11. Azrael
Strands of deep red hair curl over my pillow, and I take in the sight of her. Her expression is soft, sleepy, sated. She stretches like a cat, and I find my gaze moving over the length of her properly, slowly, wanting to have her again.
She arches her back, twisting away as she yawns.
I chuckle.
Her eyelids fly open.
“Sleepy?” I ask, smiling as I capture her wrists to keep her arms above her head. She’s on guard in an instant, and I loosen my grip. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
The look on her face says she doesn’t believe me, and I recall her words of earlier.
“I’m giving myself to you freely. All I’m asking is that you don’t… hurt me.”
I wonder what she was expecting, exactly. I can’t blame her for anticipating the worst.
“Relax, Willow,” I say and allow my gaze to drift from her face. She’s lovely, my bride, her body made as if to fit mine.
And she’s inked. I’m not sure why it surprises me, but I like it. I brush my knuckles over the valley between her breasts and her nipples tighten in response to my perusal.
Yes. Made for me, my bride.
I trace the phases of the moon inked into her pale skin, listening to her intake of breath as I do. When I slide my fingertips over her taut belly, down to the neat little triangle of darker red hair between her legs, she twists but doesn’t quite pull away. She gasps when I tug on those hairs. I move my fingers to the snake curving up her hip, trace the outline of its body. With a glance into her bright blue eyes, I return my attention to that mound of hair and open her legs to see the smear of semen and blood on her thighs, on my sheets.
A groan sounds from inside my chest. A sense of satisfaction to see my mark on her washes over me. To know she’s only ever been and will only ever be mine.
Releasing her arms, I bow my head over her belly.
“What are you doing?” she asks, half sitting up, her voice panicked. Her fingers grip handfuls of my hair as my tongue draws a line between her belly button and her sex, licking the length of her pussy, wanting to taste her. “Azrael!”
I do it again, taking my time and pushing her thighs apart to see her fully. She’s beautiful. Perfect. And her taste, her virgin blood, her come mixed with my own, fuck, it does things to me.
“Oh God!” Her hands turn to fists in my hair.
I look up to find her up on her elbows, her closed eyes, her hair wild over her shoulders. “Not God, but close,” I tell her, climbing up to my knees. I roll her slightly on her hip and smack her ass once more before getting out of the bed.
“Hey! Ow.” She turns to watch me, rubbing her ass cheek. My handprint is a prominent pink. Good. “You can’t start something and not finish it.” She sits up, gathers the blankets around herself.
“You already came without my permission. Besides, I wasn’t starting something. I simply wanted to know how you taste.” I turn my back, pull Isaiah’s ring off my finger, and open the nightstand drawer.
Willow gasps loudly.
I pause, glad she can’t see my face as my mouth draws into a line and my eyes narrow. I drop the ring into the drawer. It clatters, a solid, heavy weight, and when I shove the drawer closed, I hear it roll to the back.
“What the hell are those?”
I turn to her, knowing what she’s referring to: the marks on my shoulder blades. Abacus had them too, identical scar-like birthmarks on our backs. Emmanuel’s are fainter. “Birthmark,” I say flatly.
I don’t want to talk about them. Any time I’m reminded of their existence, I remember what Abacus had done to try to get rid of them. They’d driven him mad.
No. I stop myself. It wasn’t those that had driven him mad. The presence of the birthmark was just a prop. Other things had driven him past the point of no return.
Willow studies me, and I think I have to get better at hiding what I’m thinking. The look on her face makes me suspect she can read my mind.
At that thought, the migraine which I was too preoccupied to focus on seems to return with a vengeance. She watches me cross the room to where I left my jacket and swallow two more pills dry.
“Come,” I say. “I will wash you.”
“I can wash myself just fine. We call it a shower these days, by the way.”
“You have a smart mouth.” I gesture to the archway that leads to the bathroom.
“You take a lot of pills,” she retorts as she passes me into the bathroom.
I step on the edge of the blanket she’s draped around her and when it catches, she spins to face me, arms holding the blanket up.
“Off.”
She raises her eyebrows defiantly.
“I’ve already seen it all,” I taunt.
We have a brief standoff, but she lets the blanket drop. My heart hammers against my chest. I can’t help but look her over, that echo like the rattle of a snake sounding from inside my chest again. When I meet her gaze, she cocks her head and gives me a one-sided grin.
“Men are so easy.” She turns her back to walk into the bathroom.
I watch her ass, proving her right. “You’re very cocky for a girl who’s wearing my handprint all over her ass,” I say, catching up with her in one stride. I squeeze her ass cheek before stepping toward the large, round tub that the housekeeper has filled on my earlier instruction.
The bathroom itself is large, the walls the same deep emerald as the bedroom. Three arched iron-clad windows span almost the length of one wall. They overlook the forest behind the house, the glass tinted slightly for privacy. The tub was custom made for this space, the room of The Penitent—Abacus’s before mine. And before him, all those other Delacroix men, The Penitents who took the marked Wildblood woman and made a Sacrifice of her to Shemhazai.
In a way, it’s a sort of baptismal pool. I’m certain the original Delacroix who had it installed had just that in mind. I want to say that our thinking is more modern now, but I catch our reflection in the large antique, ornately framed window over the stone sink.
Willow Wildblood stands naked before me, taking in the oversized tub, her expression strange and her eyes too wide. I loom like an overgrown beast behind her. If that isn’t evidence that we haven’t come far at all, I don’t know what is.
“Come, Willow.” I hold my hand out to her.
She looks at the water, then at me. “What is it, holy water?”
I chuckle. “Why? Would it burn you if it were?”
“I didn’t combust when I stepped into the church, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
“You’ll be fine. Come.” She hesitates, which is strange. “It’s just a bathtub. You won’t combust. Or drown.”
She tries for a casual snort but the look in her eyes is a little like it was in that photograph with her sister, Raven, and I don’t think she realizes she’s wrapped her arms around herself protectively.
“What are you afraid of? I’m going to wash you, then we’re going to bed.”
She nods, tries for a smile and walks into the tub, bypassing my offered hand and moving to the opposite side. She cautiously lowers herself to a seat. She’s uncomfortable, to say the least. I follow her in, curious, because this is not the same girl as just a few moments ago, as the cocky one who challenged Hildebrand, or the one who glared at every witness during the marking ceremony.
Instinct tells me to move slowly, and I take the soap and loofah and lather it up. She watches. I wonder if she is aware how stiffly she’s sitting, how she’s clutching her hands, her arms locked.
“Turn around. I’ll do your back.”
She blinks. “What?” She starts twisting the ring which is, I suppose, meant to be some sort of weapon with its twin spiked points like a cat’s ears. On closer inspection, they’re pretty sharp. I think she can do some harm with the thing.
I hold up the loofah and soap. “I’ll start with your back.”
“Oh.” She stands up so abruptly that water splashes over the edges. She hurries toward the edge and climbs out. “I’m good, actually. Thanks.” She grabs a towel off the rack and wraps it around herself. Her hands aren’t quite steady. “Where are my things? My cat?”
“Sorry, your what?”
I climb out too, taking another towel and wrapping it around my hips.
“My cat.” She seems almost like herself again—almost, but not quite, and in a hurry to get away from me because she’s struggling to hold my gaze and her face is flushed.
That could be the heat of the water, I suppose, but I don’t think so. Her behavior is strange. Out of place. “You brought a cat?”
“Of course.”
“Hm. I have a dog. He’s quite large. Your cat?—”
“She won’t hurt him. Don’t worry. Unless he’s wicked to her of course.” Does she see the confusion on my face? Does she hear how backwards what she said is? “Where is she?”
“Well, I’ll expect you to sleep in my bed, but your things are here so I suppose...” I open the door that connects my room to a smaller one. It may have been used as a sitting room once upon a time, but it’s been converted for the Wildblood sacrifice. For Willow.
However long she’s here.
Willow doesn’t even look around, but when she hears the meow of the cat someone got past Grandmother, she rushes around me. Her relief is a palpable thing as she takes the black cat out of its carrier and hugs the creature to herself.
I watch her as she cradles it, kissing it like she hasn’t seen it in a hundred years. I clear my throat and she turns to me.
“Thanks. Good night. You can close the door behind you,” Willow says with a dismissive wave of one hand.
“Oh, I don’t think so. Leave the… creature. Come.”
“No, I don’t think so. I’ll sleep here.” She looks around the room where her suitcases have been set against a corner. There’s no bed, just a couch, some chairs, a vanity table, and books on a shelf. A smaller bathroom is attached to this room.
“You’ll sleep in my bed. If you want to keep the thing, you’ll do as I say and come to bed. Now. If not, I’ll be tempted to throw it out.”
The cat hisses at me as if it can understand.
“Her. She’s a she. Not an it. And she goes where I go. I’m not leaving her alone in this haunted house.”
“It’s not haunted,” I say, but it’s a lie. It is. It is a dark place, and as I think it, I look at her and all the vibrance and color she is. Something twists inside me for what I will do to this woman—barely a woman—and what I will take from her. “Fine. Bring it. Her. For tonight.” I stand aside and gesture for her to enter my bedroom again.
She considers. I expect her to argue, and I feel so fucking tired and my head hurts so fucking much that I don’t think I can take an argument. But then she surprises me. She nods once and carries the furball past me. The thing looks over her shoulder at me and I swear it sneers as Willow climbs into my side of the bed—my side—and tucks the damn cat in beside her.
I open my mouth to say something but take a deep breath in and close it again. I climb into bed instead and switch off the light. When I wrap an arm around my wife, who is facing away from me, that cat hisses and scratches her claws down the back of my hand. I draw it away, cursing, but I’m too tired for anything more tonight. I turn away from my wife and stare out into the darkness of the night, praying for oblivion to take me, to give me this reprieve. Just a few hours of peaceful sleep.