Avow

CHAPTER 25

Boston 1895

“You know,” Gabriel mused as Scarlet lined up another arrow, aimed, and released. “Most women pass their time walking with parasols and visiting dance halls.”

She pulled another arrow. “Most women are boring.”

Drawing back on her bow, she released the arrow into the long hall before her and watched as it pierced the target ahead.

“Very true. There is nothing boring about an armed woman. Alarming, perhaps. But certainly never boring.”

Scarlet lowered her bow. “What are you doing here, Gabriel?”

“Watching you shoot arrows.”

After the Tristan Incident—that’s what she was calling it, the Tristan Incident—Scarlet refused to be codependent ever again. She had precious few years to live and she wanted to make the best of it—without the assistance of over-protective immortals.

So she’d bought her own home and she made her own friends. She made a life for herself and for the first time in all her centuries, Scarlet felt like an adult. She needed no one, so she never sought out Nate or Gabriel.

Though that didn’t stop them from coming to her.

Nate visited once a week to draw her blood. He was working on a vaccine, hoping to cure Scarlet through medicine. She had no such hopes, but she let him draw her blood anyway.

But Gabriel visited her every other day and almost always commented on how odd it was for a woman to convert her home’s hallway into an archery range. It was dreadfully annoying.

But it was also the only thing Scarlet looked forward to each week.

She didn’t want him in her life, yet she felt empty when he was not there. Something about his patience and crooked smile made Scarlet feel loved and undamaged. And dammit if those weren’t two things she wanted more than anything.

Not that she’d ever let Gabriel know that. This life—her life—was for her alone. No broken hearts. No maddening curses. No gray love. She just wanted…simple. And so she had built herself a simple little life and pretended to be annoyed with Gabriel’s incessant drop-ins.

“Don’t you have better things to do than loiter in my home?” Scarlet asked.

He smiled. “Would you like me to leave?”

No!

Scarlet hurried to shut off her ridiculously needy heart.

Numb. I want to be numb.

“You may stay if you wish, but do not expect me to entertain you.”

“Too late.” His smile grew. “I miss you, Scarlet.”

She wished he would not say such things to her when she was trying to be numb. Words had a way of making her heart stir and Scarlet didn’t want to feel her heart. Not now. Not ever again.

She said nothing, mostly because she could not trust her traitorous heart to speak coldly to the loving man who so wished to make her life beautiful and was so desperate for love himself.

“So,” he continued, unfazed by her lack of response. “I was thinking we could travel somewhere. Would you like to see Paris?”

“No.”

“Would you like to go to a play with me?”

“No.”

“Would you like to shut yourself up in your house and pretend as though you are someone else? Or at least no longer you?” He smiled.

Yes. Exactly.

How did he know that?

“Scarlet.” He walked up to her. “You can shut me out forever. That’s fine. But I will always be here. Not because I think you need me, but because I love you.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek, and Scarlet’s eyes fell shut at the contact.

She missed him. She loved him.

But she wasn’t ready to feel again.

Was she?

She opened her eyes but Gabriel was already gone.