after all.
“Well.” Sitting back, her friend spread one arm across the back of her couch. “A new hound, one without a lick of training? How many new moons has he seen?”
Ophelia closed her eyes against a painful stab of sympathy. “I don’t know, exactly, but I could find out. What I do know is that he’s spent them alone. Caged.”
The crystal stopper slipped from Sylvie’s fingers to thump harmlessly on the soft cushion. “Oh, Ophelia. Is he—is he sane?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “He’s going to be fine. But I know he’s frightened of what this cycle will bring. I got the feeling he’d rather be locked up at the manor than come here or anywhere, but he doesn’t have that luxury.” Another month of deprivation could steal whatever chance he had left.
“No, no.” After another bracing sip from her bottle, Sylvie’s infamous nerves settled into place. “Of course I’ll see to him. You know I’ve seen my share of troubled bloodhounds.”
Ophelia clenched her hands until her knuckles ached. “I know. I would see to him myself, but he—rather rightly—believes it could be an unnecessary complication in our usual relationship.”
Both of Sylvie’s perfectly shaped brows swept up. “Is your relationship complicated?”
“I’m the house manager.” Ophelia shrugged. “Making sex a part of that could be a complication, yes. Especially this kind of sex.”
Sylvie stared at her.
Ophelia had to answer the unasked question in her friend’s eyes. “You know better, Sylvie. If Hunter and I were involved, I couldn’t send him here to you. He wouldn’t come.”
“No, I suppose he wouldn’t.” A nod. “I’ll take care of him. And have Ivy find a few adventurous girls to help her keep the other one occupied.”
“Thanks. I mean it.”
“Of course, love. I owe you everything, do I not?” Sylvie waved her arm, the silk sleeve of her robe rippling as her gesture took in the brothel beyond. “Your loan gave me my freedom. I wouldn’t have been suited to an early retirement.”
No, she wouldn’t. “You don’t have to twiddle your thumbs. You could get married. Things out here aren’t like back East, Sylvie. A lonely rancher mightn’t care what you used to do.”
“Or what I used to bed?” Her laugh held an edge, self-deprecation and desperation. “This is who I am, my dear. Drunk before getting dressed. You were always more suited to a gentle life than I was. I like money, and I don’t mind looking after the girls. At least I’ll do right by them, even if half of them don’t have the wits to lace a corset straight.”
Meaning they needed to be taken care of. Regardless of what people liked to think, a savvy woman could make her way in a frontier settlement or a big city, but the ones who weren’t so capable often quickly found themselves at the mercy of the strong�
��or unscrupulous. “They’re lucky to have you.”
Sylvie looked away. “I’m no saint. I’ll get rich on them, same as old Molly should have done. But look at you—a month out of the trade, and you’re already turning romantic. What are those hounds doing to you?”
“Nothing.” Ophelia cursed the blush that rose in her cheeks. “It’s—I forgot what it was like, Sylvie. Being in a place where people want and expect such different things from you. I’m starting to think it isn’t right for any of us to live our whole lives never being with a man who didn’t pay to have us.”
“Perhaps not. But what are the alternatives? Either they pay for sex, or we pay for security by having sex. I’m on my back either way, but at least my house is my own.”
“True.” For most of them, sex would always be a transaction of one sort or another, and her musings were indulgent, to say the least. “I’m thinking of leaving Iron Creek.”
That brought Sylvie’s head up fast enough to make the woman wobble tipsily. “You’re what?”
“There are plenty of places for an independent woman of means to settle.” Places where she hadn’t recently plied her trade.
Sylvie’s eyes narrowed, and even liquor couldn’t dull the shrewd edge. “Not so much of a change, is it? You’re still spending your days seeing to everyone else’s needs, but now they’re not so simply satisfied as a man who needs a good ride.”
“It’s exhausting in an entirely different way,” she admitted. “Sometimes it’s like I have five children.”
“Yes, I understand the feeling.” Rising, Sylvie deposited her liquor bottles on the low table and moved to her desk. “If you need money, I’m steady enough to start repaying what you lent me. And if you need a replacement, I have one or two girls who might be more suited to playing mother than they are to being lovers.”
“It would be a while. I have some things to do first.” Like arrange the estate so a stranger could run it, and make sure Satira wouldn’t worry herself to death over Nate.
Sylvie nodded, her fingers trailing over the edge of her desk. “I suppose you wouldn’t want to settle here. All the men worth chasing are already up at that manor.”
Wilder was blissfully in love with her best friend. Nate would always consider her more of an honorary daughter than anything, whereas Archer fought long and hard against anything resembling true emotion. Hunter just plain wished for the life he’d had before—a gentle one of luxury and privilege, judging from the way he acted.
Funny how much that last one bothered her.
Ophelia shook her head. “There’s nothing for me there. For you or one of your girls, perhaps, but not me.”
“Then I’ll miss you.” For Sylvie, who guarded her heart close for all her drunken indiscretions, it was a rare moment of honesty. “You bring something civilized and gracious to this hardscrabble town, Ophelia, at least for those who don’t have a place among the righteous. We’ll all miss you.”
If she met Sylvie’s sentiment with her own, they’d both end up crying. “I’m not gone yet, you know. And who knows—maybe I’ll fall in love with a lonely rancher and stay right here.”
“There’s always Charles.” Forced casualness wreathed the words. “He’s sweet enough, and lonely, too. Won’t come visit any of the girls, now that I’ve said I won’t be marrying him.”
And the one thing Sylvie wanted more than Charles was for him to be happy. “He’s a nice man. With no interest in me whatsoever.”
“Maybe we weren’t born to belong to human men.” Sylvie settled on the arm of the couch and raised both eyebrows. “Could you? You’ve been under a bloodhound. Could you settle for quiet, human lust when you’ve had a wild beast stalk your pleasure like the sweetest prey?”
There was only one answer, and Ophelia hoped it was true. “If I were in love, I wouldn’t hesitate. I don’t think there would be anything quiet about it, and it wouldn’t be settling.”
For an endless moment, Sylvie didn’t reply. Her eyes glittered with tears she seemed unwilling to shed, the silence between them filled with a thousand things so well understood, words were unnecessary. She and Sylvie had both known hard lives from young ages, lives stripped of ignorance and innocence, leaving only the simple truths of money and sexual power.
Somehow, in spite of it all, they’d both clung to hope. Ophelia could see that in Sylvie’s eyes as the woman slipped from her perch to tumble gracelessly on the couch. Flinging out one arm, she grasped the bourbon and laughed. “Let us drink to love, then. May you find it, as surely as that wide-eyed friend of yours has.”
Ophelia relented. “One glass. I’m supposed to be civilized now, you know.”
“Welcome to the borderlands, my sweet. Vampires could kill us at any moment, and even the polite women drink when no one can catch them.”
“Well, then.” She lifted her glass. “To polite drunkenness.”
“And love,” Sylvie reminded, hoisting her own glass high. “Two things that go delightfully together.”
“And love,” Ophelia echoed quietly. The only thing truly worth drinking to, if the poets and bards were to be believed.
She didn’t know.
“Miss Ophelia!” Hunter hopped past the last two steps and lengthened his strides, desperate to escape the manor before Archer tracked him down for another pummeling under the guise of training. He hurried across the front drive to where Ophelia stood with her satchel.
She took a deep breath and smiled. “Good morning, Hunter. How are you?”
“I’m feeling more myself.” A lie, but only a small one. The Lord only knew who he was or how he was supposed to feel. Belatedly, he snatched his hat from his head. “I thought you could use some help. With the shopping, I mean.”
She regarded him thoughtfully. “It would be a help, actually, if you could carry some of my parcels. That way I won’t have to wait to have them delivered.”
Relief eased some of the pressure in his chest, enough that he managed a smile. “Anything to enjoy a bit of time outside.”
“To get away from Archer for a while,” she corrected with an answering smile.
Either he was the most obvious man who’d ever lived, or he wasn’t the only one who found Archer to be an enormous pain in the ass. “That too, maybe.”
“I welcome the company.” She handed over the satchel as he fell into step beside her. “I spoke to Sylvie the other day.”
“Sylvie?” The name escaped his lips before he remembered who it belonged to—the woman who ran the brothel on the edge of town. Not a welcome topic in the least. “She’s your friend?”
“Yes. We’ve known one another for quite some time.”
“I see.” Hunter tightened his grip on the satchel and tried to find a conversational path that led away from the dangerous topic of whorehouses and the new moon. Instead his clumsy tongue tangled around the first words that popped into his head. “You worked together?”
“In a manner of speaking.” She cleared her throat. “Sylvie has agreed to personally see to your needs during the new moon.”
This conversation might be worse than letting Archer punch him in the face. “That’s kind of her,” he managed awkwardly, then cast about for something else to say. “Iron Creek’s bigger than I expected. There are more people here than I’ve ever seen crowded into a border town.”
“Because of the manor,” Ophelia explained. “Like it or not, this close to the border it’s safer to live in a town with a resident bloodhound or two.”
As soon as she said it, he felt like a fool for not making the connection. “Of course. People seem to be settling faster than they can build new homes.”
“Some merchants fare extremely well in towns such as this. The butcher, for instance.” She grinned and nodded toward the satchel Hunter carried. “We’ll be visiting Mr. Plotkin today to make an order. His business is positively thriving with three of you in town.”
His stomach rumbled at the thought of what the cook could do with a side of
beef. “Don’t suppose you’d mind stopping by the bakery. Satira bought streusel for Nate a few days back…” Hunter offered her a sheepish smile. “Seems like I’m hungry all the time.”
Ophelia tapped her temple. “I remember. It’s on my list.”
“I should have known better.” He offered her his arm as their steps brought them to the end of the drive and into the long street that ran the length of Iron Creek. “Where to?”
“The mercantile is closest, but if we head to the butcher shop first, we can put in our order and then…” She trailed off and smiled politely at someone behind him. “Good morning, Sheriff. Deputy.”
Virgil McCutcheon, sheriff of Iron Creek, was a rugged former cowboy who made the girls blush when he threw his too-smarmy smile at them—which he did often enough to give Archer stiff competition.
As Hunter turned, the man swept off his hat and bowed low to Ophelia, that teasing grin fixed firmly in place. “Miss Ophelia, always a pleasure.”
“Likewise.” She turned her attention to the other man. “Deputy Miller, how are you settling in?”
“Fine, ma’am. Just fine.”
“Good.”
McCutcheon was watching Ophelia, gaze too intent. It still unsettled Hunter, sometimes, that he could concentrate and hear the way the sheriff’s heart thudded faster than the deputy’s. Virgil wanted Ophelia, for all he tried to hide it, and Hunter found himself easing closer to her. “Do you need anything, Sheriff? From the bloodhounds, I mean. Any trouble we need to see to?”
“Not at the moment,” Virgil drawled, glancing to the man at his left. “All’s peaceful in Iron Creek for a change, eh, Deputy?”
“Haven’t really been here long enough to say for certain, sir,” the deputy answered. “Sure is quiet, though.”
“Just as we like it.” Virgil bowed again and dropped his hat back on his head. “If you two will pardon me, I was showing Deputy Miller here the lay of the land. If you need anything, Miss Ophelia, you just shout at us.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Sheriff.”
