by Moira Rogers
“For a little bit.” He nuzzled her palm, enjoying the brush of her fingers over his cheek. “You should sleep.”
Her laugh was husky, low. “Not if you’re going to be kissing me all over.”
Smoothing his hand down her body, he slipped it between her legs and cupped her gently. “Everywhere but here,” he murmured, stroking his fingertips over her cunt. “That’s for after you’ve rested.”
She rolled and stretched like a lazy cat, arching her hips against his hand. “Or you could climb in the bath with me. I could use a hot soak.”
Water, yes. Water was good. It trickled over her skin, beaded and twinkled in the firefly lights of the bathroom. There were mirrors there too, mirrors that would reflect her into dizzying infinity.
Endless Ophelia. Man and beast approved. “Bath, then.”
Her arms wrapped around his neck. “Carry me?”
“Of course.” He would have anyway, and she must have known it. But he still gathered her up against his chest before kicking free of the tangled covers. She belonged there, against his chest.
Their chest.
His chest—him. Not monster or Matthew, but something in between. Hunter. “Do you need to eat first?”
“I did—earlier. You were out cold,” she murmured. “Did you sleep well?”
He paused in the middle of the room, toes digging into the plush carpet. He barely recognized the room, though he’d spent nearly two days in it. Everything felt foggy, blurry, everything except the woman in his arms. “I slept?”
“For a while.” She traced lazy circles on his shoulder. “Not long enough.”
Odd. So odd, to feel almost human but utterly disconnected. “I don’t remember it.”
“You will, honey. Don’t worry.”
He eased toward the bathroom, setting Ophelia down to perch on the edge of the wide sunken bathtub before frowning at the confusing array of switches and dials next to the door. “This is more complicated than the mansion.”
“Here, let me.” She started to rise, then sank back to the polished porcelain. “Or not.”
Concern twisted through him, but the darker parts, the beastly parts, scoffed. The bloodhound knew his mate, knew her to be wobbly-kneed from a thorough loving, not injured or overtaxed.
Satisfied pride replaced worry, and he fiddled with the panel of levers and knobs until he’d lowered the bright overhead light and replaced it with the glow from dozens of smaller bits of glass that twinkled like miniature stars and reflected a hundred times over in the mirrors.
He could make love to her beneath those shining stars.
“That’s beautiful, Hunter.” The water began to run, and he turned to find Ophelia twisting up her hair.
Not as beautiful as she was. He didn’t realize he’d said the words out loud until she tilted her head, smiled at him and held out her arms.
He went to her. He’d always go to her. Always take her.
Always.
Chapter Six
He was sleeping—really sleeping—when the sun rose on the third day.
Ophelia lay in bed, her head pillowed on Hunter’s stomach, and watched the light filter in through the sheer drapes. Weak at first, gray and desperate, slowly growing stronger.
When she finally had to turn her face from the morning glare, she crawled up his body and kissed him. “Hunter?”
He answered with a muffled grunt, but one arm snaked around her, dragging her tight to his chest. “Sleep,” he muttered.
So tempting, but they’d left Nate alone for three days, and the others could be on their way home already. “If you’re able, we need to get back to the estate.”
A frown creased the spot between his eyebrows. “Where are we?”
It would take him a little while to orient himself. “Sylvie’s place. We’ve been here for three days.”
His eyes drifted open. Blue, so blue, but sane today. Wary, even as they focused on her face. He studied her in silence, confusion in every line of his expression.
Then his gaze dropped to her throat, and he bit off a curse and scrambled back from her so fast he almost spilled from the bed. “You need a doctor.”
“No, I don’t,” she countered firmly. “I need a few days for the nips and bites to heal, perhaps, and a few days to be able to sit a horse again, but I’m fine. I feel—” Sated. Loved. Worried about what came next. “I’m fine.”
His breathing sped up. If anything, he looked more worried. “I did all of that to you?”
She had to tell him the truth—now. “You wouldn’t take Sylvie. You wanted me.”
Hunter lifted one hand, but it hovered between them, as if he didn’t dare touch her. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” Ophelia caught his hand and pressed it to her cheek. “I wanted you.”
He cupped her face for a moment, heartbreakingly gentle, then touched her chin and throat. Traced a fingertip around her ear and down, across her collarbone. The sensitive spots he’d marked with his teeth made him wince, and the bruises around her wrists made his jaw clench. “This is not…” He swallowed hard. “This is not how I wanted to be with you.”
It strayed too close to what she’d feared, and she closed her eyes. “Can we talk about it later? We need to get back.”
“Ophelia…” He touched her face again. “Thank you for coming to me.”
She couldn’t take it anymore, him acting as though she’d endangered herself to do him a thankless favor, so she turned away. “Stop. I came here as much for myself as for you.”
Behind her, his footsteps traced his path as he began to gather up his scattered clothing. “Did I hurt your friend?” he asked finally. “I don’t remember… I don’t remember seeing her at all.”
“Sylvie’s fine.” A strange numbness descended, wrapping around Ophelia like a blanket. She’d worried about this, but she hadn’t truly believed Hunter could be so divided within himself.
Cloth rustled as he dressed. “Tell me what I can do. Tell me what you need.”
There was only one question that mattered, dragged free by his pleading tone as she turned to face him again. “Do you wish you hadn’t touched me?”
“No.” He clenched his fists and stared at the floor. “If you didn’t suffer for it, I don’t regret it.”
“Then look at me.”
After a tense moment, he did.
She studied his face, his eyes. She’d seen such need burning there. It still lingered, only now that desire was tempered by a desperate need to flee.
What was there to say?
Ophelia rose on shaking legs. “I don’t regret it, either. If nothing else, Hunter, please believe that.”
He started forward, then checked his stride and stayed just out of arm’s reach. “Will you let me help you back to the manor?”
It hurt that he had to ask. “I would appreciate it.”
Wilder Harding didn’t look like a man who belonged behind a desk, but somehow the solid slab of mahogany with its lovingly polished telegraph receiver only added to the senior bloodhound’s forbidding demeanor.
Hunter didn’t bother with pleasantries. The last few times Wilder had summoned him to report, he’d responded with care and precision, clutching at the scraps of Matthew Underwood as if civilized behavior were a jacket he could shrug back into, if he just wiggled enough.
Any illusions had been well and truly stripped away. Hunter slumped into the chair on the opposite side of Wilder’s desk and crossed his arms over his chest, unconcerned with the defensiveness of the gesture. He was defensive, exhausted and unsettled and decidedly unhappy now that Archer was back in residence.
Wilder yawned as Archer finished his loving and probably embellished account of how he’d spent the last three days. “Fine, fine. Go see if Caroline needs you to do something in the kitchen. Otherwise, keep close.”
Archer saluted, his good mood more than apparent. “Yes, sir. I’ll get on it.”
When he’d gone, Wilder turned his scrutiny to Hu
nter. “What about you?”
Hunter sank lower in his chair. “I made a fucking mess.”
Wilder raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, what the hell does that mean?”
Perversely, he was looking forward to being yelled at. Punishment would be preferable to Ophelia’s quiet acceptance that couldn’t conceal her hurt and sadness. “Hell if I know. I lost my mind and woke up in the madam’s bed with Ophelia under me. She swears I didn’t hurt her, but she looks—” Hell, she’d looked like he’d unleashed a month’s worth of desire on her in three scant days. And not the polite kind of desires, either.
“You spent the new moon with Ophelia?”
“Not on purpose!”
“All right!” Wilder held up both hands before rubbing his temples. “You don’t know how she ended up with you instead of Sylvie?”
Hunter barely checked his growl. “I…remember her. I remember her, and that’s all I remember, until yesterday afternoon. Even that’s fuzzy.”
“Well, hell.” The other bloodhound scrubbed a hand over his face. “She says she’s fine?”
“She doesn’t look fine,” Hunter all but snarled. Maybe aggression would bring the anger he so desperately needed. The censure. “I was beyond control or reason, and she has the bruises to show for it.”
“Obviously beyond control, if you can’t even remember how you climbed on top of her.”
Fragments of memory came to him in a jumble. Exploding out of the bathroom to kiss her. Pulling at her hair as she took him in her mouth. Her body under his, sweet and soft, even when he rode her hard. “How much should I remember?”
“Your first new moon out of a cage?” Wilder shook his head. “Not much, I’d wager. Why don’t you believe her? Ophelia’s had hounds before.”
Rage. Blind, blood-pounding fury. Wood snapped as pain shot through him, and Hunter stared at the detached arm of his chair for several confused moments before he realized he’d torn it free without meaning to. “Oh, hell. This can’t keep happening.”
“No, it cannot.” The senior hound sat back with a sigh. “So. You’ve taken a mate.”
The words chilled him. “Then I need to untake her, because I didn’t give her much choice in the matter, and she doesn’t want to look at me.”
Wilder shook his head. “Sorry, but that’s not how it works. Not remotely.”
The temptation to smash the arm of the chair into the wall just to hear something shatter almost overwhelmed him. Hunter let it drop to the floor and took a deep breath. “Then how does it work?”
Wilder rose and rounded the desk to sit on the edge of it. “You find a way, that’s how. You give her flowers or pretty words or whatever she wants, because you’ll be hurting without her.”
His blind panic receded a little. “You think I should court her?”
“Doesn’t that seem the simplest route of action?”
Perhaps. If she wasn’t terrified or disgusted, if she hadn’t come to him out of responsibility or pity or loyalty. If only he could trust the fractured memories, that other part of him whispering in smug satisfaction that they’d pleased her well and thoroughly.
Maybe he had. Or maybe it was a kind lie she’d given him, one he needed to believe. “Do you remember what happens?”
Wilder seemed to consider that. “Mostly. Sometimes it’s a blur, though, and I only remember later.”
Not something any woman would want to hear. How could he tell her he didn’t remember without making it seem as if she hadn’t mattered? How could he court her without admitting to the gaps in his memory? “Maybe I’ll remember, after a day or two.”
“Like as not, you will,” Wilder agreed. “In the meantime, try not to punish yourself too much. I know Ophelia, and she’s a practical woman, above all else.”
Hunter wasn’t sure what comfort he was meant to take from that. “Practical about what?”
“About what it means to bed a hound. You didn’t shock her.”
There was that anger again. The pain at the idea of another bloodhound putting his hands on her. “I don’t even know if I shocked myself, so I don’t really see how you could know what I did and who was shocked.”
Wilder rolled his eyes. “You’re not the first cowboy at the rodeo, kid. I know you think your situation is unique, but hellfire. If she can still walk on her own and didn’t crack your skull with a flatiron to get you off her, you did all right.”
Hunter stared at him. Stared long past the point where the words had sunk in, stared until hysterical, relieved laughter rumbled up through his chest and escaped as one barked laugh. “You’re telling me to man up?”
But Wilder didn’t smile. “I’m telling you Ophelia doesn’t deserve to have you make her feel bad about the last few days.”
That doused his humor, drowned it with the reminder that he’d already hurt her once with his fear and again with his lack of memory. “I understand.”
“Good. Now get out.”
Hunter blinked. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.” Wilder nodded to the door. “Go make yourself useful. Check on Nate again, and it wouldn’t hurt to turn a little of your attention Ophelia’s way.”
Since Wilder seemed uninterested in further conversation, Hunter rose and stepped over the discarded chair leg. He’d probably have to find someone to fix the damn thing, or learn how to fix it himself.
One more item to add to the list of broken things to be mended.
Ophelia had no idea how long it took to dispense with her duties. She checked on the staff, on Nate, and made sure their supplies would hold out for another day without shopping. Then she climbed the stairs, locked herself in her room and slid into the tub.
A few minutes later, a quiet knock shook the door. “Ophelia? Can I come in?”
She groaned and slipped deeper in the steaming water.
The door rattled this time, and Satira’s voice lifted. “I’m not going to go away until I see that you’re all right. Nate told me everything.”
He hadn’t said anything, but of course he’d known. His senses were as sharp as any hound’s or vampire’s. Ophelia raised her voice. “I’m fine.”
“I’m still coming in.” Satira cursed as the doorknob rattled again. Then metal scraped against metal, and the lock gave with a soft pop. Her friend slipped into the bedroom and closed the door with a thud. “Nate says Hunter hurt you.”
“Bullshit.” Water cascaded over the edge of the tub as Ophelia straightened. “He didn’t hurt me, for Christ’s sake. I’m not new. I’ve done this before.”
Satira twisted, locked the door and crossed the bedroom to stand in the open door of the washroom. Her gaze drifted over Ophelia’s neck and shoulders, then snapped up to meet hers. “Well, he wasn’t feeling subtle, was he?”
“I don’t look any worse than you.” Which wasn’t precisely true. Hunter had marked her over and over, almost desperately, as if each mark meant she belonged to him that much more.
“You look how I looked the first time,” Satira corrected, perching on the edge of the tub. “Of course, I didn’t know enough at that point to realize what it meant. How he felt about me.”
Ophelia swallowed a grumble and brushed her damp hair out of her eyes. “Hunter made a scene at Sylvie’s. Locked himself in the bathroom and wouldn’t come out until I arrived.”
“Oh dear.” Satira smoothed a hand over Ophelia’s head with a sigh. “Is that…? Well, it must be rare. I’ve never heard of it happening, but I don’t know as much about bloodhounds as you do.”
“It doesn’t happen often.” For need and opportunity to converge so perfectly… “He’s chosen me, and I don’t know if he realizes it.”
Satira’s fingers hesitated. “Chosen you…permanently?”
Ophelia covered her eyes with wet hands and struggled to hold back a hysterical laugh. “If I denied him now, it could kill him. And that’s what he’ll tell himself, Tira, that I have no choice. That I’d take him even if I wanted to get away, just to spare
him pain.”
“Oh, Ophelia.” Satira wrapped her arm around Ophelia’s shoulders in an unsteady hug. “Come on. Come out of the tub before I fall in there with you. We can talk and figure out what to do.”
She tried to steady herself by dragging in a harsh breath, but it only intensified her panic. “There isn’t anything to do. You don’t understand. You didn’t see him. He’ll leave.”
“Shh, darling.” Satira disappeared into the bedroom only to return with a soft, plush robe. “Here, climb out. You need to have a good cry or a good scream.”
Ophelia had tracked water all over the floor, but she didn’t care. She let Satira wrap the robe around her and guide her into the bedroom. “I want to cry and scream. It was my only option, and now he’ll never believe I wanted him.”
Satira made a soothing noise as she coaxed her to sit, then fetched a comb from the vanity. “If there’s one thing I know about bloodhounds, it’s that they’re all crippled by ego. It’s a tangle now, but it might be easier than you think to convince him he’s devastating and irresistible.”
Ophelia stared into the mirror, at the dark circles under her eyes and the ravaged skin of her throat and shoulders. “I would tend to agree, except I don’t think that will work with Hunter. He’s so horrified that this happened, and so angry at himself for what he’s become.”
“Hmm.” Satira drew the comb carefully through Ophelia’s hair, her brows furrowed with the sort of intense concentration she usually turned to her work. “I suppose I don’t know who or what he was before the vampires took him. Perhaps someone accustomed to proper women?”
Matthew. His name. She knew precious little more than that. He had manners, as uncomfortable as they seemed for him now, and he behaved as though he’d had money. But not even instinct could have accounted for some of the things he’d done, the ways he’d known to touch her.
“I think he was mostly a proper sort of man,” Ophelia murmured with a blush, “but certainly not accustomed to proper women.”
“Oh.” Satira ducked her head. “Well, then. It could be he needs a bit of time to get his head on straight. And if he doesn’t, maybe one of us can smack it into place.”
