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I make one half-hearted effort to shrug him off before I close my eyes and start to cry again. I’m so sick of crying, but I can’t seem to stop. Every night for a week, it’s been like this. As much as I want to blame it on the pregnancy, I’m worried that this time, my mind has well and truly broken.
“It’s okay,” Azrael whispers, his lips brushing against my temple. “You’re safe here. I’ve got you.”
I know he wants to believe that, and a part of me still wants to believe it too. But I know better than to let my guard down. As long as I’m in this house with Salomé’s influence and Caleb Church is out there, I’ll never be safe.
Seconds tick by, becoming minutes, and my heartbeat slows as Azrael’s warmth penetrates my back. He’s so much larger than me that I can’t help but feel fragile in his arms. I despise myself for allowing this kind of intimacy, but it’s easy to get caught up in these comforts, even if they’re being doled out by the one person I want to hate.
His palm settles over my belly, and it sends goosebumps skittering over my skin. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but his touch feels almost… reverent. Or maybe that’s just what the vulnerable part of me wants to believe.
At some point, I’ll need to bring up the matter Nan and I discussed. When something inevitably happens to me, and possibly him, I want my family to raise this child far away from Salomé. But now isn’t the time.
“What did you do with the shakes that were in my bag?” I ask.
Azrael stiffens behind me, as I suspected he would when I brought this up. I’ve been waiting for the right time to address it since I’ve been home, but days have passed, and there hasn’t been one. I know it will lead to an argument, but that doesn’t mean we can avoid the topic.
“You mean Bec’s shakes?” he replies.
“Yes. They were in my bag.”
There’s a momentary pause before he answers. “They were disposed of. Why?”
I draw in a breath and pull free from his arms, needing some distance for what I’m about to say. “I wanted the hospital to test them.”
Anger flashes in his eyes, and he tries to temper it, but it doesn’t work. I can see the denial written in his features. The hard set of his jaw, the pulsing vein in his neck. He doesn’t want to believe that Salomé could ever hurt Bec, and part of me gets that. She’s the woman who raised them. She’s the only parental figure he has left in a life marked by tragedy. But I fear that loyalty has blinded him to her true nature.
“She was getting better,” I tell him. “At the compound, when we were taken. Don’t you find that strange?”
He stares at me, the same unyielding expression on his face.
“She could barely walk when we left the house,” I continue. “And then she’s abducted, held hostage, and put under an enormous amount of stress, only to improve.”
“It happens,” Azrael answers dismissively. “You don’t know her illness like I do. She has good days and bad days.”
“You don’t know her illness at all,” I argue. “You’ve let Salomé take the helm of that ship. She doesn’t even have a proper diagnosis. How can you be sure of anything when you—”
“Enough!” Azrael growls, dragging a hand through his hair as he rises from the bed.
I half expect him to disappear to the bowels of the house, returning to his dark wing as he usually does. I think maybe that would be better because I don’t know how to get through to him.
“We aren’t having this conversation right now,” he says. “You need to rest.”
I tear my eyes away from him and shake my head. “It will suit you just fine if we never have it. But you can’t ignore it forever, Azrael. I know you want to believe your grandmother would never hurt her, and maybe I’m dead wrong. Maybe it’s all a misunderstanding on my part. But if there’s even a sliver of a chance that I’m right, you will never forgive yourself if something happens to her and you didn’t do everything you could.”
He doesn’t answer me, and I don’t expect him to. I leave those words hanging between us as I roll back over and cuddle Fiona, falling back into a restless sleep.
I stare at my reflection in the mirror, fingers moving over the healing scars on my forehead as the bath runs behind me.
I haven’t wanted to look, and I’ve avoided it as much as possible. But there’s no denying the existence of Caleb’s mark etched into my skin. A rogue tear slips down my cheek, and I dash it away quickly, steeling my spine.
