Hunter's Prey: Bloodhounds, Book 2 (12 page)

“Why? Does it scare you so much to have power over me?”

He didn’t understand. He
couldn’t
. “You don’t know how many times I’ve heard it. That I use my feminine wiles as a weapon, a way to manipulate men. Make them do whatever I want.”

His growl filled the narrow staircase. “That’s
not
what I said, what either of us said. Hell, Satira hasn’t got a feminine wile to her name, but Wilder might as well be under her boot heel.”

“Then take it
back
, because I’m never going to tell you what to do, and I don’t want to be a way for others to blackmail you into good behavior.”

His grip eased slightly. “And if they threatened my life? You’d shrug and be relieved no one could use me to blackmail you into good behavior?”

Her thumping heart began to settle. “Don’t conflate the two. It isn’t the same. I can make the decision to protect you out of emotion and free will, but you—” She couldn’t say it, so she looked away.

Hunter bent closer, his breath falling against her ear. “But I don’t have a choice, because I have to protect the people I care about. There are worse fates.”

“You didn’t want it,” she reminded him in a whisper. “You didn’t want
me
. You stood upstairs and told me so yourself.”

“There’s a big wide world of want, Ophelia. I’m a man accustomed to controlling the hows and whens, maybe even the whys. But I care about you, and that’s a fact.”

Questioning his sincerity wasn’t an option while she was staring into his eyes. “I don’t want you to resent me, Hunter.”

The rough pad of his thumb touched her lower lip, and he smiled slowly. “I don’t resent you. I don’t rightly know what we are, or what we’ll be…but the parts that make me anxious will always be the how and the when. Not the who. Not you.”

His words washed over her, and she leaned her forehead against his. “Will you stay with me tonight?”

“I just might,” he allowed. “I’ll have you know, though, that if that ass upstairs keeps flirting with you, I’m going to hit him.”

Ophelia stroked Hunter’s jaw with a soft laugh. “I don’t even see him. Only you.”

“Good.” He leaned in and kissed the corner of her mouth. “Come back downstairs with me. Please. We need you to help us decide what to do.”

She really did need to see to supper, especially now that they’d have guests. “I have duties to attend, and every confidence in you and Nate. It will be fine.”

“If you say so,” he said. Then he eased his mouth to the right and kissed her, a kiss that started sweet and slow and devolved with her first gasp, until he had his fingers buried in her hair and his tongue sweeping past her lips.

Nate had surely heard everything, could hear them still, and yet it was difficult for Ophelia to care. She gripped Hunter’s shoulders, bit his lower lip and sighed shakily. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

Hunter smiled as he pulled back, then lifted a hand to smooth down her hair. “I’ll be upstairs soon.”

She climbed the stairs slowly, her mind whirling. One step at a time, that was all they could take. Whatever Emmett and Tobias really wanted, they could deal with it. One step at a time.

Chapter Nine

“More wine, gentlemen?”

Emmett covered his glass with a shake of his head. “No thank you, ma’am. I believe the room’s a bit wobbly as it is.”

Ophelia smiled and set the bottle down on the snowy tablecloth. “That’s not the wine, Emmett. It’s Caroline’s cooking. She’s truly gifted.”

“That she is,” Hunter agreed, his gaze drifting toward the clock on the sideboard. “We keep her plenty busy too, cooking for three bloodhounds.”

“She’s a real catch, then.” Tobias spoke genially, but all trace of flirtation had vanished from his voice and demeanor, much to Ophelia’s relief.

“Levi certainly never had such a capable, charming hostess as you during his tenure here, Miss Ophelia.” Emmett offered the words with an easy smile.

“Thank you, Mr. Bascomb.”

“Emmett, please.”

The door behind Ophelia creaked open, and Nate cleared his throat. “Satira did her best, Emmett, but Ada never did get the chance to teach her household management.”

Emmett froze, the smile slowly slipping from his face. “Fuck me. Nate?”

“The last few years have been kind to me, don’t you think?”

“That depends, I believe, on your definition of the word
kind
.” Emmett had gone a little green, but he shook his head sharply when Tobias half-rose and let his hand drift toward the weapon at his hip. “
No
, Toby. No.”

Hunter had rocked to his feet as well, his feral gaze fixed on Tobias. “Draw your gun under this roof and I’ll tear your damn hand off.”

“Hunter.” Ophelia reached for him.

He didn’t back down. “Emmett, are you here to do harm?”

The hound tossed his napkin on the table and rose slowly. “The Guild sent me because they found the circumstances of Nate’s supposed demise suspicious. They didn’t believe that Satira would return from the Deadlands without Nate’s body. Not if there was a chance…” He trailed off.

Nate crossed his arms over his chest. “A convenient time for the Guild to take note of Satira and her feelings. They ignored her readily enough for a decade.”

“Yes, they did.” Emmett’s gaze narrowed. “You’re not a vampire, though, are you? Not like any I’ve seen.”

It was Hunter who answered. “He wasn’t strong enough to survive the transformation from human to vampire, so they tried to save him with my blood. He’s…a little bit vampire and a little bit bloodhound.”

“I’m an abomination,” Nate supplied in an even voice. “And Ephraim’s successors would love to take me apart without giving me the mercy of a clean death first.”

It wasn’t a conversation suited to the bright formality of the dining room. Ophelia rose and put herself between Nate and the others. “Shall we retire from the table, gentlemen?”

Emmett watched them as Hunter joined her, sliding one tense arm around her waist. “I would like that. Toby here had planned to go out.”

Only a handful of reasons to venture out so late, and drinking and whoring were chief among them. “I may have some suggestions regarding establishments,” she offered.

Tobias laughed at that, and he dipped his head in a quick bow. “Don’t worry about me, ma’am. I always find my way.”

Hunter tensed at her side, but his words were relatively mild. “I’ll be making my evening patrol in an hour or so, if you don’t think you’ll be otherwise occupied.”

“By then?” He straightened and backed toward the door. “I certainly hope I will be.” He turned and left.

Emmett heaved a sigh. “I’d forgotten how damn cocky you new bastards could be.”

Nate chuckled. “Old friend, it’s not a condition that fades with time. Wilder makes my head ache. Still.”

The old hound barely smiled. “The Guild ordered me to bring you back, Nate. Now, I’m not going to. The way I see it, you’re not what they thought, and I don’t know if they’d rightly know what to do with you.”

Nate glanced to Hunter and Ophelia, his expression carefully controlled. “If the two of you don’t mind, I’d like to speak to Emmett in private. In my workroom, perhaps. We have a lot to discuss.”

Hunter glared over Ophelia’s head. “Is this another half-cooked scheme to get yourself out of our hair?”

“No.” Nate didn’t smile, didn’t even blink. “If Emmett wanted to take me back to the Guild, he wouldn’t waste time lying about it. He’s been a bloodhound longer than you’ve been alive, Hunter. You couldn’t stop him.”

The two men left, and Ophelia sagged against the back of a dining chair. “I wish Satira were here. She’d know how to better deal with this sort of…excitement.”

“Perhaps.” Hunter tightened his arm around her, drawing her back to rest against him. “Or perhaps she wouldn’t deal with it well at all. You know she doesn’t see clearly on the subject of Nate.”

Not regarding Guild representatives whose admitted orders were to drag her mentor back to New York. “You might be right.”

“Might be.” He spread his fingers wide on her abdomen, and his breath stirred the hair at the back of her neck. “I’d planned to woo you, you know. To take my time. I used to be charming, once upon a time.”

“The best-laid schemes,” she murmured, closing her eyes. “Did it matter that you didn’t have to woo me?”

“Says who?”

She turned in his arms and clutched at his shirt. “Look at me. I don’t want you to be charming. I want you to be
Hunter
.”

“I’m still learning who that is.” He cupped her cheek, his fingers smoothing over her brow. “You were right about the new moon. I’m more settled, now. I can think again, at least a little. You gave me a little bit of peace.”

If only she could give him more. “I’m glad.”

He took a step backward, tugging her with him. “I’m caught somewhere in between. Seems selfish, to try to make a woman care for a man who can’t promise he won’t change before next week.”

That brought her up short. “Is that really what worries you?”

“That I’m selfish? It’s not a worry, it’s a fact.”

He was moving in for a kiss. Ophelia laid her fingers over his mouth. “No, that you’re still changing. That I can’t know who you are.”

Blue eyes seemed dark now, or maybe it was only the way his brows swept down. “Do you?”

It had seemed so easy when they were tangled up together in Sylvie’s bed, so sure. They belonged to each other, and nothing could change that. Here, now, it didn’t seem simple at all.

I used to be charming, once upon a time.

Ophelia stiffened. “It isn’t about you at all, is it? It’s about me, about you thinking I’d rather have another man, no matter what I say.”

Hunter just stared at her. “Next month, I might
be
another man, whether you want it or not. Last month I could barely string two sentences together.”

“And that’s the core of a man, how articulate he is?”

A growl rattled free of his chest. “His thoughts? Hell yes. His instincts, his urges? I haven’t got full control of any of them. What in hell have you seen in me that
hasn’t
changed since we first met?”

“Your strength,” she told him firmly. “You still don’t understand what would have happened to so many other hounds in that cage, Hunter. If they’d suffered the way you have. If you didn’t have one hell of an indomitable will, you’d be dead.”

Hunter closed his eyes. “Maybe it’s easier to see from the outside, then.”

He seemed so tired, and Ophelia cradled his face between her hands. “Is that it, or is it me you doubt?”

“I doubt…” His jaw clenched under her fingers. “I doubt you sometimes. When you’re promising me I’m not as bad as I feel. But you’re the only one I don’t doubt all the time.”

The pain was fleeting and inconsequential in the face of her own uncertainty, kindled by his words. “We may be mated, but we have a long way to go, don’t we?”

“Maybe.” Hunter lifted a hand to cover hers and pressed a kiss to her palm. “Sometimes I’ll try too hard, and sometimes I’ll infuriate you. But I don’t want you to give up.”

It wasn’t an option, for so many reasons, one above all. “I don’t want to give up.”

“Because we’re mated.” His voice wrapped satisfaction around the word, and his eyes crinkled at the corners as he half-smiled. “We haven’t talked about it, you know. Not really. I was afraid to say the damn word.”

Letting him indulge whatever preconceptions had put that smile on his face was tempting, but ultimately weak. “It’s physical, Hunter. You’ll need me when the new moon comes, but beyond that… We wouldn’t even have to see each other if we didn’t want to.”

His smile didn’t fade. If anything, it grew. “Good.”

She couldn’t stop her own lips from curving into an answering smile. “That’s good?”

“Mm-hmm. New moons are magic.” He kissed the inside of her wrist, his tongue swiping over her pulse. “All the days in between, though, those are just you and me. No pretending I have to do this.”

The wet heat of the contact shivered through her. “You don’t have to…but I’d appreciate it very much if you didn’t stop.”

Eyes gleaming, he closed his teeth gently over the skin he’d just licked.

“So—” Her voice came out hoarse, so she cleared her throat. “Courting. I’ve changed my mind, you know. It sounds like a lovely idea.”

“That so?” He looked like he hadn’t bothered with a razor in a few days, and his stubble scraped her wrist as he worked his way back up to nip at the pad of her thumb. “I’ll have you know, Miss Ophelia, that any carriage rides we took would be unchaperoned and end with my hand under your skirts.”

“Does the fact that we’ve already seen each other naked make it any less a courtship?”

“No.” In one deft move he jerked her against him and half turned, leaving her back against the wall and one wrist pinned next to her head. “It’s a bloodhound courtship. We make our own rules.”

Words dissolved, leaving her with just a whimper to answer him. “Hunter.”

He nuzzled her neck, leaving feather-soft kisses in his wake. “Mmm?”

“Tell me,” she managed, driving her fingers into his hair. “Do your courtship rules preclude the nakedness I mentioned?”

“Only before patrol. I’ll never make it out the door.”

She kissed his earlobe. “But afterward is fine?”

“Mmm.” He licked her throat. “Might even say it’s preferred.”

Ophelia hummed softly—and bit his ear. “Then you’d better go see to your duties, yes?”

Hunter groaned and pushed away, retreating until his back hit the opposite wall. “I suppose it’s for the best. I need to make sure that asshole bloodhound’s not stirring up trouble.”

“And when you come back…” She took two sideways steps down the hall, keeping her gaze on him. “You know where to find me.”

“I’m already counting the minutes,” he promised. “The seconds.”

“So am I.” Ophelia turned for the stairs.

A courtship. No man had ever courted her before, though enough had tried. Some women of her acquaintance had encouraged such things, enjoyed the opportunity for companionship, but for her it had always been easier to quell such relationships. They led, necessarily, to expectations, and she was happier with no man having such a claim on her.