“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.