Free Avow by Chelsea Fine Page B

her chest to keep her heart from leaping out.
    Tristan shifted away from her with a concerned expression and, almost instantly, the pounding softened.
    “I see you’ve found her,” said a voice behind Scarlet. “Fantastic.”
    Turning, she saw a stranger with messy brown hair approach them with a smile.
    Suddenly aware she and Tristan were not alone in the room—somehow, she had forgotten about Gabriel, oops—Scarlet dropped her hand from her chest and took a reluctant, yet socially appropriate, step away from Tristan.
    She looked at the stranger. “Who are you?”
    His brows lifted. “Oh. Oh, right. You do not know me.”
    “This is our friend, Nathaniel,” Tristan said.
    “And I’m a wizard,” Nathaniel smiled.
    “Barely,” Gabriel corrected. “He is barely a wizard.”
    “Hey now.” Nathaniel said in mock offense. “I’m getting better.”
    “No. If anything, you are getting worse,” Gabriel said.
    Scarlet was confused. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”
    “Well, you were dead. And now you are alive.” Nathaniel smiled.
    “Right , ” Scarlet said. “And how is that possible?”
    “Immortal blood.” He nodded. “It’s a long story.”
    Scarlet crossed her arms. “Then start at the beginning.”
     
    ***************
     
    Scarlet leaned back against the desk in her small quarters at the inn, her servant’s dress catching on the corner and tearing slightly.
    Nathaniel had spent the last few hours explaining Scarlet’s past and the boys’ immortality to her. It was a lot to take in and most of it was disturbing.
    Gabriel smiled at her from his post by the door, no doubt trying to make her feel comfortable. She smiled back at him, confusion winding through her head. He had practically been her husband in her previous life, yet somehow he seemed like a stranger to her. Like he was a warm, soft dream that had existed in one reality, but had no place in this one.
    She rubbed her pounding chest for the third time that hour. “So I am semi-immortal?”
    “Correct.” Nathaniel watched Scarlet clutch at her heart again. “How does your heart feel?”
    Confused. Anxious. Unstable.
    “Fine.” Scarlet dropped her hand. “It’s beating rather fast but otherwise it’s fine.”
    From across the room, Tristan’s eyes slid to her and Scarlet’s nervous feelings vanished. Tristan was alive. Everything would be fine.
    She tried to memorize his new green eyes. They suited him better. The brown had been handsome, but the bright green was…alive. Like living fire, burning emerald as he looked at her with an almost-smile. She wished they were alone so she could touch him and smell him and taste him—
    The emerald flames brightened.
    “—start happening?” Nathaniel’s voice pulled Scarlet away from Tristan’s hot gaze.
    She blinked. “Come again?”
    Nathaniel cleared his throat. “I asked when you felt your heart begin to race.”
    “Oh. Uh…” Scarlet knew exactly when her heart had started to pound, but she didn’t want to announce to the room how her heart had become a hungry drummer the moment she ran into Tristan’s arms.
    “Today.” That was a safe, non-embarrassing answer.
    ”Before or after we found you?”
    “After.”
    Tristan turned to Nathaniel. “Are you concerned about her heart?”
    “I don’t know.” He frowned. “I feel like I’ve read something about ferociously beating hearts, but I cannot recall…” He trailed off for a moment, then shook his head. “Oh well. The most important thing,” he smiled at Scarlet, “is that you are alive and well and have your memories back.”
    She smiled at Nathaniel. She wasn’t sure what to think of him. He was quirky and awkward, and not at all what Scarlet would have expected a wizard to be, but he seemed genuinely pleasant.
    Gabriel looked out at the night sky through the window. “It is too late to travel tonight, but perhaps we can purchase rooms here for the evening and head back home first thing in