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For a moment, all tenderness is replaced by rage—rage at Caleb Church, at what he did to her. What else has he done that I don’t know about? What else is she keeping bottled up inside her?
She notices the shift in me, her eyes widening as her gaze moves from my clenched jaw to my fisted hands. I force myself to breathe, to relax. I don’t want to frighten her any more than she already has been and probably still is. She knows Caleb is still out there.
But there’s more to it than that. Caleb is an external threat. She has seen the Book of Tithes. It’s what sent her running away from me.
“You’re safe now,” I say, my voice strange, the words awkward.
She looks up at me, her eyebrows coming together. She shakes her head on an exhale. “How am I safe?”
“He won’t come near you again. I won’t allow it.”
“Because you’ll keep me locked up in that house?”
“What? No.” I shake my head. “I’m going to find him and I’m going to kill him.”
She studies me and I wonder what I look like. Most of my bruising has healed, the few hits the brothers got in barely causing any damage to me at all. Her, though… what one man did to her, I’m afraid has caused much more harm than what I can see with my eyes.
“What about you?” she asks.
What about me? It’s a fair question after she read the detailed account of what all the Delacroix men have done to their Wildblood women.
I sigh, then sit down. I take her hand, and when she tries to pull it away, I don’t let her. I remember how she squeezed mine on the helicopter. I didn’t imagine it. She was telling me she heard me. She was comforted by me. I have to hold on to that. I have to believe it.
“What you read in that book, I wouldn’t do to you, Willow.”
Shadowed blue eyes settle on me. “You signed your name. I saw it.”
“Before. That was before.” She turns away. “No. Look at me.” Keeping her hand in one of mine, I touch her cheek. “Look at me, Willow.” She does, and I can see she’s biting the inside of her cheek and those tears are going to spill over any second. I wish she’d let them go. “I came for you. I came the instant I heard. Those men, I made them pay. And I’d do it all over again. I’d beat the life out of them all over again for touching you. For hurting you. Do you understand?”
A few tears fall and she sucks her lower lip between her teeth.
I brush my thumb over a cut on her cheek that required stitches. “That book is what I was meant to do before I ever knew you. But I made you a promise. One you forgot or threw away—”
“That book, Azrael—"
“One you forgot or threw away,” I repeat more firmly. “My words did not carry the weight I thought they did with you.”
“That’s not—”
“But I meant what I said. I will not let harm come to you, and I will do you no harm.” I let my hand drift from her cheek to her still-flat belly. “I will let no harm come to either of you. I swear it. Do you hear me? Do you understand?”
Her answer is that breaking of the dam as tears flood her face. It’s something, right?
“I thought I lost you,” I say. “When I saw you lying in that cabin, I thought I was too late.” Does she hear the truth in my words? Does she feel the pain in them? “And I vowed to find a way out for you if only you’d live. And now, I have more reason than ever.” I splay my hand over the span of her belly. She looks down at it but doesn’t touch it, doesn’t lay her hand over mine. I want her to, though. Badly. But I know it will take more than words to convince her. “Tomorrow, I will bring you home. Tomorrow, I will begin to prove myself to you.”
“What about Salomé? When she finds out I’m pregnant—”
A soft knock on the door interrupts us, saving her from continuing. Saving me from having to answer. We both know how Salomé will take the news.
I stand as Bec enters, with Willow’s family behind her. I catch a glimpse of Emmanuel and Raven talking quietly. I see the moment she tells him the news. His eyebrows rise high on his forehead and his eyes meet mine, his mouth hanging open, just before the door quietly closes.
“Willow,” Bec says, coming inside.
Willow musters a smile as Bec hugs her gently.
I need to tell Bec, but I need time to work out how to handle Salomé. Her influence over Bec is too great, and I’m afraid that if Bec knows, she may not be able to keep it a secret from our grandmother.
