Blood Curse

1 Kidnapped

“Dear heaven,” Lady Ophelia Black murmured, as her fingers stroked the firm curve of the naked male bottom in front of her.

Even through her gloves she felt the smooth coolness of the Italian marble. The stone was spectacular. Flawless. Her fingers trembled a little more as they dipped into the shadowed indents of the statue’s haunches, then followed the upper swell of the buttocks to the tight valley between.

Ophelia had never seen an actual man without clothes. But whoever had modeled for this statue was male perfection. Before she’d seen this incredible work of art, she’d had no idea how beautiful a naked man’s bottom could be when it was made of firm muscle.

It was truly one of the most magnificent sculptures she’d ever seen.

She’d thought her own work was quite good—the dabbling she’d done with clay and more recently with stone. Faced with this homage to a ridiculously handsome man, she was humbled.

And nervous.

Ophelia flicked her tongue over her lower lip and looked around. Except for her and two dozen statues of naked men, the gallery was empty.

Fires burned in twin fireplaces, one at each end of the room, and several candles cast a golden glow around her. Warm, bright, and inviting, the room should have filled her with a sense of welcome.

But where was her hostess, Lady Cresthaven?

Why did she have the creepy sensation she was being watched?

This room in Lady Cresthaven’s home on Mount Street overlooked the rear of the house and a walled-in garden. The footman had referred to it as the gallery. He had told her Lady Cresthaven would be down momentarily.

But that had been at least a half hour ago.

Ophelia stopped stroking the beautiful marble piece in front of her. She paced between the pale, silent males. Resentment bubbled up. She was too nervous to really savor the remarkable . . . artwork surrounding her.

It had been a Herculean endeavor to sneak out of Mrs. Darkwell’s house tonight. She had locked her bedroom door from the inside, but Mrs. Darkwell had a key, and if Darky decided to check if Ophelia was in her bed, the woman would learn the truth. Over the last few weeks, Ophelia had crafted a key to unlock the bars on her window—one of the advantages of having sculpting tools. Scooting out onto the window ledge, she had climbed down the side of the house, using ivy and window ledges. Since she’d been kept locked up for years, she’d barely had the strength to hold on. Twice she’d almost fallen.

But she’d made it safely down the ivy. She had taken a huge risk to come. Heaven only knew how she would be punished for her escape if she were caught. How dare Lady Cresthaven keep her waiting?

Ophelia walked around the statue whose bottom she had touched.

It was only to marvel at the stunning quality of the marble and the remarkably fine depiction of muscle.

Merely artistic appreciation of a sculptor’s fine work.

That was all. Truly.

She was an innocent and she always would be. Touching statues of men was as close as she would ever be able to get to intimacy—

“Good evening.”

It was a smooth, deep, seductive drawl—a voice dipped in chocolate—and it almost made her jump out of her half-boots. It was a man’s voice.

One of the statues had come to life—

No, that was insane. They were marble. The voice had come from a real man. She was not alone after all . . . and her mysterious man had seen her grope a statue’s bottom.

Her cheeks heated like bread put in a roaring oven. She was so embarrassed. She didn’t want to face this man.

From somewhere in the middle of the sea of white marble people, the voice asked, “Do you like my friend’s collection, Lady Ophelia?”

“I—I thought I was alone.”

“You aren’t. Though I have to admit, you do have a gentle touch.”

Floor. Open. Now.

But the floor did not swallow her. A shadow moved between two white statues. No, not shadow. It was a gentleman with raven hair, large black eyes ringed with long, thick black lashes. As if he’d planned to disappear into the dark, the man wore a tailcoat of indigo, black trousers, and startlingly a shirt and waistcoat of black. From beneath a black beaver hat, a rugged face lit up with pleasure as he gazed at her, his lips quirking up in a hint of a smile.

Ophelia recognized him with shock, “Mr. Ravenhunt?”

“I hope you will forgive my ruse, my dear,” he said softly.

“Ruse? The invitation from Lady Cresthaven, you mean?”

“Yes, my dear. I sent it.”

She stared at his full, firm lips, mesmerized by the way his dimple winked and the lines at his mouth moved as he spoke. She felt strange inside—too hot, achy, as if she might be coming down with something. This happened every time she thought of Mr. Ravenhunt.

She’d met him on the very first afternoon she had escaped from Mrs. Darkwell’s School for Young Ladies—the house that was Ophelia’s prison, not a school. Swathed in a cloak with her hood pulled low to hide her face, she had crept into the museum just before it had closed.

It had been her dream to see the Elgin Marbles and the other Grecian statuary on display. She wasn’t allowed to go out at all.

And she had to go when it was quiet—she couldn’t risk accidentally touching an innocent museum-goer.

Then, just as the guard had informed her she only had a few minutes left, Mr. Ravenhunt had appeared. He’d struck up a conversation with her as they both studied a statue of an Olympian athlete crouched with a discus.

They had carefully avoided mentioning the athlete was naked.

Then Mr. Ravenhunt had walked her home—well, close to her home, so she could sneak through the mews, get in through the backyard, and climb up the back wall. It had been dark early, since it was still early spring.

It had been her first daring afternoon of freedom. She’d escaped more times, returning to the museum, and Mr. Ravenhunt had met her there almost each time.

Now, as she had to do each time she saw him, Ophelia took a step back. She could not let him get too close. She could hurt him—even kill him—if he touched her. She would do it even though she didn’t want to hurt him.

That was what her awful power did.

His black eyebrows lifted as she retreated. Then she bumped something hard. Mr. Ravenhunt looked as if he was fighting to smother a laugh.

Ophelia jerked around.

Oh, it figured, didn’t it? She had backed into a statue—into the front parts of a male statue, which had been depicted as aroused and erect. And very, very large.

Mr. Ravenhunt managed to quell his smile. “You are afraid of me?” he asked.

“No.” She wasn’t, actually. She was not afraid of what he would do to her. She was thoroughly terrified of what she might do to him.

A soft, kind look came to his eyes. They were absolutely black, so there was no difference between iris and pupil, which made them look striking and unusual. They glittered in the light. Framed by thick, long lashes, they were stunning.

She couldn’t tell him the truth about her wretched, cursed power. She couldn’t bear to watch him run away from her, too.

He bowed to her, an elegant bow that made her catch her breath.

“I shouldn’t have used a lie to bring you here,” he said. “I am sorry about that, but I had no choice. It was not as if I could send you a note inviting you to my home.”

“No,” she said again. He could not have sent a letter to her to ask to meet. It wasn’t done—not letters from unmarried gentlemen to unmarried ladies. Especially not to ladies who weren’t . . . normal and who were locked up to protect the world.

Ophelia wished she could think of more to say, other than parroting “no.” But in her head, a voice warned: Run, before you hurt him.

“Lady Cresthaven was willing to play along with my game,” he continued. “She met you at the museum per my instructions. Fortunately you came back as you had done every day.” He smiled once more. His lower lip was full and pouty. His mouth was more beautiful than those on any of the statues.

“I thought you would not be able to resist this collection, Lady Ophelia.” He stepped toward her.

She tore her longing gaze away from his mouth. She couldn’t kiss him. Or touch him. Or let him touch her.

“Thank you for thinking of me.” Ophelia winced. The words sounded prim. Daft.

But what could she do? Since the first moment she’d seen this man, she’d been obsessed by him. At night, she made sculptures of him with clay. She had made one of his whole body, and in that one, she’d tried to guess what he looked like without any clothes.

She’d done them quickly and sloppily, driven by a mad passion to make something that looked so much like Mr. Ravenhunt that she could pretend she was caressing him, the actual man.

But she had to destroy her sculptures before morning, before Mrs. Darkwell could see them.

“You are very quiet.” Ravenhunt’s brows dipped in worry.

His face looked much younger than he behaved. From his relaxed manner of speaking with her, his lighthearted teasing, he showed obvious experience with women. She had guessed he must be almost thirty. But here, in the brilliant light of the chandelier, she thought his face looked like that of a young man in his early twenties.

“Are you so angry with me?” he asked.

“No. It’s just—” Lying was so awkward, but it was all she could do. Why had he lured her here? What if he hoped for—for something like a kiss?

“I cannot . . . do anything,” she said. How awkward she sounded. She would scare him away by sounding like such a ninny.

“I assure you I had no intentions of seduction, Lady Ophelia.”

The day they’d met, she had given him her real name. It had been a very dangerous thing to do. But she had not spoken to a gentleman in years. Not since she had almost killed her fiancé just by kissing him. Not since she had been taken away to Mrs. Darkwell.

Mr. Ravenhunt took a step closer. He held out his hand, an invitation for touching.

“No!” she cried. She edged around the statue, no longer caring how embarrassed she should be to take cover behind a naked man with an enormous erect . . . thing. “You mustn’t touch me.”

Ravenhunt dipped his handsome head in acknowledgment. “You will notice I am wearing gloves, Lady Ophelia. I believe you can’t hurt me if I’m wearing gloves.”

Ophelia almost toppled over. “You know about me? How could you know? That’s impossible.” Not even her family—all the family she had remaining—knew the whole truth about her power. Only Mrs. Darkwell did.

Gloves did nothing. She could hurt him no matter what he wore.

He grinned, a rakish smile of pure amusement. “I know everything about you. A kidnapper should know everything he can about his victim. Especially one as dangerous as you, Lady Ophelia.”

Kidnapper? “What are you talking about?”

He surged forward, his long strides closing the short distance between them. Ophelia’s heart seemed to take off in flight, pushing hard against her chest. But her legs tarried before they caught up.

Stupid, stupid legs.

She took two stumbling steps, and something grabbed her from behind. It had to be his hand. She screamed. He jerked back, she almost fell, but he caught her and a white cloth clamped over her face.

His hand pressed it hard over her nose and mouth.

A scent like burned sugar filled her senses—a sickly, nauseating, sweet smell. Her legs wobbled beneath her. Desperate, she grasped Mr. Ravenhunt’s forearm. She would have better luck pushing a carriage. His arm didn’t budge.

She was touching him. She would kill him.

She shouldn’t care!

She tried not to breathe, but of course, she had to draw in some air. Dizziness took command of her head. Ophelia tried to scream, but that only drew in more of the disgusting smell.

Blackness swept her up, thick and enveloping, and she realized with heart-stopping panic she was falling to the floor . . .

“Is it done?”

The voice came to him from behind a small grille placed within a heavy oak door. There was no light in the room, but as a vampire, the former Marquis of Ravenhunt could easily see in the dark.

His mysterious client had arranged that they meet here, in an abandoned church near the docks. The overwhelming scent of old spices and dust clogged his nose, and he could easily scent the fetid odor of river water and the ditches of sewage.

As with their other meetings, Ravenhunt—or Raven as he now called himself—stood in the dark, gloomy, long unused nave. His client would remain in the chancel, hidden by the rood screen that separated the spaces. Raven was forbidden to enter that other space. He had never seen the man who had paid him to kidnap Lady Ophelia Black.

The man claimed to be a vampire also. Raven did not know if that was true. Definitely his client was not human. Raven would have smelled that on him.

Raven had gone through numerous battles. As a mortal, he had fought in the war against Napoleon, then traveled to the exotic East, where he’d fought in uprisings in Ceylon. In Ceylon he had been turned. Returning to England as a vampire, he had allowed his family to believe him dead. His cousin had become the marquis, and Raven lived in isolation, acting as a kind of mercenary.

After all, when a gentleman was cursed to live forever, he had to do something to pass the time.

Approached by his mysterious client, he had become intrigued by the man’s interest—and determination—to have Lady Ophelia. Raven had refused the commission, claiming he would not do it until he understood the man’s motivation. To get him to take the job, his client had been forced to reveal the young woman’s power.

The truth had annoyed Raven. She had the power to kill with a touch, and his “client” had at first refused to divulge it. So now he drawled lazily, “Yes, it’s done. I have her.”

“Good. Bring her—”

“I did not say I was going to give her up.”

Silence from behind the door. Then the man barked, “What?”

“Now that I have her, I intend to keep her.”

Raven turned abruptly and made his way through the dark, dank church. He passed pews coated with dust, and the various trappings of religious devotion, encrusted with dirt and hung with spider webs. His lip curled.

He had turned his back on his god a long time ago. When he had begun to be haunted by the faces of the men he’d killed. Every death had been justified. In the duels, he had defended his honor. In battle he had been fighting for king, country, God. So why was his soul ravaged by what he’d done? Why was he tearing himself apart over it?

He’d begun to understand that God did not reward a man for obedient service. God only increased the level of punishment.

So he’d turned his back on God, lost his soul, become a vampire. Even in this deserted, long-abandoned church he felt pain. His skin sizzled, beginning to burn beneath his clothes.

Scrambling footsteps told him his client was following. Chasing him. Driven out of hiding by the fact his lowly hired assassin was in control now and had changed the rules of the game.

Chuckling, Raven ran through the church so quickly everything became a formless blur. If his client was in truth a vampire, the man could follow. But the footsteps receded quickly. Bursting out into a dingy, dark street, Raven shifted shape. His clothes dropped from him as his body changed, as his skin turned to something sleeker. He was naked when large wings erupted from his back.

Unlike other vampires, he did not turn into a bat. He became a creature like a gargoyle, with a distorted human-like body. Instead of feet and hands, he possessed talons. His skin became a silvery black. Flapping his wings, he soared into the night sky.

To return to his lovely prisoner, Lady Ophelia.

Her mouth was as dry as linen and her throat ached.

Dizzy, Ophelia opened her eyes. But wherever she was, there was very little light and she couldn’t tell what surrounded her. Fear made her heart thunder. Her arms were stiff and sore, and she felt as if she’d rolled down a grassy hill—she ached all over. Softness was beneath her and silkiness touched the skin of her legs . . .

The bare skin of her legs.

Ophelia blinked, fighting to see in the dim light. A fire burned low in the grate—it was just coals—and the reddish glow barely illuminated anything. Hulking shapes loomed around her. It took minutes before she guessed one was a wardrobe, another was a vanity table, and two fluttering things that made her heart skip a beat were curtains.

Was she at home?

There was something wrong, but she couldn’t quite remember what it was . . .

She couldn’t remember coming back across town to Mrs. Darkwell’s supposed school or sneaking back into her room. How could she have forgotten all of that—?

She hadn’t come home! This wasn’t her room at Mrs. Darkwell’s.

The last thing she remembered was that sweet, horrible smell. The cloth pressed to her nose and the naked statues whirling in front of her eyes as she collapsed.

Mr. Ravenhunt must have brought her here. He had taken off her gown. She thought she was wearing only her shift. She couldn’t be certain.

How dare that wretched man do this!

Heavens, why had he done this? What did he want with her?

She wanted to get up, but now she felt dizzy again. She knew why she felt lost and confused. It was the aftermath of whatever he’d given her to make her faint.

She fought the woozy sense in her head. Summoning her strength, Ophelia tried to move her arms.

She pulled with all the force she could muster, but her arms would not obey.

She now realized her hands were numb. There was something around her wrists. Furrowing her brow, she made her fingers explore. She touched rope, silky rope. It looped around her wrists and stretched her arms behind her head.

She was tied up. Tied to a bed.

The prisoner of Mr. Ravenhunt.

“Fool. Idiot. Twit.” Enraged, she threw the words out. “You silly, silly fool. You believed every word he said. You thought—” She knew what she’d thought, but this she could not say aloud.

From the first moment they had met, she’d fancied he admired her. It had been so long since she had been near a man that the moment he had smiled at her, she had concocted a ludicrous fantasy about it.

Love, kindness, embraces, tenderness were not for her. She was a monster.

And she had allowed herself to be fooled by a monster worse than she.

What did he want from her? Was he a white slaver and she was to be shipped away to Arabia and put in a harem? Was he going to ransom her?

Her harsh, bitter laugh echoed in her quiet room.

Who would pay for her? No doubt Mrs. Darkwell would be happy to be rid of her.

Her family thought she was dead. Mrs. Darkwell had told her that. Her last living brother and her younger sister had been told that to protect them.

“Damnation!” Ophelia spat aloud. She pulled on the ropes, but all it did was drive the thick cord into her wrists. It hurt.

She knew there were men who assaulted women and forced sexual relations upon them. Was Ravenhunt a man like that?

If he was, he was an idiot. The minute he laid a hand on her, he was as good as dead.

He’d already touched her. He had done so to hold the cloth on her face and bring her here. He might be dead already.

With her weak fingers, she tried to find the knots at her wrists. Even though he would die if he touched her—might already be dead—she was afraid. He had worn gloves. So had others, who had then . . . died, but the touches had been longer. Some had just become very sick. What if he had not touched her long enough for her curse to work? What if he had not touched her very much to bring her here? He could have tossed her in a sack after all.

What if he just wanted to kill her?

He could do it safely with a pistol or a blade. He could hurt or murder her without touching her. After all, he knew what she was. What if he wanted to kill her because he thought she was evil?

Her power was evil. But she didn’t mean to hurt people. It was something she could not control. To protect other people from her power, she kept away from them.

Closing her eyes, Ophelia made a solemn vow. If she made it back alive to Mrs. Darkwell’s house, she would never leave it again. She would never break a rule again.

First she had to escape from Ravenhunt.

The fiend had tied her wrists and secured her bonds to the bedposts. She could reach the knots at her left wrist with her right hand, but no matter how much she tugged and clawed, she could not loosen the ropes.

Roaring in anger, Ophelia pulled wildly at them, but that only made them tighter. Her legs were free and she kicked and slammed the bed, but it didn’t help.

Tears burned in her eyes, but she wouldn’t cry. She had cried over so many people—people she had killed with her wretched power. She would not waste tears now. Exhausted from useless thrashing and fighting, she lay still.

A board creaked in the hallway.

She froze with fear. Was it Ravenhunt? Was he alive? Her heart galloped and she sucked in frantic breaths, her brain swamped by panic.

Think, Ophelia.

All she had to do was coerce Ravenhunt to touch her without his gloves and do it long enough for her curse to work on him.

Then what?

There might be other men here. Servants. She had to get past them, too—

The door creaked open.

“I assume you are awake now, Lady Ophelia?”

Deep, like the rumble of a lion, his masculine voice came to her. He was alive. He spoke mildly and softly, but in the tones of a gentleman who felt he was in charge. Smugness infused Mr. Ravenhunt’s every word.

He would not be smug for long. If he touched her long enough, her cursed power would affect him, and then he would pay for kidnapping her.

That thought banished fear. Instead, anger blazed in her heart as how evilly pleased with himself he sounded.

“Yes, I am awake, you foul blackguard.” She snapped the words at him, sounding utterly unlike herself. Usually her voice was so soft it could barely be heard. But her angry shout must have been heard by everyone in the house.

A dark shadow filled the doorway. With so little light, it was hard to distinguish him at first. It occurred to her he carried no candle or lamp and he had walked up a dark corridor to this room without trouble.

This must be his house. Apparently he knew it well.

He wore his dark clothing and his hair was black, so she could barely see him. “I demand that you untie me. Now!”

He shrugged. “I am considering it. I’m not sure which one I prefer.”

“What?”

“I cannot decide if I prefer having you tied to the bed in that erotically fetching way, or having you free so I can see what you would attempt to do to me.”

Nausea roiled in her belly. Erotically fetching?

She could make out a little more of him where he stood in the doorway. It was not easy to see him. She had to rest her cheek against the pillow to do it.

Mr. Ravenhunt’s shoulder was propped against the door frame, his arms folded over his chest. Relaxation exuded from him. Obviously, he wasn’t afraid that anyone else in the house—servants, for example—would learn she was his captive. They all must know.

She wanted to spit on him. But years with Mrs. Darkwell had taught her to pretend to be a docile prisoner, to bide her time.

But she had never been in such a vulnerable position in her life.

“Please untie me.” It took every ounce of control she possessed, but Ophelia spoke in the meekest voice she could.

“Not just yet, my dear. You look very appealing this way.”

The softness of his voice sent a shiver of terror down her spine. What did he want from her?

“Please . . . my arms ache. I’m frightened. Do you mean . . . to kill me?” There, she’d asked it.

“No, Lady Ophelia, I do not mean you any harm. In fact, I might be the closest thing to a savior you have. Now wait there. There is something I must do—to ensure your safety. Then I will be back.”

Ravenhunt drove his curricle into the stews that ran off Whitechapel High Street. He had no coachman, kept no servants.

He’d lived alone in his rented house on the outskirts of Mayfair ever since he’d returned to England. Lady Ophelia was the only other person who had been in it.

He slapped the reins sharply to set his two blacks galloping down the cobbled street. With expert touch, he veered around carts and slow carriages.

In London, none of the naïve and innocent mortals had any idea what monsters prowled their streets. Some vampires hunted the elegant, wider boulevards of Mayfair, or the dark streets surrounding the gentleman’s clubs and gaming hells. For the purpose of feeding, Ravenhunt now came here, to the maze of intertwined, narrow lanes, and rickety buildings packed with unfortunates.

When he’d first been a vampire, he’d been driven by lust and hunger. Too many of his victims had been fair maidens or voluptuous courtesans. He tried to forget their faces now. Those pretty faces wild with lust as he’d drunk their blood, then white with fear as they understood he was taking their lives along with their blood.

The prettiest ones he had changed into vampires, then abandoned.

He alighted from his carriage and tied the reins to a post. With his gray coat swinging around him, he strode deeper into the stews, passing through a narrow passage onto a dark, stinking lane.

“Slumming, Ravenhunt?”

“Feeding,” he answered brusquely. “I don’t hunt fragile maidens anymore, wolf. I like my prey bigger and stronger. Unlike you, I like my food with fight.”

The wolf was the Duke of Wolfcairn, prowling the stews in human form. As a human male, he was two inches taller than Ravenhunt. He was lean, with black hair and a shock of white-gray in it. The wolf’s laugh held the undercurrent of a growl. “I don’t prey on the weak or the fair either, Ravenhunt.”

Wolfcairn wore a gentleman’s attire and carried a gold-tipped walking stick. Ravenhunt dressed to disappear.

“I forgot. You aren’t Ravenhunt anymore. Gave that up to your young cousin. Too cowardly to keep up the ruse of mortality?”

Damn, he hated encountering Wolfcairn. The wolf liked to goad him—just as Wolfcairn liked to goad all the outcasts of the demon world who hunted here, in the depths of darkness, dirt, and poverty.

Raven was an outcast. He avoided all members of the demon world, like other vampires, wolf and dragon shifters, warlocks, satyrs.

There were many vampires in London. The vampire queens controlled different clans. There were even the “tamed” vampires who belonged to the Royal Society for the Investigation of Mysterious Phenomena.

Raven claimed no allegiance to any queen or any vampire clan.

In the shadows, Raven saw a warlock perform magic tricks with handkerchiefs and flowers to dazzle a large-bosomed ladybird who had been waiting on the street corner in a low-cut velvet dress.

Raven came here for blood, as did the wolf. Others, like the warlocks, came for sex.

“I am not cowardly,” he said coldly. “I gave up my life and title to protect someone I love. You are damned arrogant, Wolfcairn, and bloody stupid to keep your title. Unlike you, I don’t need a title to prove my power and superiority.”

“Indeed? What about a wager? A thousand pounds’ wager that, if we chase the same prey, I will catch it first.”

“I don’t have time tonight.”

“No time? We have eternity, man,” Wolfcairn pointed out.

“Someone is at my home, waiting for me.”

He remembered what Lady Ophelia had looked like. Stretched out on the bed and tied up.

Lovely, slender limbs. Her shift had been soft, clinging muslin that draped damned fetchingly over her pert, pretty breasts. Her golden hair had fallen from her pins, and it flowed around her in a halo of shimmering waves. Innocence shone in her big blue eyes.

Hades, it was like handing a six-year-old boy a cream cake and warning him not to eat it.

His cock had been going mad in his trousers, throbbing, pulsing, and bucking against the placket.

And her neck—

Pure temptation. Ivory skin, soft and perfect.

He had to get control of his hunger. He couldn’t bite her and feed from her. So he’d come here to do it instead.

“Why aren’t with her, you fool?” Wolfcairn asked. “Why hunt for prey in here when you have a delectable treat at home?”

“Never mind, wolf,” Raven growled. “I accept your wager.”

A woman’s sobs reached his ears. He saw the wolfman turn his head toward the sound and tip up his nose as if he was scenting.

“A female in distress?” Wolfcairn asked.

“Probably a dockyard brute abusing some poor, bedraggled street tart.”

“The perfect appetizer,” the duke said. “I will even give you a head start, vampire.”

“I don’t need favors from you,” Raven snapped darkly. “On the count of three.”

But by the time he’d reached two, Wolfcairn was already running for the dark alley. Screams now came from there.

Cursing, Raven ran, using his vampire strength to catch Wolfcairn. He couldn’t lose this meal. Not when he had to return to Lady Ophelia.

How could he have just left her here?

She should be thankful he was gone and he hadn’t hurt her. He was obviously mad. How could kidnapping her and tying her to a bed make him her savior?

Ophelia shut her eyes. Toad. Warty, smelly toad.

Calling him names did help to stave off fear.

Would he come back?

Her stomach rumbled. She had not eaten since her dinner at Mrs. Darkwell’s and she had not eaten much. She had been too caught up in the excitement of planning her escape from the house. No one had noticed her lack of appetite since she ate alone, of course, so she would not accidentally touch someone.

A mouth-watering aroma reached her nose.

Her tummy clenched in sheer pain. Dinner now seemed like it had been a century ago. But if those delicious smells were for her, she was not going to feel grateful, for heaven’s sake.

The only reason she was hungry was because some dangerous, villainous man was holding her prisoner. Out of pride and anger, she should refuse his food. But she had learned through her captivity with Mrs. Darkwell that she had to eat, even when her stomach was in knots with fear. Starving herself hardly helped in an escape.

Could she appeal to the servant bringing the food? Maybe convince whoever it was to free her?

Hope flared. Then the tiny flame of it went out as fast.

Ravenhunt strode into her room, carrying a tray laden with dishes. Sweet scents and savory aromas swirled around her.

Heavens, she hated this man.

It was a crime he was so handsome. That behind the high cheekbones, full lips, and dramatic black eyes lurked the heart of a madman.

He smiled. She stared up at him, mute with fury. How desperately she wanted to kick him. How could he smile kindly at her?

“Are you hungry?” he asked softly. He put the tray down on the vanity table.

“Yes,” Ophelia said, keeping her voice shaky and weak. “I am starving. I’m faint with hunger. Can you untie me so I can eat?” She hated sounding like such a weak ninny. Ravenhunt made her want to roar like a tigress and slash at him with claws.

“Sorry, love,” he answered gently, a rueful smile on his lips. “Then you would touch me, and we can’t have that.”

“You’ve already touched me,” she pointed out dryly. “It didn’t hurt you. And the gloves make no difference, usually, just so you know.”

“I do know that. I made certain I did not touch you for long. I wouldn’t want to risk what those pretty hands could do to me.”

“You touched me for quite a while, though, bringing me here. Normally that would make someone seriously ill. But you are—you are stronger. I want to know who you are! And how you know what I am!”

“I was hired to kidnap you, love, and I had to be fully warned about what you are.”

“Hired?” She squealed the word. “By whom? What madness is this? Who would want—?”

“Questions later,” he interrupted. “First you must eat. Afterward we will amuse ourselves.”

“For heaven’s sake, let me go.”

“I’m sorry, love, but I cannot. You will be here for a very long time. You can entertain yourself by asking questions. I have other ways of amusing myself.”

“How are you going to do that?” She hated him and his smugness.

He grinned. “By pleasuring you.”