Page 37 of Unseen

My hand was still clutched to my stinging cheek, and I nodded.

“No you are not,” he replied, placing his hand against my other cheek.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” Adelaide barked into his ear, and Azriel did not even flinch. “I am here to speak with you, as the matriarch of this family.”

“I see no matriarch in my house, only an intruder who has newly assaulted my wife.” He stroked my cheek with his thumb. “Does it hurt?”

“No.” I lied, and his eyes burned even brighter.

“Shall I have the police called?” He asked, and Adelaide’s eyes threatened to pop out of her head.

“This is an outrage!”

Azriel turned on her, towering over her and staring her down. “The only outrage here, madam, is your behaviour in my house. Towards my wife.”

“She shall not be your wife long, mark my words.” Adelaide jutted her chin out defiantly. “For once a doctor has made certain that she can bear a child, and that the deficiency lay with your father, then you shall see us take you straight to court, and have all this nonsense put to rest.”

“Is that what you want, Evie?” Azriel asked without looking at me, his venomous gaze remaining on Adelaide.

“No, it is not what I want. ”

“There. She said no.”

“She doesn’t have a choice,” Adelaide spat back. “By law, this marriage is illicit, and we have a right to contest it.”

“By law, you and your family are penniless, and your home and lands are forfeit.” Azriel grinned as Adelaide’s face dropped.

“You may well entertain fantasies of having this marriage annulled, of seeking to overturn my father’s will.

I would remind you that I am one of the wealthiest men in London, who has in his service one of the best barristers in London.

So if you think your quaint little country lawyer is going to come here, into my house, and attempt to take away my wife , then madam, you are very much mistaken. ”

Adelaide’s eyes widened, and her nostrils flared as she drew breath. “You are a foul swine, Azriel Caine.”

“Yes, I am. But I am the foul swine your niece has chosen to have by her side.”

“If you loved her at all, you would not see her go to ruin.” Adelaide shook her head, looking Azriel up and down with a wrinkled nose, as though he carried with him a foul smell. “You have taken her good name, and our family’s right along with it.”

Azriel snorted, gazing down his nose at her. “What could I possibly care for a good name?”

“And not only that,” Adelaide went on, her eyes wide with fury. “You have besmirched the memory of your very own father. How could you take to bed his widow? In her mourning?”

“Quite easily,” Azriel drawled, and Adelaide’s face bloomed the most extraordinary shade of red I had ever seen. I was quite sure her heart was about to give out.

“You rotten scoundrel!” Adelaide snapped for air, straightening her bonnet yet again and shaking her shoulders. “I shall take my leave of this house of ruin, and be glad for it! ”

“Certainly. Shall I see you out?”

“I can find my way!” Adelaide’s eyes landed on me, and she tutted, shaking her head.

“I thought I had raised you better than this. And you.” She jabbed a finger at Azriel, and spat on the floor.

“I was right about you.” She spun on her heel, storming from the room, her garbled rantings as the maids escorted her from Linmere fading in the distance.

I pressed a hand to my mouth, trying to steady my breathing. I blinked up at Azriel, shaking my head, and he brushed a hand over my shoulder.

“It is alright, she is gone.”

“She- she wanted me to be examined.” I stammered, and Azriel’s eyes flamed.

“I would never let that happen.” He grasped my shoulders firmly in his hands. “No one touches what’s mine. Nobody. Do you understand?”

I shoved him away from me with a grunt. “Do not act the part of the devoted husband now. Not when you threatened me in your bed last night.”

“That’s all this is to you, Evie, isn’t it? An act.” He dug his hand into his chest. “You do not understand that for me, this is real. That I worship you. That love is too pale a word for what I feel for you.”

“Stop it!” I flew at him, pounding my fists into his chest. “You have cost me everything! Everything! That is not love! It is ownership!”

“Yes it is, and I own you, Evie!” His hands curled around my arms, forcing my body against his, and he stared down at me with his icy blue eyes. “I own you, and what of it?”

I railed against him, but he was too strong, keeping me flush against him. “Would you wish to be owned? To be an object? To be worthless?”

“You may be my property, but you are not worthless, and if you speak that way again I shall tie you to the bed and flog you until you understand.”

A rage-filled laugh burst from my lips. “Oh more threats, always threats with you! Go on and do it, you cannot do any worse than your father did!” The urge to hurt him was too overwhelming, to lash out, to use anything I had in my arsenal to cause him pain. “At least he was decent!”

Azriel’s eyes widened, darkening with fury. “Say that again.”

I sneered up at him, leaning against his chest. “You think a few fine fucks in your bed make you any better than he?”

“So being owned by me is much worse than being owned by my father, is it?” His tone was lethal, and I knew within myself that I was teetering on the edge of a dangerous abyss. But I was quite mad, losing my mind with hopelessness, and I did not care.

“Your father did not cost me everything.”

Azriel’s face was frighteningly calm, though his eyes betrayed the rage that coursed through him. As though on cue, thunder rumbled overhead, and rain began to patter against the windows. We stood like that for a moment, as the sky darkened, and lightning began to flash.

“You wish him back, do you?”

His voice, filled with barely contained rage, set my instincts firing, telling me to shut my mouth, to apologise, to acquiesce meekly.

But I refused, glaring up at him, bracing myself as I expected him to strike me as his father certainly would have.

But he just kept a hold of me, staring at me, waiting patiently for me to answer.

“Perhaps I do.” I finally said, though I did not mean it.

Of course I did not wish Acton back, but in that moment, all I could think of was the pain of betrayal I had felt the previous night.

That before me stood a man who told me he loved me, who told me that he knew me, who had promised me I could bare my soul to him, and had then threatened to use everything he had against me.

It was too much.

I had gone too far.

“Right.” Azriel dragged me across the room towards the door.

I attempted to dig in my heels and stop him, to anchor myself somehow to the room. “Where are you taking me?”

He did not answer, simply kept pulling me along despite my screeched protests. The maids came running, alarmed, but Azriel waved them off.

“Leave us!” He commanded. “Bring me my horse!” He shouted in an even louder voice, and one of the house boys went running out into the rain.

“Azriel!” I clawed at his arms, terrified that I was now being dragged to my death, or worse. “Are you mad? Where are you taking me?”

The rain was falling lightly, an icy breeze blowing in the storm. No one said anything as Azriel hauled me, kicking and screaming, onto his horse, and took off through the rain.

“What are you doing?” I flailed at him, and he curled an arm around me, crushing me against him and holding me still.

“Hush now,” he commanded, his eyes on the road ahead.

“Azriel!”

“I said HUSH!” His voice boomed, matched almost instantly by a roll of thunder overhead, and I nuzzled into him to try and avoid the frigid wind that whipped past us. The bare trees waved and bowed as it grew stronger, the roads emptying quickly as everyone sought shelter.

The horse’s hooves kicked up mud and gravel as Azriel spurred it on through the storm, and the sky was now a deep shade of grey.

He was taking me to the church .

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 did not 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 level of 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?”

“I am.”

“Whatever for? My father will set the dogs on you!” I gripped the lapel of his jacket, my knuckles white. “Are you mad?”

Azriel gave me that self-assured grin, stroking back my hair. “Perhaps, beloved. But there are some things you need to know, and I think it best you hear them directly from the man who decided your fate.”