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He still hesitates to leave, but eventually, he returns to the bedroom with me. I start my nightly routine of changing into my nightgown and brushing my teeth, but I can tell Azrael is too unsettled to sleep. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so wrecked, and I hate it. I hate that I can’t take away this pain and betrayal for him. But I also know this is something he will have to process on his own.
“I love you.” I press my fingertips to his face. “You know that, right?”
“I do.” His voice softens.
“What can I do to make it better?”
Before he can answer me, his phone rings, interrupting us. It’s late, and I don’t know who would call at this hour, but something twists in my gut as Azrael picks up.
“Emmanuel—”
His greeting is cut short by whatever Emmanuel says, and just as Azrael glances at me with concern in his eyes, a crack of thunder reverberates over the house.
My gaze drifts to the window, and it’s impossible not to notice the storm clouds rolling in at an unnatural pace. They weren’t there moments ago.
“I’m leaving now,” Azrael tells Emmanuel.
The moment he says it, another loud boom shakes the house, followed by a flash of lightning illuminating the yard.
“Azrael.” I reach out, grabbing him as he hangs up. “What’s going on?”
He stares at me for a moment too long, and that twisting feeling in my gut turns into full-on fear.
“Azrael?”
“I’ll tell you when I return.”
“Azrael, no.”
Thunder echoes outside, closer and more turbulent, as rain pelts the windows so loud it sounds as if they might shatter.
“I don’t want to worry you,” he says.
“But you are. You can’t go out in this storm.”
He sighs, checking the time on his phone. “I have to go, Willow. I’ll explain everything when I return—”
His assurances are muted by the violence of the storm raging outside the walls of the house, and even Azrael seems to sense something is off as he glances out the window. It came out of nowhere, and it hasn’t escaped my attention how these storms have increased in frequency and intensity.
“Please, Azrael.” I cling to him, begging.
“I love you.” He pulls me close, kissing me on the forehead. “Everything will be okay. I have twenty guards on the property.”
“I’m not worried about that,” I argue. “I’m worried about you.”
He doesn’t offer me his reassurances as he gently peels me off him. “Keep an eye on Bec, will you?” he asks as he heads for the door. “I’ll have guards outside both your rooms.”
“Azrael.” My plea is barely audible.
He forces a smile that feels like a tragedy in the making, and this isn’t how I want to remember him. I need him here with me, and I don’t know how to make him understand these feelings inside of me. How can I explain that my intuition is screaming that something terrible is about to happen?
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he promises. “Try to get some rest, okay?”
I move toward him as if my body is weighted down, suffocating beneath the intensity of my feelings. But I’m not fast enough. He goes before I can stop him, and when I wander down the hall, I’m stopped from following further when an IVI guard steps into my path.
“Mrs. Delacroix, your husband asked that you stay on the second level until his return.”
Tears prick my eyes, and I shake my head, calling out for him. But the only response is the sound of thunder and the rumbling of the still-blackening sky.
“Azrael!” I scream.
He doesn’t answer.
24
AZRAEL
“Do you ever fucking answer your phone?” Emmanuel barks in my ear as I climb into the Jaguar and, tires screeching, drive off the property.
“Tell me what the fuck is happening! How did she just disappear?” I’d set my phone aside for a while and when I answered just now, Emmanuel told me in a rush of words that Raven was gone.
“I don’t fucking know. They’ve taken her. Plucked her right out of the backyard.”
“How? There are guards—”
“I’m telling you she’s gone, Azrael!”
“I’m on my way. We’ll find her.” I drop the phone into the empty seat beside me and drive like Satan himself is chasing me to the Wildblood house. How the hell did they get to her? Guards are stationed throughout the property. Unless Barrett sent them away, but he wouldn’t do that.
The storm that seemed to come from nowhere sends sheets of rain down sideways and I can barely see through the windshield until I drive out of Eden’s Crossing. As I near the Wildblood house, though, it seems less furious. Although heavy, rain and wind aren’t tearing up New Orleans like they are Eden’s Crossing.
The house is aglow, every light on inside and out. I park at the curb and stalk in through the open gate, noting the two men standing guard, wondering how the fuck anyone got to anyone in here. But the property is large, and maybe the perimeter is not as secure as we were told. We didn’t check it ourselves.
