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Azriel did not dismount once we reached the church yard, navigating his horse through the gravestones deftly.

“Azriel, what are we doing here?” I asked, my hands trembling violently. “Why are we here? What are you doing?”

He came to a stop outside Acton’s mausoleum. I felt ill, unsteady on my feet as Azriel swung his legs down off the horse, and dragged me onto the sodden ground. I stumbled through the mud, as Azriel pulled me along with him, to the iron gate of the mausoleum. He kicked it in, and swung me into the small room with the stone floor, releasing me and blocking the way out.

“Tell him.” His voice was terrifying. He stood like a demon possessed before me, dark clouds swirling at his back, and leered down at me with his icy eyes. “Tell him you want him back.”

“Azriel, this is insanity!” I pushed sopping strands of hair from my face, my jaw chattering from cold. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Tell him!” He darted a finger at his father’s casket. “Tell him you love him better than you could ever love me! Tell him you regret what you did that night, and would take it all back if you could.”

“You have gone mad!”

He seized me, spinning me around and pushing me towards the casket where it was perched in an alcove set in the wall. I shrieked, trying to push back against him, my drenched shoes sliding against the stone ground.

“Stop this!”

“Tell him, Evie.” He shoved my face against the casket, my cheek flush against the wood and Azriel’s hand twisted in my hair. “Tell him you miss him, and that you wish for all that is good in the world, that he was your husband instead of me.”

“Azriel, you’re hurting me!”

“Tell him I did not fuck you in my bed, and that you didnot come undone at my touch!” His voice was so terrifyingly even, although I could feel his anger. “Tell him you think of him when I touch you, that you long for those nights in his bed!”

“I do not!” I reached behind my head and locked my hands around Azriel’s wrist. “Please, Azriel, let me go.”

“Do you want him, or me?”

I snapped for air, squeezing my eyes shut. “This is madness! He is dead!”

“I asked if you want him or me.” His fingers clawed into my scalp, and I yelped. “Tell him who you want.”

“You! I want you!”

He lowered his mouth to my ear. “Prove it.”

I opened my eyes, gasping for breath, then released his wrist. “Take me, here, this instant.” I reached down for his trousers, fumbling with the buttons. “I want you, Azriel.”

He chuckled darkly into my ear. “My little viper wants to be fucked in a mausoleum, beside the rotting corpse of her dead husband?”

I nodded, wincing as my hair caught at my scalp. “Claim me in front of him. Do what you will. Breed me, like you said.” I angled my head as much as I could under his grasp, barely meeting his eyes. “I am your property, remember? You may do with me as you like.”

He tutted softly, and released my hair, his hand curling around my throat, lifting my chin and tilting my head back towards him. “Then you offer me what is already mine to take, wife. I am sure you can do much better than that.”

“Then what? What do you want? What can I possibly give you if not that?”

“Your heart,” he hissed in my ear. “Your soul. Your love. That is all I have ever desired, and it is all that will assure me that you are indeed, mine.”

“Why?” I shook my head, wishing I could get some levelof distance, some space between us, for his presence suffocated me. “Why me? What has led to this obsession? I don’t understand!”

He drew a long breath, and turned me around in his arms. My jaw trembled as I gazed at him, and he frowned, stroking a hand along my jaw.

“I have loved you since the moment I first saw you. There has never been another woman for me, not even when my father tried to throw any willing maid in my direction. He was desperate for me to lose sight of you, to give in. But I could not.” His eyes dropped to my lips. “We were kept apart, you and I, for far too long.”

I frowned at him. “What do you mean, kept apart?”

His jaw ticked, and thunder rumbled loudly overhead. “There has been a change of plans, beloved. We do not leave for Spain on Monday. We leave instead for Leicester.”

I blinked at him. “You are taking me home?”