Page 41 of Unseen
“What is this now?” His hand curled around my arm, spinning me around to face him. “Do not walk away from me.”
“Why not? You did?”
“You little fool. You would not have had me even if I’d offered.”
I wrenched my arm from his grasp, a useless endeavour as he grasped me firmly by both arms, shoving my full weight against him. “You forced yourself on me now, what was stopping you then? Propriety? You claim not to care about society, about the good opinion of others, and yet here you are.”
“You were not mine to claim then.”
“But I am now?”
“Yes.”
I railed against him, wanting to scream and cry and thrash and claw his damned eyes out. “You have done nothing but imprison me! All I wanted was to be free, to be free to choose, and you did not even let me do that!”
He forced me back against the wall, his eyes blazing. “Would you have ever chosen me? Was there ever a world in which you would have chosen me?”
I glared up at him, the answer twisting on my tongue. No. Yes. No. Yes. “I-I don’t know!” I tried to push against his chest, but he held fast. “I did not want this life, this-this prison!”
Azriel lowered his face to mine, his eyes filled with fury. “You are not my prisoner, you are my wife.”
“And what good is that? You have simply taken me from one gilded cage and tossed me into another!”
He grasped my jaw, pressing my head against the wood paneling. “That cage is all but melted and shaped into a crown for your own head, Evie. I took the ruins of it when you freed yourself, and made you my queen.”
“You placed me in shackles! That is all!” I turned my head, and snapped my teeth down on his thumb, biting hard and hoping I’d tear the damned thing from his hand. I tasted blood, heavy iron in my mouth, as I tore through his skin.
Azriel hissed and yanked his hand away from me, and then the bastard laughed. He laughed. His devilish face leered down at me, and he licked the blood from his hand.
“I am the only person in your life who has ever yearned to see you free.” He raised a hand to my cheek, and the stark contrast of the delicate brush of his fingers compared to his other hand wrapped around my throat, made my heart pound faster against my ribcage.
“Your family? Your ridiculous father? Your dead husband? All those high members of society who laughed at you from behind fans at every ball you attended? Do you think any of them would ever care what happened to you?” He grazed his lips against mine, his eyes still boring into me.
“Do you think any of them would ever want to see you liberated? Happy?” His hand moved from my throat to the neckline of my gown, his fingers running along my skin. “Allowed to feel pleasure?”
“That is not freedom.”
“Then what is freedom, beloved?” His face was menacing again, bearing down on me with eyes so unnaturally calm and calculating, it sent a chill down my spine. “What freedom would you have had, a penniless widow, left to her ruin on the streets?”
“You have fashioned yourself as the hero then?” I laughed scornfully. “The wayward son who rescued his poor stepmother from poverty? How noble of you.”
Three sharp, hard booms sounded from the door, stealing our attention away from each other.
“Who the devil?” Azriel released me, striding out of the bedroom and to the door. Hinges creaked as he tore it open, and he barked out a sharp, “What?”
“Police,” said a low voice, and I scurried from the bedroom to peer around the door frame. “We’ve been called on suspicion of lewd activities within the premises.”
“I beg your pardon?” Azriel’s tone was tight with rage. “How dare you, sir.”
The policeman’s face remained calm, rolling his shoulders slightly so the cape around them shifted. “We’ve been informed of an unmarried couple occupying a room.”
“Nonsense,” I spoke up quickly, and the policeman’s gaze averted to me. “We are lawfully married and have the right to occupy this room and not be bothered.”
The policeman rose up onto the balls of his feet for a moment, sighing.
“Madam, this claim has come from a family of good standing, who I would not believe would tell an untruth. Besides which.” He glanced back at Azriel.
“I’ve been informed the banns have not been read, so any marriage that did take place is illicit.
” He emphasised the last word, hissing like a little snake, and I thought Azriel was sure to pound the man into the stone wall.
“My good sir,” Azriel said in a low voice, and the policeman looked a little less certain of himself. “My marriage to this woman is legal, signed and sealed. Anyone who claims otherwise is leading you on a merry dance and wasting your time.”
The policeman pursed his lips. “All the same, unless you can produce proof, you and your good lady wife must vacate the premises forthwith.”
“Absolutely not,” Azriel said. “It is night, and it is cold, and I will not be tossed from a room I paid good money for.”
The policeman exhaled heavily through his nose. “Sir, I don’t want any trouble.”
“And trouble you shall have if you intend on throwing me out.” Azriel crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned against the doorway. “I am sure an upstanding man of the law like you could not be swayed by money.”
The policeman’s eyes flashed, and he clasped his hands behind his back. “Certainly not.”
“I imagine a policeman makes a very decent wage with which to house his family.” Azriel glanced over at me and shrugged. “Ten pounds would be meaningless to this man, surely.”
I watched the policeman’s face carefully as his expression shifted. His throat bobbed, and his intent gaze dropped, his eyes suddenly unsteady as they darted about the room.
“I, uh, I should not wish to cause any trouble for the landlord here. This is a decent establishment.” The policeman’s itchy little fingers rubbed together, and I could practically hear him salivating at the idea of ten pounds. “But I am sure that if your good intentions were made clear…”
Azriel grinned widely. “But of course. I only ever have good intentions.” He turned to his coat, which hung beside the door, and withdrew several shiny sovereigns, jingling them in his hand.
“I am sure the proprietor should appreciate an extra two pounds for the night. On account of the room being so lovely.”
The policeman looked left and right as the proffered coins landed in his hand, which was quickly curled away and concealed underneath his cloak.
“Yes sir, I am sure the landlord will be most agreeable.” His smile landed on me.
“What with your good lady wife being so tired, and it being so late, and all.”
“Indeed.” Azriel’s wide, amicable smile was back, and he clapped the policeman on the shoulder. “Now, my good fellow, I wish you an uneventful night, and peaceful rest once you return home to your family.”
The policeman doffed his hat at Azriel, then at me. “I thank you. A pleasant evening to you both.” He turned on his heel, his footsteps echoing down the long passageway away from our room.
Azriel closed the door and turned to me, the smile on his face dissolving almost instantly. “And I suppose we can guess who summoned him.”
I realised that my hand was clutched to my chest, and I took a deep breath. “I cannot believe they would do such a thing. To claim I was here as an unmarried woman?”
“They are not afraid of ruining you, as they already see you as ruined.” He tucked his hands into his pockets and sidled towards me. “Spoiled. Unclean goods.”
“Stop it.” I smoothed my hands over my dress to wipe away the sweat that had erupted on my palms. “Do not say such things.”
“I do not, beloved, they do.” He moved even closer. “Just as they said you were nothing but a pretty face when they sold you to my father.”
“Azriel, don’t.” I turned my head, wishing I could somehow avoid the cruelty of his words, and even more than that, the truth of them.
But he did not stop.
“You see what they do now? Send the law after you. These people have no scruples.”
“You have no scruples!” I rushed into the bedroom, clutching my hands to my face.
“I would never do what they have done,” Azriel said, pursuing me slowly.
I turned on him with wide eyes. “You? Who has blackmailed me? Who has ruined me?”
“I who have kept your secrets and guarded them.”
“You have used them! You are just like them!” I pointed at the door, vicious, angry tears spilling down my cheeks. “You saw something in me that you could twist to your own ends, and you used it! You are no better than them!”
He rushed at me, grabbing me around the waist and throwing me down on the bed. I thrashed at him, my nails slashing across his face, and he seized my wrists, pinning them down to the bed.
“And what am I? What am I, beloved? The man who would cover up his father’s murder to protect the woman who no one else would?”
I spat in his face, kicking my legs to try and shift his weight from me, to no avail. “You used me! You used me like everyone else!”
“I. Protected. You.” His voice was laced with stern desperation, his eyes searching my face.
“I could have thrown you to the wolves, I could have left you to rot in Newgate, I could have sat by and watched you dangle from the gallows like that poor wretch, but I did not. I destroyed everything, I gave up everything, what little good name I had, to protect you, to possess you, to take you as my bride, because I could not bear to watch the other half of my heart die in the streets.”
“Stop saying such things when you do not mean them!” The anguish was terrible, like hot embers, burning into my very being as the weight of his words melted into me. “You cannot mean them! I am nothing to you, nothing but a prize, a trophy, something to be set on the shelf and admired!”
“You are my wife!”
The words rose and fell around us, filling the room, and then he kissed me.
Violently, passionately, hard and punishing, biting my lip and plundering my mouth with his tongue.
Perhaps this was his declaration of love, given in the only way a man like Azriel Caine could give it - with brutality.
I knew I could never expect anything sweet from this man, nothing gentle.
Only hard edges, sharp, upon which to cut myself .
But as he hitched up my skirts, and drove himself into me, sending my back arching off the bed, I knew that I would return to him again and again, and bleed without a second thought.
The bliss that flooded my body as he stood before me, impaling me upon him, it was the forbidden essence of which I could not get enough.
He looked down as he sank into me, his teeth gritted. “You have ruined me, Evie,” he said, hissing in a breath. “You have ruined me, and I would do it over and over again for you. Only for you.” He looked up at me, panting. “Do you still hate me, beloved?”
“Oh… Oh… Yes.” I moaned, and he lifted one of my legs to sling it over his shoulder. I clawed at the bedsheets, the intrusion so deep that I had to remember to breathe, to just breathe as the pain bit through my pleasure. “I will always hate you.”
“But love lies so close to hate, does it not?”
“What do you know of love?” I pushed myself up on my hands, and Azriel leaned down to me, his lips meeting mine in a feverish frenzy.
“I know I love you,” he murmured against my mouth. “I know that I have loved you from the minute I laid eyes on you, when that veil was lifted in the church.”
I bit my lips together as I began to tighten around him, shaking my head. “No, it is not love.”
“What do you know of love?” He kissed my jaw, my neck, reaching down between us to stroke his thumb over my bud, engorged and sensitive. I bucked against him, and within a few strokes, I came undone, throwing my head back and crying out as he sucked the delicate skin on my neck.
I grunted out a weak protest as he pulled out of me, flipping me over onto my stomach and not allowing me even a moment to gain purchase on the bed before he slid inside me again.
“You can fight me all you want, Evie,” he said, his breath catching in his throat as he groaned.
“Oh you can fight me, but you will not win. I will break this all down, these walls, these masks you show the world. I am the only one…” He broke off with a grunt, his thrusts becoming so punishing I could scarce draw breath, another climax threatening to throw me down and over the edge.
“I am the only one who wants you free, little viper. And no one will ever… Fuck .” He hissed, his hands digging into my hips, our collective moans now so loud I was sure the landlord would be beating down the door any moment and once again demanding we leave.
Azriel’s hand wove into my hair, pushing my head into the mattress, and with one last hard thrust, he roared out his release.
He held me down until he stopped trembling, and I sucked in a heavy breath.
He pulled me up against him, his manhood slipping from my body and spilling seed down my thighs, and he kissed my neck, wrapping his quivering arms around my waist.
“No one will ever love you like I do, Evie,” he whispered against my ear. “And if they ever try, I’ll kill them.”