Hemlock Veils by Davenport Jennie

Author:Davenport, Jennie [Davenport, Jennie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fairy tale retelling, faranormal, Romance, Fantasy, Suspense, Supernatural
Publisher: Swoon Romance
Published: 2014-11-25T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Plenty of daylight remained when Henry and Arne returned to Hemlock Veils. Water still covered the town, even with the sun’s cameo appearance, and the Maybach’s tires splashed through puddles. They passed Jean’s, with its windows dark and the sign flipped to Closed. He tried picturing Elizabeth’s first day of business. Had Brian been stupid enough to show up? With everything in him, Henry hoped he was smarter than that. Tension shot though his muscles at the thought of Brian and the way he’d displayed his true colors. Eustace used to say, years ago, that you could see the true character of a man through his drink. And Brian showed his that morning, ugly and despicable. It’d left Henry more enraged than he’d been in years, all Brian’s incessant pushing and touching.

Worse, he’d felt more protective of Elizabeth than he’d ever felt of anyone, or anything. Instead of wondering why, he’d simmered in rage, waiting for Brian to finally leave Elizabeth alone, like she’d insisted. But he hadn’t. And the sun had risen at just the right time, giving him only long enough to find his clothes and half-dress himself.

He’d wanted to do more than hit him. He wanted to do what he was sure Elizabeth had been contemplating. God knows Brian deserved worse. But Henry still considered himself, in most respects and at least in this form, a reputable human being.

He exhaled slowly, laying his head back. His mind replayed Elizabeth cowering then nearly losing it. In the beginning, all he’d wanted was to see her afraid, just to prove she was like the rest. A horrifying beast, capable of ripping her to shreds, and she wanted to befriend it. Then a coward of a man takes advantage, and her eyes widened with a fear he had begun to think she wasn’t capable of. And now the image of fear in her eyes haunted him.

It haunted him so much he almost wanted to take back their deal. She accepted him in his monstrous form. It was something he would never understand, yet he found himself yearning for that acceptance. Perhaps, if he could persuade her to go outside, he could determine why she understood him, why she wasn’t afraid, and even why he felt such an intense connection when meeting her eyes.

He hid that connection during the day, or tried to. It was becoming more difficult to be his false self with her, the self he’d taught himself to be: cold, distant, and pretentious. But letting his guard fall wasn’t an option, because of all the people he wanted to protect, Elizabeth topped the list. Recently, she was the only one on it.

This morning, when he’d interfered with Brian’s plan, Henry worried he may have dropped his guard too low to rebuild, but he’d already seemed to build it again when walking by Jean’s on the way to the diner, an hour later than normal. Through the glass door and windows, it appeared that Regina was the only customer.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.