Read Online HER SWEETEST DOWNFALL (Paranormal Romance / Fantasy Novella) (Forever Girl Series - a Journal) by rebecca hamilton - Free Book Online

crying. 
    “Why didn’t ye wait for me?”
    As Ophelia approached, her mother sobbed harder. With her heart in her throat, Ophelia gently rested her hand on her mother’s back. The woman turned around, grinning, laughing, and Ophelia stepped back. Her heart sank into her stomach, cold as ice and heavy with dread.
    A man’s voice cackled from her mother’s mouth. 
    The woman’s thin nose stretched, and her lips peeled back to reveal pink gums and blocky teeth. Every feature contorted until there was no trace of her mother’s face remaining in the man’s features. His shoulders broadened, and Ophelia gaze locked on his as his height stretched to tower a good head above her own. 
    “Robert.” Ophelia could barely choke out his name. In the shadows, his strawberry-blond hair was more auburn, but she was certain it was him.
    “Lovely to see you, too,” Lady Katrina’s brother replied. He grabbed her hand and kissed it roughly. “You’re just as foolish as your father.”
    Ophelia snapped her hand back. “What do ye know about my father?”
    Robert laughed. “Come now. Isn’t the ‘what’ the whole reasonyou came to work for my sister in the first place? I’ll save you the effort, fair Ophelia. There’s nothing more to find.”
    “Ye killed ‘er.”
    “The honor was not mine.” Robert’s grin stretched tighter. “Your father, however, proved to be quite the problem following her death. You really should have learned something from him. It’s best to mind your own business.”
    “And what business is my family to ye?”
    “Your mother was an abomination,” said the man who had traveled all the way here in the time only an Ankou could have. A man who then shifted before Ophelia’s very eyes. Did that not make him a dual-breed himself?
    “Curious choice of words,” Ophelia said, her voice shaking. “Ye are every bit a mutt as she.” 
    His lips pursed. His brow furled over glowering eyes. “I agree with the Maltorim’s orders. The impure are the real danger, to the humans and to the elemental races.”
    The boiling in her stomach rose to her chest. She chewed on her cheek and swallowed hard to hold her anger down.
     “If there is blame to place, it’s with the man who brought you here.” Robert flicked a blade from its sheath in his pocket. The sun glinted off the steel as he shuffled toward her. “I would have liked to keep you, of course, but I must honor my duties.”
    “And she must honor hers.” The voice came from behind Ophelia, sharp and yet feminine.
    Lenore.
    In one swift blurring arch of color, Lenore lunged at Robert and pinned him to the ground, digging her nails into his wrists until he dropped the blade. But Robert shifted again, his form growing too large for Lenore to keep a good grip. His clothes tore and fell from his body. Stripes ripped across his back, arms, and legs, and hair burst through the skin on his face. His skull and jaw distorted, his features more feline than man. 
    A tiger now stood before Ophelia and Lenore, teeth bared. A low growl rumbled from his chest as he backed away, fear flickering in his eyes before he turned and bounded off through the woods. 
    Gone. Just like that. She peered around, expecting to see a flash of him the underbrush or bounding toward them once again.
    Lenore turned toward Ophelia, her fangs still fully extended, puffing out her mouth. “You all right?”
    “Yes.” Ophelia couldn’t stop shaking. A heavy breeze rushed a fresh waft of lemon and olive toward her, and she nearly gagged on the scent as she tried to fight back her tears. “No. I—I don’t know.”
    The young Cruor’s fangs retracted with a snap. “He’s been injured. He won’t fight me like that, not unless he’s a damn fool.”
    “Sure is,” Ophelia muttered, and Lenore laughed.
    The humor didn’t reach Ophelia though. She couldn’t shake the feeling he was still watching, waiting for an opportunity to attack. Lenore, however, seemed at