Avow (40 page)

It was such an alluring thought that a lump formed in the back of her throat.

“How’s your arm?” He asked, walking up to her and gently turning her
arm
.

“Fine.” She shivered when he touched her.

He frowned. “
Your
stitches tore open.”

She looked down at where her wound had reopened and a thin trickle of blood ran down her arm. “I didn’t notice.”

He rolled his eyes. “Of course you didn’t.” He tossed his wet shirt on the ground and retrieved a med kit from his backpack.

“What are you doing?”

“Sewing you back up.” He laid out his bedroll. “Sit down.”

“I’m fine. Really.” Even as she said it, more blood poured from her wound.

“Yes, I know. You’re always fine. Sit down.”

She sat on the sleeping bag and another shiver went through her.

He smiled and started building a fire. “I can’t have you shaking while I’m running a sharp needle through your skin, now can I.”

“Not if you want your stitches to look as perfect at Nate’s,” she said.

“A challenge. I like that.”

A few minutes later, a healthy fire blazed before them as Tristan sat beside her and carefully cleaned her arm.

She stared at the red mark around her wrist from the rope, thinking of how easily they could have died in the river today.

She
watched him in the firelight. “Were you scared the first time you tried to kill yourself?”

He paused for a moment. “Yes.” His eyes stayed on her arm. “I wasn’t afraid of the pain—though I should have been because it hurt like hell—but I was scared it wouldn’t work and you’d keep dying. And then I was scared it
would
work and that I’d never have a life with you.”

He finished cleaning her arm and gently began threading the needle through her skin.
She tried not to wince
.

“Then why did you keep trying to die?”

He was silent a long time. “Because my love for you was stronger than my fear of being without you.” He smiled. “Story of my life, I suppose.”

He finished stitching her up and dabbed a numbing cream on her wound before bandaging her
arm
.

Scarlet stared down at the man who had lived to love her and tried to die to save her, and she was overwhelmed with emotion. “I love you, Hunter.”

He smiled at her, his green eyes bright under his dark lashes. “I love you, too,”

Desperation came over her as she took in his sweet dimples and patient eyes, and she leaned into him, kissing him with reckless abandon. Just to feel him without fear, to love him without pain one more time before she left his world.

He kissed her back. Softly. Slowly. His hands slid behind her neck, warming her chilled skin as he tilted her head up to his. She crawled into his lap so she could feel his arms around her as she held his face. The stubble along his jaw rubbed against her fingers as she stroked his cheeks.

She tried to memorize the contours of his face with her fingers, trailing them along his jaw and brow line as they kissed. She wanted her hands to remember him forever. Even in death. Even in nothingness.

Her wet clothes heated against his bare chest as he held her in his arms, his lips soft, but demanding at her mouth. She parted her lips, sharing his breath as his tongue fell deep into her mouth. Hot, wet and wonderful.

She shifted in his lap and gripped at his muscles. He was so warm and strong. She wanted to climb inside him and tuck herself in forever.

She kissed a trail down the side of his neck and moved against his body. He groaned and clutched her hips, holding her to him as his hands slid under her tank top and heated her skin. He pulled the wet
shirt
from her body, their mouths parting for only an instant as he tossed it aside and went back to capturing her lips with his.

With their bare chests pressing against one another, Scarlet was no longer cold. She was on fire. She brought her hands to his hair, loving how soft it felt between her fingers.

He
pressed warm, careful hands on her back and laid her beneath him on the bedroll
as
Scarlet’s hands drifted across his skin, running over hard muscles. His hands slid over her breasts and down her belly and she moaned into his mouth.

If it was possible to burn someone into your soul, Tristan was ablaze in hers, and had been for centuries. Seared into her flesh and permanently marked on her heart.

His mouth moved down her body as Scarlet tipped her head back and reveled in the sensation of his tongue sliding along her collarbone.

They kissed and moved until they were both undressed and Tristan covered her exposed skin with his body.

He gazed down at her for moment with loving green eyes.

He kissed her cheekbone, then her eyebrow; He ran a finger over her lips and touched the shell of her ear. “I love you, Scar. So much.”

“I love you too, Hunter. With all my heart.”

He kissed spot just above her heart, his lips resting against the place where a piece of him had lived for so long.
Her heart
was his completely.

He kissed a gentle trail back up to her mouth and kissed her fully.

Here in Tristan’s arms, there were no curses or broken hearts. No sorrow. No sacrifice. It was just love.

Ancient, messy, beautiful love.

They moved against one another in the pulsing blue glow of the caves
as their souls collided
.

They were Scar and Hunter, the way they always should have been.

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

Nate looked up and down the tunnel. “No falling floors. Awesome. I’m going to go journal.”

“You’re
what
?” Gabriel blinked. “You’re going to go journal? What are you, a thirteen year old girl?”

“Hey, journaling is
cool
,”
he
said.

“Whatever, man.” Gabriel sat down beside Heather as Nate walked away.

They had set up a spot to camp for the night and Heather
’s
eyes were growing more crazy by the second.

“How are you doing?”

She rubbed her head. “Not good. I feel insane. I feel like a hundred different people and all of them want to scream and cry and die.”

She started
wringing
her hands together and biting at her lip over and over. Then she stood up and started walking around.

“What, uh…what are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” she said. She paced deeper into the cave in the opposite direction Nate had gone. “I just need to move.”

“Yeah, that’s probably not a good idea. Why don’t you come back over here, where there’s less chance of vine strangulation and open gaps in the ground?”

“No.” She shook her head. “No, I have to move.” She kept shaking her head as she walked farther away.

Gabriel stayed seated for exactly six seconds before following after her.

This girl.

Loud and ridiculous and completely unavoidable.

Gabriel couldn’t seem to stop caring about the blond mess. She was so little and vulnerable. And happy. The girl was always absurdly happy.

No one so happy deserved to have anything bad happen to them. Ever.

Gabriel walked off after her and found her pacing along a glowing blue wall still wringing her hands together.

“I’m losing my mind, Gabriel. Like
actually
losing my mind. I don’t know who I am or what I want and I’m so, so scared.” She shook her hands out. “And what if this fruit thingy doesn’t exist? What if we’re wrong about everything and there’s no cure and I’m just going to be psycho and then die?”

She started to cry in a quiet, fearful way and it did something to him.

He tentatively stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t want to die,” she said.

“You’re not going to die.” He drew her into a hug and had that same protective sensation come over him.

She tucked her face against his shirt, burrowing like she was hiding from the world in his chest. “Even if I don’t die, I’ll be this crazy, addicted person forever and have to live out here in the wild with the bears and werewolves just so I can be close enough to the fountain to stay alive.” She sniffed.

He relaxed his arms around her and held her more closely. “I’ll tell you what. If you have to stay by the fountain for any reason, I’ll camp out with you and fend off any bears.”

“What about werewolves?”

“I’ll fend off werewolves, too. And dragons, if any of those pop up.”

She sniffed again. “Okay.”

They kept hugging and it didn’t feel weird. Gabriel liked how she felt in his arms and how she trusted him to keep her safe.

He liked how she liked him.

It felt real. Maybe it was.

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

The next morning, Scarlet traced the lines of Tristan’s tattoo as she laid on his chest. She flattened her palm over the design and he covered her hand with his, slipping his fingers in between hers.

Scarlet inhaled leather and water and tears burned her eyes.

She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to leave him.

He kissed the top of her head. “I love you.”

She nodded against his chest and a single tear slid down her cheek and ran over his skin.

It wasn’t fair. They’d never had a chance. It wasn’t fair.

He cupped the side of her face and tilted it up to him. “What’s wrong, Scar?” His eyes looked so pained, so desperate, as he brushed his thumb through another falling tear.

She opened her mouth to reassure him, but her lie got lost in her throat as she looked at him and all the love he offered her. All the love she was about to abandon.

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

The thread of unease that had been weaving through Tristan’s veins for the past few days suddenly became a rope of alarm and every instinct inside him wanted to pin her against his body and protect her from whatever it was that scared her so much.

She scooted up and her voice shook with emotion. “If anything happens today, I want you to know that it was worth it. All this. All the crap. All the heartbreak. It was all worth it, okay? And you—you—have made my life beautiful and I will love you forever—”

“Nothing is going to happen.” His heart pounded in fear.

Was that what this was about? Surviving the caves?

“Do you not want to go on?” he asked. “Because, say the word and I will stay right here, in these blue caves with you forever. We don’t have to go a step farther. We don’t have to find the fountain. Hell, we don’t need a cure as long as we’re in here. So, if you’re afraid of dying—”

“I’m not afraid of dying.” She swallowed, her blue eyes full and passionate. “We’ve been a broken, star-crossed mess from the beginning and I wouldn’t change a thing.” Another tear fell.

He tucked her into his arms, scared out of his mind at her defeatist tone as she buried her face in his chest. “Nothing is going to happen to you or me, okay? We’ve survived centuries of impossible things. Today—this, whatever this is—is just another battle. And you and I,” he pulled back and gently wiped her wet cheeks, “you and I know how to battle. We’re partners, Scar. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Another tear fell
and Tristan was completely lost. He’d never seen her fall apart like this and his heart didn’t know what to do with hers.

He wrapped her back against his chest. Speechless. Terrified.

He loved Scarlet. More than anything.

And she was scaring the hell out of him.

CHAPTER 41

Heather was feeling better. And by “better”, she felt “sane.” Her body was still itching beyond belief and she had a pressing desire to chew on her nails, but she hadn’t seen any floating fish or dragonflies recently, so she was feeling optimistic about surviving the next few minutes.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
She walked between Gabriel and Nate through another long, blue tunnel and tried not to accidentally brush up against Gabriel’s ridiculously oversized shoulder. The boy really needed a hobby outside of the gym or bus throwing or whatever it was he did in his free time that gave him those shoulders. They were distracting.

As were his hands.

And his lips…

O-M-G, had she really just been looking at his lips?

Maybe the craziness was coming back. Or maybe she no longer saw him as the oversized, lying, hot guy who had dated her best friend, but rather the oversized, compassionate, hot guy who had carried her through the forest and held her while she cried.