Beast of Venery by Isabell Lawless Read Free Book Online Page A

dogs behind, and it almost killed her thinking about it. She knew he would take care of them in some type of fashion, train them for hunting or property security, but not love them the way she had done. They were her babies, but in the hurry to leave, she made the decision to either stay with them and die, or leave them and survive. She chose life, and kissed them both farewell, wiping tears away from her face that day. Her survival instinct took over and she told herself it was all for the best. This is the way it had to be.
                  In his first few emails, he started out begging her to come back and to not ruin their relationship.  He then gradually wrote downright scary, screaming emails, calling her all the bad names in the book, and what would happen to her if she didn't come back. He made sure she knew what a cunt, a whore, and thin-skinned bitch she truly was. That she would never be free from him, and that she would never live a life that was good enough without him. That she couldn't function properly without him. That deep down she was confused, and needed him to guide her.
     
                  Some days Andy dealt with her somewhat irrational fear of imagining visions of shadows in the windows at dusk, cars following her too closely on her way home from the grocery store or the gym. Both were places where she went on a regular basis, making her an easy target for a stalker. Or that one single white paper box of long stemmed red roses waiting on the little side table on the front porch one Friday afternoon after they arrived back from a three-day trip to Charlotte for a rock concert. There wasn't a note attached to the flowers, not even an answer to who might have sent them. There wasn't even been a hint of whom the package was intended for. Only a simple heart drawn in black sharpie decorated its left hand corner.
                  Nothing that obvious was ever sent to their house again, and having Andy poke on her anxiety of the past and present colliding at any given day and time, calling it somewhat exaggerated, they both agreed the flowers might have been from a secret, anonymous admirer. Perhaps the chatty guy that always ran next to her on the treadmill at the gym, or they might just have been sent to the wrong house. Fingers crossed on the last one.
                  She remembered Andy unpacking the car with all their belongings they brought with them on the trip, walking into the house with a beer cooler under his arm, and telling her not to make too much of the box of flowers. She, on the other hand, wasn't quite able to let those thoughts go away as fast as he did, and she continued looking around the yard standing safely put on their front porch. Then peeked up and down the street, terrified of seeing the person she had tried so desperately to run away from. Perhaps he had found her?
                  She never took that box of flowers inside the house. Instead she dumped them straight into the green trash can of yard waste outside their garage. She wasn't entirely sure they weren’t being watched that day, but she knew that if the potential sender of these roses witnessed her ungrateful deed, hell would soon break lose.
                  Ever since Brian's first email after she left him, telling her he would eventually find her and bring her home, she never felt quite alone and always stayed a little neurotic, always looking over her shoulder.
                  “Hey babe.” Andy gently hugged her from behind, burying his face in that magical soft space between her neck and her shoulder. Her favorite place for kisses and snuggles, and he knew it too well.
                  “Please come inside. That box could have been sent from anybody. Perhaps you have a secret admirer, and I bet you do gorgeous, and you should be flattered instead of creeped out. Oooor, perhaps the flowers were for