Avow (32 page)

“That’s how love works, Scar. It’s unconditional and constant. You were the same way. In your past lives. Even when you hated me—even when I broke your heart,” his chest tightened for a moment, “I could still feel your love for me. Love is something that just…doesn’t go away. It never dies.”

She looked at him with pain and hurt and heartbreak in her eyes. “Promise?”

His heart cracked and the doubt in her voice . He gingerly touched her cheek.

“You could die—“

“I won’t.”

She let him run his fingers across her cheekbone and down to her lips. He cupped her face and looked into her eyes as his thumb ran along her lower lip. “I will love you forever,” he said, desperate to chase the sadness from her eyes. “Don’t ever question that.”

She looked lost and scared as she stared up at him and he felt hollow inside. What wasn’t she telling him?

“Touching again, I see.” Nate entered the room with a large, overflowing duffle bag. “Clearly, life is not a priority for either one of you.”

Tristan reluctantly pulled his hand away from Scarlet’s soft lips and stepped back.. “Did you get what we needed?”

Nate set the duffle bag on a table on the center of the room and started unpacking a plethora of bloody weapons, several bags of blood—presumably from his medical stash upstairs—and the map to the Fountain of Youth.

“Yep. I made a copy of the map. You know, just in case we do decide to negotiate with the mad witch from hell.”

“We’re not negotiating,” Scarlet snapped.

Nate raised his hands up defensively. “I know. I’m just being prepared. Like a boy scout. Or a coupon mom on Black Friday. So anyway, copy of the map? Check. I also grabbed the sturdiest weapons from the shack.” He looked at Scarlet. “Real creepy, by the way, how you stole Tristan’s blood in your last life and made yourself an arsenal in a haunted cellar.”

“It’s not haunted.”

“I don’t care. It’s still creepy.” Nate put the blood bags on the table. “Since you two are determined to use bows and arrows out there like Robin Hood’s band of thieves—“ he looked at Scarlet and smiled, “Thieves. How fitting—I’ll let you guys start coating arrows in Tristan’s blood,” he pointed to the bags, “and I’ll gather the rest of the camping equipment we’ll need and the bear spray.”

“Bear spray?”

“Yeah.” Nate nodded. “To ward off any angry bears. It’s a thing.”

Scarlet’s eyes grew huge. “Do you think there will be bears there?”

Nate shrugged. “I don’t know. But I love how you’re obviously more scared of bears than Ashmen and witches. It bodes well for you on this trip. Peace out, lovers. I’m off to find some long underwear. Try not to make any babies while I’m upstairs. You’d think I wouldn’t even have to say that, but seeing as you two were halfway to
Babytown
when I walked in here—“

“Just shut up and go pack,” Tristan said.

“Ooh, feisty.” Nate shook his head at Scarlet. “Tristan doesn’t like it when I talk about you guys having sex.”

“Neither do I. Geez.” Scarlet was blushing as she shooed Nate from the room.

Nate exited and Tristan and Scarlet spent the next half hour lacing arrows in blood and not making eye contact.

Nate had said “sex” and now the whole room felt like a sauna of forbidden tension. Just for that, Tristan was going to decapitate one of Nate’s Star Wars figurines. It was happening.

Scarlet cleared her throat for the third time since they’d been alone.

“What’s up?” Tristan dipped an arrowhead in the bowl of blood they had set up on the table between them.

She sighed “Can’t you just think about sex like a normal guy?”

He blinked. “Excuse me?”  

“How are you
not
thinking about sex right now?”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking about.”

“Yeah, but I know what you’re feeling. And you’re feeling…happy. Where’s all the desire and want?”

He picked up another arrow. “Are you seriously mad at me right now because I’m not having lustful thoughts?”

“No. I’m just confused. I mean,
I’m
thinking about sex. But you’re over there coating arrows in blood and thinking about God knows what—“

“Star Wars figurines.”

“What?”

“That’s what I was thinking about.”

She blinked in confusion. “Star Wars figurines make you happy?”

He smiled and went back to the arrows on the table. “No.
You
make me happy. My happy feelings are because of you. My desire and want feelings—which I have plenty of—are also because of you, but I have those contained right now because I’m trying not to overwhelm you with emotions.”

“Oh.”

“Trust me,” he grabbed another arrow. “You don’t want me to think about sex when you can feel my emotions. It’s very intense. I could barely handle it with you and I had five hundred years of practice.”

She shot her eyes to him. “What are you trying to say? That I’m some kind of baby? I can handle it.”

He shook his head and smiled. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Try me.”

This was a dangerous game, but since only his life was at stake…

“Okay.” He shrugged and started thinking about sex. With Scarlet.

He watched as she stood frozen and the color drained from her face as everything he felt rolled into her. Then bright red color returned to her face and she looked like she might catch fire. He kept his eyes on her as his feelings stayed in the hottest parts of his being.

She looked at him with hungry eyes and moved her mouth to speak but no sound came out. He watched her breathing grow heavier. She dropped the arrows she held and stared at him.

He changed his pattern of thought and tried to calm his emotions so she wouldn’t do anything she regretted.

Once his thoughts were back on happy non-sexual things, he glanced at Scarlet, who was still frozen in place with red cheeks and parted lips.

“Scar?” He leaned to the side to look in her far away eyes. “You okay?”

She mouthed something and nodded, then tried again. “Yeah.” Her voice cracked. She was staring at the wall with big eyes. “I’m, uh…I’m good. I’m great.”

He went back to the arrows and smiled. “Told you.”

Scarlet blinked a few times and looked at Tristan. “We definitely need a chaperone.”

***************

Heather frowned at her pink dress—now stained with blood from her busted nose—as she sat kitty-corner from Gabriel in the back of one of Raven’s evil kidnapping vans.

Of course
the witch had a sinister black van with taped off windows and no back seats.

Of course.

Heather didn’t know where they were headed but the road they’d been traveling on for the past hour was super bumpy and whoever was driving the black van of doom—she couldn’t tell since she and Gabriel were partitioned off from the front seat like this was some kind of creepy limo—wasn’t making an effort to drive smoothly.

Gabriel was staring at her again.

He’d been glancing at her like a guilty puppy ever since Raven had clocked her in the face, and it was all Heather could do not to snap at him to quit looking at her like she was a broken doll.

Though that’s how she felt. Broken. Dirty.

She was like the one-armed Barbie with nappy hair at the bottom of the toy box—the Barbie that always ended up in the trash by the banana peels and smelly diapers.

She looked around the van. Boxes filled with what looked like camping gear took up most of the van’s back interior, leaving only a few feet of space for Heather and Gabriel to sit restrained.

Both their wrists and ankles were bound again. Raven had overseen the knot-tying herself this time, so the ninja knots were extra tight and impossible.

Gabriel leaned against the back door of the van. He was still shirtless and the Bluestone cut that marred his chest was just as split open as it had been yesterday, but no longer bleeding.

His giant body took up most of the space they shared and, even though he tried to keep himself contained against the wall, the nonstop bumps in the road kept shifting him closer to her, so every once in a while, their legs would knock into each other.

They hit another bump and she winced as her bruised face throbbed with the jolt.

Concerned eyebrows lowered over the brown eyes beside her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she snapped, not wanting his pity.

She closed her eyes as they rode along, thinking about her odds of survival. Would Raven hand Heather over to Scarlet? Or would Raven get the map and then kill Heather? Or would Raven kill Scarlet? And Gabriel? And anyone else who showed up?

The dire reality of her situation sank in and Heather felt her lip tremble. She had told her parents she was staying with Scarlet for the week, so no one would come looking for her. Her escape attempt with Gabriel had failed and now they were being hauled off into God-knows where with a posse of Ashmen who were probably going to slaughter them. And Heather would never see anyone she loved again.

A hot tear fell down her cheek as she thought of her family; her happy parents and her annoying brothers and her sweet little sister. She hadn’t loved them enough. She hadn’t appreciated them enough. She thought of all the things she’d never get to do; all the places she’d never get to see.

Another tear fell and Heather gave into the gloom she’d been fighting for the last twenty-four hours.

“Hey,” Gabriel said softly. “Don’t cry. We’re going to be fine.”

Hearing the plea in his voice just made her cry harder. “No, we’re not.”

“Yes, we are. Look at me.”

She opened her eyes and stared at Gabriel’s blurry face through her tears.

He smiled. “I’m Fierce Jaguar, remember? I’m not going to let anything happen to us.”

She huffed out a sad laugh. “I thought you didn’t have a code name.”

“Well after our kickass escape attempt, I figured a code name was in order.” He tilted his head, still smiling. “You were pretty amazing back there with your epic temper tantrum.”

“Yes, well.” She sniffed and the sharp smell of blood swirled inside her wrecked nose. “I have a little sister so I’ve seen my share of pouty throw downs.” The thought of Emily’s little face and blond curls brought tears back to Heather’s eyes.

Gabriel looked panicked. “And what about your badass scissor skills? You took out that Ashman without batting an eye. You were like Lara Croft.”

She sniffed again. “I would be a pretty awesome tomb raider.”

“No doubt.”

“But my boots would be pink.”

“Of course.” His crooked grin went sincere. “But seriously. You were pretty amazing today.”

Heather didn’t feel amazing at all. “Maybe next time we get kidnapped and try to escape, we should check for black vans first.”

He nodded. “Good call.”

Another bump in the road had her wincing again.

“Sorry I got you punched in the face today,” Gabriel said.

She shrugged. “It happens.”

He was still all guilty-looking, so Heather tried to lighten the mood. “How do I look with my bloody nose and swollen lip?” She tilted her face to one side, then the other, mock posing for his appraisal. “Sexy? Drop dead gorgeous?”

“You look…” he tilted his head, “brave.” He paused. “You are brave.” His features hardened and Heather realized he wasn’t joking.

Pride expanded in her chest.

She leaned against the van wall. “Well, hopefully my bravery can last through my new drug addiction and the consequential withdrawals I’m sure to be experiencing shortly.”

He nodded. “You can handle it, Tomb Raider.”

She shook her head. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I know.”

The van went over another bump and made a sharp turn, throwing Heather into Gabriel and causing them both to topple over. Heather landed on top of his bare chest.

His hot skin burned against her tear-stained cheeks and she immediately tried to wiggle her way off of him. Her bound wrists and ankles made it difficult for her to wiggle effectively, though, and the back of the van was too cramped for either of them to rollover completely.

Just when she’d scooted down to his stomach where there was more room to move, the van turned again, shoving her right back up his chest. Gabriel had his bound arms raised above her, hanging out in the air like he didn’t know where to put them.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered. With her hands pinned between them—and her arms accidentally brushing against several parts of his body—Heather started wiggling all over again.

“Heather?” Gabriel said, his arms still frozen in the air.

She wiggled down his chest until her face got to his stomach. Why were his abs so big? That couldn’t be normal. Or healthy.

“Heather,” he said again.

“What?” she started scooting again.