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11
WILLOW
“Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?” I call over my shoulder as Emmanuel traipses through the yard behind me.
He’s been lurking since Azrael left earlier, and I suspect he’s been assigned guard duty.
“Who says I didn’t have the same itch for a late-night swim?” He shrugs.
I stop and turn to glare at him. “You aren’t wearing a suit. And even if you were, I’m not swimming with you.”
“Who says I need one?” He arches a brow at me.
“Good point,” I muse. “Maybe we should both get naked. I’m sure your brother would love that.”
Emmanuel snorts, seemingly amused by the idea of riling up Azrael. So, I decide to change tack.
“I’m sure Raven would love to hear about your shrinkage problems in the pool too. She seems to be under the impression that you’re rather large, but I could easily dispel that notion—”
“She said that?” he asks, his curiosity getting the best of him.
I can’t help but smirk at how easily he took that bait. “Of course not,” I tell him. “Do you think she gives you a second thought when she already has so many admirers vying for her attention?”
That idea makes his jaw rigid, and it pleases me far more than it should. Maybe it’s petulant of me, but I want him to drop his strange fascination with my sister.
“She never mentioned a boyfriend,” he says.
“Well, she wouldn’t.” I resume my journey toward the pool house, listening as he plods along behind me. “She doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
“No?” Emmanuel questions.
“Nope.” I reach the door and open it. “She has a bunch of them. Why settle for one guy when you can have ten?”
A low growl emanates from Emmanuel’s chest. “Are you always so antagonistic?”
I disrobe and kick off my flip-flops before meeting his gaze. “When it comes to my sister, yes. You can’t have her. So stay away.”
“If she has no interest, then my presence around her shouldn’t be a problem,” he retorts.
“It’s in the contract,” I grit out. “The Delacroix obsession with the Wildblood women is insatiable, I know. But the rules are clear. You only get one sacrifice from my family, and I’m it. Your brother chose me, and that’s that. Whether you like it or not, Raven can’t be acquired for any purpose that may suit you. She is free to live her life with whomever she chooses. Any man but one with your last name.”
Emmanuel seems wholly unfazed by my rant as he shrugs dismissively, and I don’t like it. I can tell he cares about the rules of that contract as much as I care about their demon-angel. But regardless, he has to know it can’t happen. It’s something else I’ll have to bring up with Azrael, but for now, it looks like I’m stuck with my babysitter.
“You can go,” I tell him. “I don’t need a guard to swim.”
“Tell that to my brother,” he answers wryly. “He seems to be under the impression that you do.”
I walk to the edge of the pool and sigh. “Is it to keep me inside the gates or Caleb out of them?”
There’s a moment of silence before Emmanuel answers, and when I look at him, he can’t hide the flash of anger in his eyes. The mention of Caleb seems to have brought up something for him, and I don’t know if it’s because of Bec or something else—something like the fact that those men took Raven too. If Azrael and Emmanuel hadn’t arrived when they did, I don’t know what might have happened to her.
“It’s not a prison,” Emmanuel says quietly. “That isn’t Azrael’s intention. He wants you safe.”
“Yes.” I sit down on the ledge and stare at the water. “He needs to keep me safe until it’s time to sacrifice me to the slab of stone you worship. Makes total sense.”
Emmanuel takes a seat beside me, and when I meet his gaze, all the humor and mischief have fled. “He’s not going to hurt you, Willow.”
Something tightens in my chest when I hear the certainty in his voice. I want to believe it as much as he seems to. I can’t find it in me to answer, but Emmanuel doesn’t seem to expect it. We sit together in silence for a while before he speaks again, his voice even lower, almost as if he knows he shouldn’t say it.
“He’s different with you.”
I peek over at him, but his gaze remains on the water, unmoving.
“You brought him back to life,” he murmurs. “After Abacus, I didn’t know if we’d ever see that part of Azrael again. A piece of him died when our brother did, but you… you’ve changed him.”
Those words hang heavy between us, and I try to swallow, but my throat is clogged with emotion. I can feel the pain in Emmanuel when he speaks of Abacus, and I think I’ve always recognized that pain in Azrael too. Their losses have been great, and despite what that tome says about them, this very real emotion reminds me they aren’t monsters from a storybook. At their core, they are as mortal as any man can be.
