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Tears pricked my eyes, which made me want to beat the wall with the stupid brass pot. Like a proper adult with social skills, I refrained. “Okay. I’ll probably be able to help you on the weekends like usual. But I’ll be locked up during the week.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, all sincerity. “Focus on the shit you gotta focus on. I don’t want your split attention to make you slip. If you’re going to do this, do it right.”
“Okay,” I relented. “I might ignore you and do it anyway. But I’ll be careful. Promise.”
A few customers tried to walk in, but Azra shooed them out, barking about family business, and locked the doors again. She shook her mane of hair back and straightened. “I want the details. Stalker Man! Are you going to take care of her?”
She stomped back to his table, ready for war.
For the next thirty minutes, Azra grilled Razai on every point of the contract. To his credit, he didn’t even break a sweat. Not even when she threatened to, and I quote, ‘disembowel him slowly and methodically with her claws, drawing his torture out for days while he begged for mercy, archangel or not, if he ever put me in danger.’
I loved her.
In response, Razai had placed a reverent hand over his chest with the most serious expression I’d ever seen him wear. He declared with an absurd level of drama, “On my worthless life, I swear it, Goddess of the Forest! I swear it.”
She hadn’t been amused.
I’d been shaking my head in defeat, wondering what I’d gotten myself into. This man was clearly living on the edge of insanity.
And yet, a small part of me was impressed. He didn’t get riled, even with things that most people would call offensive. Everything Azra said or threatened was a statement he absorbed and accepted without even the tiniest spike of anger.
This man was the definition of cool-headed.
Or, he was still just a good actor.
Finally, when Azra had spent all her energy on the interrogation, she surrendered. “Well, it seems like you have all the answers, Stalker Man. Don’t think I won’t be watching you.”
Razai regarded the terrifying woman standing over him, twirling the spoon in his fingers. He shrugged lazily. “To be honest, Gray will be safer with me than she’s ever been here. Or with you.”
Azra jolted like she’d been struck.
Razai rose to his full height. “You talk big, kitty cat. But you didn’t notice me following her. You didn’t even know how to help when she first noticed me. If I’d been such a bad man, I could have taken her and disappeared before you even noticed she was gone. And even if you had?”
The smile fell from his lips. Not a frown. Nothing predatory or threatening. His eyes just trained on her, unblinking. Even in his stillness, even with the tension, he was relaxed. “You wouldn’t have been able to stop me.”
Ice laced my body at the soft promise. I believed him with my whole heart.
Azra tended to resort to brute force and intimidation when she was ready for a fight. It was in her shifter nature.
Razai was all disarming smiles and silent, lethal promises. And it looked like he could move in between them with liquid ease. There was no doubt in my mind that he was ready for anything that came his way. His words returned to me like an irritating reminder.
“I’m clearly the weapons and combat type of guy.”
Oddly enough, his change reassured me. Seeing his serious side revealed that he had one for starters. A side that he treated as a precision tool that only came out when he needed it. That’s when I realized...
He’s earning Azra’s respect.
Azra sized him up, her mind absorbing the new information too. Her cunning eyes narrowed. “Maybe, Stalker Man. Maybe. But I don’t back down from a fight.”
“Same. Usually,” he added with a gleam of humor. “Only a fool would underestimate those claws of yours.”
Azra blushed. Actually, truly blushed.
Razai hadn’t needed to apologize to her. He saw that all Azra wanted was to know that he respected the both of us. That he respected me, the person he was hiring. That he was capable of watching my back.
Right now, she saw that he wanted to show her he was capable. That he cared enough about her opinion and her blessing to win even a sliver of trust.
He’d gained a little from me too.
