AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Still not processing why we need to meet with Larissa. I don’t want to leave Bec and I need to talk to Willow.” I see my grandmother in the living room and decide to take the long way around to the front of the house.
“You will. They abandoned a car. There’s apparently photos inside. Photos of our house.”
My blood runs cold.
“What?” I ask as I come around the corner just as Emmanuel steps out of the front door. He disconnects the call and tosses the phone to me.
“Scroll through the photos. That’s just a few, apparently. I’ll drive.”
I catch his phone before he slides into the driver’s seat of the Jaguar and open the photos. What I see there has me stopping. It’s a series of shots and they’re recent. I guess they’re from the day the Wildblood sisters came to visit Willow because there they all are as I scroll through. Whoever took the pictures must have been following them.
“Get in,” Emmanuel calls, leaning across the front seat to push the passenger side door open.
“What the hell?” I shake my head.
“There’s more on the scene. The back seat of the car is apparently littered with photos of one particular redhead, not all recent, but documenting fucking years.”
I get in, close my door and turn to him. “Christ.”
He starts the engine, revs it, puts the car into first gear as I scroll to the last photo—one of my wife.
My wife, floating naked in a swimming pool, her eyes closed.
“What the hell is this?”
“The pool is at their house, in the backyard.”
I zoom in on Willow’s face in the photo and what I see there has me horrified and sickened at once. Because someone has taken a pen or hell, could be the point of a dagger, and carved a cross into her forehead. It looks like it’s been done repeatedly, angrily. Across the top, written in furious red sharpie, are the words: for the wages of sin is death.
28
WILLOW
An entire day passes with no sign of Azrael. He doesn’t come to the room. He doesn’t bother to give me an update on Bec. When the housekeeper delivers my meals, she informs me she’s been instructed not to provide any information. Whether those are Salomé’s directives or my husband’s, I don’t know.
The only thing left to do is sit with my thoughts and come to grips with the harsh reality of my circumstances. Is this what’s to become of me? Will he keep me locked in this room like a prisoner until I die?
Tears fall, and I swipe them away, but they return until, eventually, I stop caring and let them go unchecked.
I pass the time texting my sisters and parents, staring out the window, and pacing the room. Fiona watches in concern, never far from my side. She senses my despair and tries to provide comfort, but it does little to soothe either of us.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do, Fi,” I whisper as I stare into her eyes.
She nudges my hand, showing me that I’m not alone, whatever it is that may come.
A little while later, I hear a car in the drive, and when I glance out the window, Azrael is climbing inside to join his brother. They’re going somewhere.
He hesitates before he closes the door, and I hold my breath, waiting for him to look up. To meet my gaze and show me that he hasn’t shut me out completely. But he just shakes his head and slams the door before the car disappears down the driveway.
Another wave of emotion catches me by the throat as I stand there, feeling his loss. The delicate threads of whatever connection we may have had are fraying, ripping, as if to prove the curse would always destroy us this way.
I fear this is only the beginning of the end.
I’m trapped in those thoughts, equally terrified and depressed, when the sound of the lock disengaging on the door startles me. I step back on instinct, knowing it can’t be the housekeeper. I’ve already had my dinner. Sure enough, when the door creaks open, it isn’t a friendly face staring back at me. It’s Salomé.
“What do you want?” I snap at her, eyes narrowing on the tome in her hands.
“You’ve made a grave mistake,” she informs me with a smug sense of satisfaction. “Did you really think you could undo the curse? That you could rewrite what has been done for centuries?”
“Leave me alone.” I turn to face the window again so she can’t see my vulnerability, though I’m sure she senses it. She wouldn’t be here otherwise.
A moment passes, but she doesn’t go. She allows the silence to bloom, filling up the space between us.
“I was foolish like you once,” she says. “I had to learn the hard way too. Azrael is made of greater things than you could ever even imagine. But he is still a man, and mortal men have their faults. He thought it would be best to lie to you, to keep you complacent until it was time. And I suppose it worked because I’ve seen the way you look at him. You are falling for him. Perhaps you already have. But I know you aren’t the sort of woman to hide from the truth. I think you’d rather know exactly what it is you’re facing. Exactly what he has planned for you.”
