I took off my chemise and slipped my nightgown over my breasts. “Since he is a half-giant, you do not suppose he would…eat me,do you?”
“Not if he has half a mind,” she replied with a smirk. “The enchantment works both ways—if you die, so does he. He will not hurt you without risking hisown death.”
Mother may have had a point, but I doubted the Beast was intelligent enough to weigh out the risks of his own mortality when it came to his primal instincts. I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and touched the band of the gold Ravenwood diadem. I took out the pins securing it to my head and handed the last family heirloomto Mother.
“I am not a Ravenwood anymore.” A millstone dropped in my stomach as I spoke. “No sense inkeeping this.”
The diadem passed from the hands of the last Ravenwood to its last Baroness. Mother ran her thumb over the raven’s beak and smiled softly at me. “You may have a different name, Serafina, but you are always a Ravenwood. You willsurvive this.”
She gave my palm an almost affectionate squeeze and then slipped up the stairs and out the door highabove me.
I took a deep breath. Leaving my tattered clothes in a pile on the floor, I peered around the bookshelf to spy on my new husband. The moonlight streaming through the windows illuminated Sir Bloodstone as he sat on the mattress and looked out onto thesea…while naked.
I shut my eyes and slammed my back into the leather spines of the books. No, not yet.Not yet.I raised up on my toes, ready to sprint up the stairs regardless of what the Duke had ordered.
Although, was he really naked? I never actually saw his…maybe I needed to look again. I wrapped my fingers around the corner of the bookcase and tooka peek.
No, he was not naked. He had some sort of pants on, but nothing else. He had taken off his boots and his blood-stained uniform and placed them both neatly on a chair near the mattress. I had seen multiple diagrams of nude men at Ashmore, but none of them had as much muscle as Sir Bloodstone. Moonlight crested the contours of his massive arms and the grooves aroundhis stomach.
I gulped, weighing my odds of getting through the night without having to be underneath all that muscle. I looked closer—he rested his face on his left hand as his drooping eyes looked out the window. Hopefully he was too tired to undertake any more activities forthe evening.
I stifled a yawn. The excruciating marriage enchantment had sapped the last remnants of my energy. I eyed the couch by the mattress and decided to stake my claim there for the night. My bare feet softly padded across the cold tile floor back to the center ofthe room.
Only when I sat on the couch did Sir Bloodstone even realize Iwas there.
“Good, you came back,” he said. “I’m starving.”
My heart skipped a beat. Just as I was about to make a run for the stairs, Sir Bloodstone held up the large loaf of bread in his right hand. He tore the loaf in half and offered mea portion.
He might have just intended to fatten me up to eat me later, but I was so hungry that I didnot care.
I took the piece of bread that was almost the size of my chest and nibbled on it. Sir Bloodstone finished his half in five bites and popped some of the grapes into his mouth. I expected him to say something, but he was too distracted by the food to pay me any attention. I savored the bites of bread in my mouth—my momentary salvationfrom conversation.
After I had eaten about half of my portion, I put the rest of the loaf down on the platter and poured myself a goblet of wine. The small sip I took tasted incredible, especially after that horrible potion Fraleigh madeus drink.
Maybe an offering of my own would keep him in a friendly mood. I had nothing else to work with, so it was wortha shot.
I put down my goblet and handed the rest of the bottle to Sir Bloodstone. He took the bottle in his fingers and eyed it with a smirk. “It will take a lot more than that to get medrunk, Ravenwood.”
I furrowed my brow. “Get you drunk? I just…the wine will wash out the taste of that magical water, or whateverit was.”
Were those really the first words I said to him? I sounded like I was fourteen again and awkwardly fumbling through my first conversation with Derrick.
Well, if I was still able to charm the heir to Lycaster after my initial ineptitude, surely I could do the same with the half-giant hero. Maybe I could even charm him into notharming me.
I rolled my shoulders back and smiled—time to start all over again with abigger puppet.
I put on a quizzical face and sweetly curled up on the couch. “You called me Ravenwood. Should I not be aBloodstone now?”
“You are,” he replied flatly, not taking his eyes off the wine bottle. “I just know you because ofyour family.”
I took another drink out of my goblet and cocked my head to feign curiosity. “Incredible, we were in neighboring provinces all our lives butnever met.”
Sir Bloodstone took a swig from the wine bottle, downing half the contents in one gulp. He pulled the bottle from his lips and stared at the floor. “Can’t imagine why. What father wouldn’t trip over himself to introduce his young daughter to someonelike me?”
He was at least self-aware, but I needed to learn more about him tooutplay him.
“Are you Baron Bloodstone’s son?”I asked.
