Hemlock Veils (46 page)

While recalling this, she felt jerked from death’s waiting room, and knew it was time. The warmth bathing her cooled, and in this corner of her mind that held her captive, she wondered what would follow, what next step of death awaited her. It was the absence of Henry, perhaps, that made her cold. In an instant, he was gone: no warmth, no love, no presence. And before she could gasp from the change, her physical senses returned full force. Her heart beat wildly, franticly, and with a breath forceful enough to push her upright, her eyes ripped open.

A medical room, she thought with a heaving chest—a small doctor’s office. She sat upright on an examination table, breathing so heavily her head spun. Her heart beat in her throat and all throughout her, and while puzzling over this, she brought her index and middle finger to her neck, feeling her rapid pulse. How was this possible?
Where
was she?

Then, in the moment she saw Arne, it hit her like a wave, crashing against her and pulling her under. She was alive. She was in Hemlock, in the clinic, and Arne’s bloodshot eyes—wide with surprise—waited to offer bad news.

“Elizabeth,” he breathed, shooting to his feet and dropping his blanket to the floor.

With hyperventilation around the corner, she couldn’t respond, and she put her head in her hands. Blood covered her shirt as though it had been slathered on with a brush—the same shirt she’d been wearing when she’d been stabbed. She felt her hands over her heart, searching, but there was nothing. No abrasion, no fresh blood.

The realization that she’d failed—the biggest failure of all failures in her life—hit her chest in a physical way, taking her breath. It hadn’t worked, her sacrifice. And if it hadn’t worked…“No,” she managed, her eyes shooting to Arne. She couldn’t read his expression, since he appeared as a swirling blur through her tears.

“You’re all right, Elizabeth.” He touched her, and for some reason it angered her. She pulled her hand away and stood. The window, high and barred, told her it was sometime in the night.

“You’re alive,” Arne said, as though she didn’t understand.

A sob threatened, beginning in her chest and tightening her throat into a painful lump, but she inhaled and pushed her way through the door.

“Elizabeth, wait. He—”

“I have to find him,” she said, and froze when nearing the glass doors. Dozens upon dozens of small, flickering lights floated in the air outside the clinic, some low to the ground, others at her eye level—like fireflies frozen in place. She pushed through the door and nighttime air chilled her wet cheeks. The lights near the ground rose, and there were faces, too, lit by them. The faces watched her in wonderment, some mouths hanging open. Regina, Eustace, even Taggart. The fireflies were actually candles, and every soul held one, as though she
had
died and they were the welcome party in her next life.

“You’re alive,” Regina said, and others began talking too, every voice at once. Most simply said her name, but all approached, all surrounded her. These faces and outstretched arms moved her, but she had to find him.

“Please,” she began, pushing through them, through the hands. The need for him swelled inside her and by the time she reached the edge of the crowd, her breathing was shallow. She faced the forest, trying to keep it together, and with the crowd at her rear, she sensed him. She sensed him the way she used to, the way she had when she was unconscious, and with her relief came a stab of disappointment; she had failed him.

But with him behind her, everything felt right again.

“Henry,” she said in a breath and turned. But the version of him she expected wasn’t before her. No longer the beast of the night, he stood as a man wearing a flannel shirt and disheveled hair. His eyes were so wide it made her wonder if she was in fact a ghost, come back to tarry with him. But she was physically here. She had died, and somehow he had brought her back.

“Elizabeth.” Before she knew it, they collided: lips, arms, and hearts. With their souls together and her chest ignited, her body felt more alive than it ever had, invigorated and strong. She grasped his hair and had to pull away from his lips, since her breath felt impossible to catch.

“Henry, you’re you.” She felt over his face, over the tears that wetted his beard, and seeing him here, under the stars, made her eyes spill over. It was a miracle, and still she wasn’t sure what was real. “How…?”

He grasped her hands, pulling them close to his heart, and a bandage wrapped his palm. “The Cursed and the Curse Breaker,” he barely whispered.

A peculiar sensation stirred her heart: a tightness, on the verge of pain but not quite. His blood had saved her. It was
their
blood now, and nothing had ever felt more right than their oneness. He belonged to her, more than a lover belongs to his mate. He was her Absolon, and she was awed that they would live a life together, uncontrolled by curses—touched by magic but free of it.

Her father had once told her, on his deathbed, that magic would save her life one day. She felt that touch of magic now, physically, as though it had accumulated inside her. A mass in the center of her chest. Had it always been here?

“You brought me back,” she said.

“You brought
me
back.” He rested his forehead against hers. “You saved me, Elizabeth. It was my turn to save
you
.”

She smiled. “We saved each other.”

Epilogue

Two Months Later

With an anxious hand, Elizabeth punched the code into Henry’s gate. The edge of her fingertip hit the nine by accident, and the panel buzzed at her. Steadying her hand, she entered the code again, this time successfully. A goldfinch warbled and twittered somewhere above and she stood back as the gate opened, taking a deep breath. Her heart fluttered, more than it usually did.

As she walked the trail and passed the broad front steps of his mansion, headed toward the stone wall, she wondered why he wanted to meet her back here. At sunset in his garden, he had said when calling a few hours ago. There had been something almost unsettling in his voice, and she felt it now as she approached the opening in the wall. She tried not to fear.

When she moved the vines aside and stepped through, the air calmed her; not even a summer breeze stirred here. Within the overgrown and unruly trees, birds sang. She closed her eyes just briefly, inhaling everything she loved.

“Henry?” she called. “You here?”

She heard nothing except the crunch of her sandals over the dry July earth. She passed a rosebush, brushing one of the large, red blooms with a finger, a habit of hers now. During the past two months, Henry always saw to it that she had fresh ones in her kitchen, and even at Jean’s. Always the blossoms were perfect, carefully selected and trimmed by him. The bouquets had become as much a part of her house and shop as she. Their scent was intoxicating, and the sight of their beauty almost as fulfilling as the sight of their gardener.

She made him happy, too. His eyes confirmed it, and so did his almost-constant smile. They were together often, and though she spent many nights at the mansion, living in a luxury she still couldn’t grasp, most of their living took place in her tiny house. It simply felt like home, to both of them.

She grew anxious as she approached a canopy of green. She entered the tunnel of trees she and Henry had walked beneath many times, and when she rounded the corner, her breath caught. It probably always would; even in their old age, seeing Henry would make her heart skip a beat.

With his hair casual and his hands in his pockets, he straightened. He smiled the wide smile she adored, his short beard failing to conceal his dimples. And she loved seeing him here, with a forest backdrop and nature’s soundtrack. Her feet couldn’t move quickly enough, and when she reached him, he swept her up, lifting her from the ground. He groaned into her neck, and she tightened her arms around him, closing her eyes. Absorbing him.

“You’re here,” he said.

She almost laughed, lowering her feet to the ground. “You thought I wouldn’t come?”

“No, I just…” He cleared his throat, taking her hand. He appeared nervous. “Walk with me?”

She did, watching him carefully. Her heart raced. This was different than the anxiety he got from surprising her, like he had just last week for her thirtieth birthday. It wasn’t much, he had said, but she couldn’t have asked for a more perfect gift than a secluded weekend campout at the waterfall where they once used to sleep. The one near the boulder he’d taken her to almost nightly, and the one she used to ache to see in the sunlight.

It wasn’t long before he stopped beneath their tree tunnel, now taking her other hand as he faced her. “Elizabeth, do you remember the first time we were together in this very place?”

She bit her lip through a smile and dwelt on that early evening almost three months before, when she’d seen the garden for the first time and the air had been hot with infatuation. And how she hadn’t been able to remove her eyes from him. “How can I forget?”

He tucked her hair behind her ear, his dark caramel eyes smoldering. “While standing over there,”—he pointed to the end of the tunnel, at the vivacious rose bush scaling the wall—“I learned your favorite color was green. And while standing here, you tried convincing me of a dandelion’s beauty. It was when I first admitted to myself that you may be able to find beauty in me, too.”

He inched closer. “Elizabeth, right here, at that moment, was when I first realized I was falling in love with you. It was the moment I knew I would never get my heart back.”

Her eyes warmed.

Then, before she could think of an appropriate response, he lowered himself to one knee. Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. “Ms. Ashton,” he said, “please be my wife. Marry me, in this spot.”

Unable to help herself, she grasped his face and kissed him, falling to her own knees. His arms, slightly tremulous, wrapped themselves around her at once. Three months ago, she never would have pegged Henry Clayton as a man to get nervous when proposing. Hell, she never would have pegged him as a man to propose at all.

She broke away from his mouth since she couldn’t breathe. In answer to his question, she simply nodded, since words were beyond her. He reached behind him, pulling something from his back pocket. Their canopy of trees and the setting sun made everything murky, but the golden band had a light of its own. Again her breath caught. It appeared to be ancient, two golden strands twisting around each other to form an intricate band. Atop it were three diamonds, the one in the center massive.

“It was my mother’s,” he said. He slid it onto her finger, his eyes hooded as he stared at it. “After she died, my father didn’t want it, so I kept it. And nothing has ever belonged to someone more than this belongs to you.”

“Henry.” She touched his face, staring at the greenish light glinting off the ring. She wasn’t sure she would ever get used to the sight of something so exquisite on her finger. His lips were eager and warm when they met hers, and just after she pressed herself into him, wrapping her arms around his neck, he pulled away abruptly, their joyous moment interrupted with the nervous scanning of his eyes.

He froze, his gaze zeroed in directly behind her.

Her heart dropped.

She glanced in that direction, but she saw nothing. Looking back at Henry, she warily said, “What is it?”

“You didn’t hear that?” he asked in a distracted hush. His eyes flitted to hers just briefly before falling on the trees behind her again. His senses were still enhanced since the release of his curse, the beast’s senses never having left him—especially his heightened hearing. In the same way, she felt the residue of magic inside her, concentrated in her core as though it had solidified into a physical bulk of energy.

Before she could answer, he stood, pulling her to her feet. With his vision faithfully on the trees, his arm tightened around her. The same unsettling sensation she felt when walking through his gate minutes before resided in her abdomen again, only this time her excitement didn’t mask it.

The trees rustled behind her and she twisted with a start, finding the leaves twitching. “
That
I heard,” she whispered.

“Get inside,” he gently commanded.

“Henry, it’s probably nothing. It’s probably—”

“Elizabeth, inside.”

Her stomach churned, weakened. “Not without you.”

He threw an exasperated glance at her before creeping forward, since he wasn’t going to win. She stayed close, keeping her feet quiet. And just when the silence convinced her it had only been their minds playing tricks, the tree shook, startling her back. The mystery movement no larger than a human rushed through the underbrush as quickly as the beast had once moved. Whatever it was, it moved too quickly for Elizabeth’s sight, maneuvering through the rosebush and over the wall before she could get a proper glimpse.

At its departure, that bulk of energy in her core jolted, taking her breath—distracting her for the briefest second.

When she realized Henry was chasing it, he was already at the wall, leaping atop it. “Henry!”

He ignored her, scanning the forest intently while crouched atop the wall. His eyes searched for what felt like hours, though only minutes passed, and eventually, he jumped down. He wouldn’t meet her eyes at first, his body reluctant, and she grabbed his hands.

“What was that?”

Concern, or contemplation, knitted his brow. “Whatever it was, it’s gone.”

“Did you see it?”

He hesitated, and his silence answered her question.

“Well?” she urged, growing impatient and unexpectedly frightened.

“I wasn’t sure until now, but…”

“Henry, what aren’t you telling me?”

“I think something has been watching us, Elizabeth.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As I walk to the stage, wiping tears of joy with a shaky hand, I pull the notecard from its place in my golden gown: the left side of my bosom, between the dress and my skin. The card is a little damp, and the many names I need to include in my acceptance speech are smeared. I didn’t even study them ahead of time because, honestly, I wasn’t sure if I’d get this opportunity. But now that it’s here…