During the Battle for New Orleans, Julian Mathieu Thibodaux’s life was changed forever. After being attacked by a British soldier he awoke to find his senses sharper—as sharp as his teeth at his unnatural craving for blood.
The War destroyed Jezebelle Winston’s life. First, Union soldiers killed her brother and father, then her distraught mother took her own life, leaving a young Jez alone and at the mercy of a brothel owner named Audie Jenks. Now all Jez wants to do is escape the life of a prostitute.
Matt has spent the last fifty years trying to come to grips with the evil that possessed him that day on the battlefield. He’s lost the love of his life, his way and his hope. He doesn’t know how to save himself but that won’t stop him from helping a desperate, frightened woman escape the vile man that’s held her helpless for more than eleven years.
The man in black sat in the cell opposite her. She felt the weight of his gaze as he studied her. It was nerve-wracking to be under such intense scrutiny. She moved to the battered rope cot and sat down.
“Why?” His voice, tinged with an unfamiliar accent, wrapped like warm velvet around her, urging her to look at him.
She glanced in his direction but couldn’t speak.
“Why?” he asked again.
Jez inhaled a deep, steadying breath. She made the decision and she’d see it through. “They would’ve hung you. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“You’re willing to swing in my place?”
The mental image made her quake, and her stomach twisted painfully. “It…was an accident.”
“It was no accident,” he growled. “That man murdered him.”
She shoved off the cot and stepped to the bars to face the stranger. “No one would believe me if I told them the truth. Audie…Audie… They just wouldn’t believe me.”
“Once your friend gets finished with you, you’re going to hang. If he’s so all powerful, like you fear he is, he’ll make it worse on you.”
“At least I’ll be free.”
“You’ll be dead.”
“Even death is a sort of freedom.”
He snorted. “Cheri, you are preaching to the converted.”
