chapter 14

Bale ate with more relish than his food warranted as he savored the delicious meal Jane made him. She watched him with a smug on her face, trying to keep herself from laughing when he began to lick his fingers like a little boy. She liked it when he did that. She believed it made him look cute, but while she watched, deep down, she wished it was her tongue in his mouth and not his fingers. It took everything in her to stop her from just running up to him and locking her mouth against his succulent-looking lips. She even had to cross her legs to prevent that. And also to keep her juices from wetting her pants. Those were the effects Bale had on her, but she couldn't tell him. Not because he would reject her, but because he could start avoiding her after the rejection, and she wasn't ready for that. She preferred to steal glances from the sidelines and let him mess with her hormones.

Hendell leaned against the window with a cigar in his hand. His forehead creased with worry as he watched Candace attend to her daughter. There were a lot of things he could've still done to help them, but he couldn't because Penelope like all other humans, was fragile. The only thing he could do now was just to wait and hope for the best.

"How's she doing now?" He asked Candace after she was done checking on her daughter.

"Her fever's gone. The herb you gave her worked like magic" She answered with a rueful smile that did nothing but point out the dark circles on her eyes.

"It IS magic." He reminded her.

"Oh, yea. How silly of me, I forgot" she smiled, but mere looking at her it was obvious she was exhausted and in dire need of sleep. "So you're not quitting it?" she asked when she finally noticed the cigar in Hendell's hand.

"I'm a druid. It has no effect on me." he shrugged.

"Then why do you smoke?"

"I just like the scent of tobacco." he gave an honest reply. "Close to 600 years now, it still remains the only reason why I smoke". he concluded and Candace smiled in reply as she remembered something.

"You know I had the same expression when I found out what Harry was and when you told me how old you really were." she shook her head when she recalled the experience.

"Yes, tell me. How did it happen? I never got the chance to ask Harry myself." Hendell asked out of curiosity.

"Harry was a good man" she began with a melancholic smile. "Then, I used to think he didn't love me as much as he claimed because he wouldn't propose to me until he told me the truth. He said 'I don't want you to be tied to me forever if you don't know what I really am"

"And you're a very strong woman for accepting him" Hendell interjected. "But hell, I was shocked when you walked up to me one day and called me 'Druid'" he recalled an event and they both laughed. After the laughter had died down, he asked. "Do you still miss him?".

"Yea," Candace replied, after a brief moment of silence. "You?"

"All the time," Hendell muttered almost inaudibly. "Over a thousand years old, I've lived a lot of lives, and I've had a lot of friends. werewolves, sometimes human too, but in the end I outlive them. It's a very painful experience, watching the ones you love, grow old and die while you're still trapped in a young body, aging very slowly and waiting to repeat the cycle all over again. At least the werewolves in absence of danger manage to live long, before they die, eventually. But in all these years of torture, Harry, Stephan, my brother, and I had something unique. Something peculiar that gave me a different perspective of life. And that's what makes it difficult to forget them." he paused so his emotions wouldn't get the best of him. "And for what it's worth. I'm sorry about Harry." he continued to talk. "But what happened that night wasn't my fault alone. They were both at fault too. And I didn't abandon them. They refused to listen to me." He clarified himself, but Candace kept quiet. Not because she was mad at him, but because she had nothing to say. Hendell lingered around for a little while and when she didn't say anything else, he left after he'd collected a strand of hair from Penelope for further diagnosis.