A twig snapped behind her and Scarlet spun around.
Nothing.
She shook her head. After leaving Mr. Brooks yesterday, Scarlet had visited the old Avalon cemetery in the hopes of finding her father’s grave. She hadn’t found any tombstones marked William Jacobs, but she had gotten the chills several times while she was there, like ghosts were watching her or something, and the eerie sensation had stayed with her ever since.
And now here she was, in broad daylight, spooked at the sounds of nature.
She slowed her hike and pulled out the forest map she’d brought.
Knowing she planned to return the journal to Mr. Brooks—where it was much safer than in the hands of, say, an immortal friend of hers who might to try to survive the caves of death—Scarlet had memorized the map.
The tree branches were filled with lines running off in different directions and those lines were the cave tunnels. There were a few tunnels that would take Scarlet to the Avalon chamber, but first she needed to find the caves themselves.
She studied her location on the forest map with a frown. She still had a long way to go and it was already noon. According to her research, the Bluestone caves were notoriously hard to find and Scarlet didn’t want to hunt for them in the dark. She needed to hurry.
Something rustled to her left and she froze, her eyes shooting in that direction before she mentally scolded herself for being so paranoid.
Scarlet resumed her hike. Stupid, creepy graveyards and their hitchhiking ghost vibes—
Stiff hands grabbed her from behind and threw her to the ground.
Stunned for a moment, Scarlet could do nothing more than stare at the man looming over her. His eyes and teeth were yellow, his skin ash-gray, and his jerky movements made him seem more like an animated monster than a crazy man in the woods.
Scarlet snapped out of her shocked state just as the odd being grabbed at her bag. Snatching her bag from his grasp, Scarlet jumped up and raised a hand to block the blow her attacker threw at her.
Instinct kicked in and Scarlet kicked at the man—who she now decided was not much more than a decrepit creature—and made contact with his hip, kicking him to the ground. He grunted and spittle came from his mouth as he fell.
Reaching into her bag with deft precision, Scarlet pulled out her hunting knife and flung it into the man’s chest just as he rose and came at her again.
Her adrenaline pumping, Scarlet watched the blade sink into the odd-colored skin of her attacker and waited for him to drop to his knees. But he simply looked down at the knife in his chest, pulled it out, and charged her again.
Stunned, Scarlet pulled out one of the bloodstained daggers and desperately thrust it into the abdomen of the creature that was nearly on top of her. The being stumbled back and collapsed onto the forest floor, its body crumbling into a pile of ash, leaving only the dagger behind. Scarlet froze in place at what she had just witnessed.
Hearing a sound behind her, she whipped around to see another creature charging her. Without a weapon to defend herself, Scarlet threw a punch into his jaw—which felt as though it was made of stone—and a heavy kick to his groin. He wobbled for a moment and Scarlet felt her eyes start to burn as a blue light lit up the trees around her. When the burning subsided, Scarlet saw the being had recovered and was coming at her again. Quickly, she lunged for the bloodstained dagger lying on the forest floor. She grabbed it and flung it at him. He, too, fell to the ground and disintegrated.
She took a moment to look around. Three more manlike creatures were charging toward her. Fear spiked her veins as she realized she was outnumbered and sorely unprepared for a fight of such caliber. Turning around, Scarlet ran through the trees blindly, her lungs burning and her legs going numb. Her eyes felt hot and flashes of blue bounced off the forest around her. She saw a few spots of blood fall from her face and realized her nose was bleeding as well.
What? No. Not yet! She couldn’t be sick yet.
Faster and faster she ran, blood running down her face, until she was certain she had lost her attackers. Doubling over, she caught her breath and wiped her nose.
The creatures had not been normal humans. They had not been human at all.
What were they?
She straightened up and caught her breath. It didn’t matter what they were. What mattered was that they stood between her and the fountain and it seemed they could be defeated with immortal blood—something Scarlet happened to have on hand.
She was going to need more weapons.
Another drop of blood fell from her nose.
And she was running out of time.
When she got back to the cabin, Scarlet carried the remainder of the Tristan’s weapons—thank you Tristan for treating me like an equal partner in war at all times— to the cellar and carefully coated them with Tristan’s blood.
She spent the rest of the day practicing the feel and weight of each weapon before hanging them up on the wall. When she was finished, she had a wall of bloody weapons that closely resembled the wall in Tristan’s house.
She smiled to herself.
He would be proud.
Well, no, actually. He would be pissed. Tristan would hate the idea of Scarlet taking on a troop on nonhuman creatures by herself, but whatever.
Another warm trickle fell from her nose and she cursed as she brought her hand to her face. This was bad.
Walking back upstairs, Scarlet headed for the cabin’s only room and cleaned her nose before heading to the kitchen.
She looked out the window, concerned by her rapidly accelerating illness and nervous for the battle that lay ahead of her.
But then she thought of Tristan and she wasn’t afraid.
Staring out into the twilight forest, she whispered, “There is no victory without a battle.”
CHAPTER 34
The next morning, Scarlet crouched high in a tree in the Avalon forest and watched the creepy beings from the day before mill around the clearing below. She counted eight of them.
Scarlet pulled back on her bow and set a bloodstained arrow in line with the nearest creature. Silently cutting the air, her arrow struck her target’s heart and he fell to the ground with a grunt, his body breaking apart into ash.
Scarlet’s heart raced in excitement. Without hesitating, she pulled out seven more arrows and shot down the remaining beings without batting an eye, all of them falling to ash as their little weird buddy had.
If Scarlet hadn’t been trying to be so sneaky, she probably would have laughed in victory as she carefully climbed down the tree.
An ash being charged at her from the bushes in front of her and Scarlet yanked a dagger off her back and thrust it into his stomach.
Ash guy down.
She heard rustling from the trees behind her and turned to see two more attackers coming at her. Pulling out another knife, she cut into the creaturemen until they were ash as well.
Out of breath and eyes burning, Scarlet turned and saw three more coming at her from the large boulders in the clearing.
Really? This didn’t seem fair.
With a sigh, she dropped her bag and loosened her arms as the men of ash neared. One by one, she stabbed and sliced. She took blows to the face, she was kicked and bloodied, and she was choked and slammed against trees.
But in the end, she prevailed and found herself standing amidst several heaps of ash with no more creatures charging her.
Her nose was bleeding and her eyes were burning nonstop. She had an hour, if that, to live. Scarlet looked around and her heart fell. The fountain was too far away. Even if she sprinted she wouldn’t be able to make it before her body gave out.
She had failed. All her plans, all her best intentions, were all for nothing. She wanted to scream in frustration. She had been so close. So close.
She heard the sound of a gun cock behind her.
Slowly turning around, Scarlet’s mouth fell open when she saw who was standing on the other side of the gun barrel pointed right at
her head.
Raven.
How was she still alive?
“Hello, Scarlet,” Raven said. “Give me the map and I might not shoot you in the face.”
Scarlet blinked. “The…what? What are you…? Why—“
“The map to the Fountain of Youth, Scarlet. I need it.”
“I don’t have the map.”
“Yes you do. That man you spoke with yesterday, Mr. Brooks? What a nice gentleman he is. I struck up a lovely conversation with him after you left and he told me how you offered to trade him a map to the Fountain of Youth for some of his valuables.”
“I don’t have—“
“Don’t lie to me.” She nodded to something behind Scarlet and suddenly Scarlet found herself being wrestled into the arms of two ash creatures she hadn’t seen coming.
She kicked and struggled, but the decrepit beings quickly disarmed her and held her fast. A third being yanked her backpack off and handed it to Raven, who riffled through it before throwing it to the ground with a frustrated noise.
“Where’s the map?”
Scarlet spit out the blood that was trickling into her mouth from her nose. “I told you, I don’t have it.”
Raven cocked her head. “You don’t look well. Perhaps I’ll wait until you fall dead and then I’ll just riffle your pockets and that little cabin of yours.”
“You’ll find nothing useful.” Scarlet’s eyes burned as she smiled in triumph. Maybe she hadn’t reached the fountain, but she’d kept the map safe.
Raven looked livid. “Take me to the fountain.”
“No.”
”Very well. I guess you’ll be coming home with me until you change your mind.”
The ashy creatures pushed Scarlet forward and she didn’t fight. She needed to buy herself time to figure out a way out of this.
“What are these things?” Scarlet asked, wriggling in the hands of one of the man beings.
“I call them my dead helpers. They’re corpses from the Avalon graveyard that I brought back from the dead.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“It’s effective.” Raven pushed her forward. “I’m actually quite glad things worked out this way. Now I’ll have a map and a sacrifice.”
“What?”
“Certainly you know about the sacrifice that the fountain demands.”
Scarlet tried to remember what the journal said.
Touching the Avalon is fatal, but from the sacrifice comes eternal water and the Avalon fruit which heals all who are addicted.
Raven laughed. “You’re out here searching for the fountain and you don’t even know about the sacrifice? The fountain requires a heart and therefore death, before it will release its water or its fruit. One touch of the Avalon tree will drain your heart of life and give me that fruit.”
Scarlet blinked. She’s been so concerned about the caves that threatened immortals, she hadn’t stopped to consider what the passage had meant about a sacrifice.
Someone would have to die in order for the fountain water to be accessed?
Scarlet would never be cured.
All this—all this time and effort and hope was for nothing. Scarlet was dying, and she would always be dying.
Now she was pissed.
Whipping to the side, Scarlet kicked the gut of the creature on her right and then wrestled herself out of the arms of the other being until she was loose enough to kick Raven’s gun from her hand. Scarlet dodged the creaturemen and snatched a bloodstained knife from her pack—now lying on the ground abandoned—before slicing into the ashy beings until they crumbled.
Raven caught her by the hair and yanked Scarlet’s head back, pressing a very sharp, very mean looking knife against her throat.
“Tell me where the map is or I’ll slit your throat.”
Scarlet started laughing wildly, blood from her nose streaming down her cheek. “You are so stupid.”
Raven gripped her tighter, but Scarlet only laughed harder.
“Shut up!” Raven yelled into Scarlet’s ear.
Her laughter dead in her throat, Scarlet whipped around and reversed their position, holding the knife to Raven’s throat with one hand as she pulled Raven’s head back by the hair with the other.
“You can’t kill me, you know. I have fountain water in my body.” Raven sneered.
Scarlet hit Raven as hard as she could with the handle of the knife, dropping the unconscious witch to the ground.
For a moment, adrenaline kept Scarlet feeling strong. But then the world started spinning and things went fuzzy. Her heart was pounding so hard her chest felt like it was tearing in half.
Blood filled her mouth, her hands went numb, and hot pain shot through her limbs. She tried to move, but her feet were made of lead and carried her only to the ground, where she dropped on her knees. Her eyes were seeing white and she knew this was it. This was the end.
She let her body fall to a heap on the earth beside her enemy, wanting to cry and scream for everything that was unfair and everything she couldn’t fix.
But instead, she whispered, “Tristan.”
Because somewhere inside her, Tristan was there, coming for her, feeling her, scared for her. He was sad. He was scared. And he was so in love.
He was getting closer, making her pain more acute, but her death more bearable. He loved her so much, it filled up more than the air in his lungs and the blood in his veins.
He was powerful. He was mad. He was everything she wanted forever.
And she was losing him.
She felt his gripping love for her wrap around her soul and tuck her in, rocking her to sleep through the blinding pain that took the light from her burning eyes and stole her away, once again, into death.
CHAPTER 35
The worst way to wake up, Heather decided, was tied to a freezing cold pillar with rope burns on her wrists and a half-naked immortal guy hanging across from her.
Gabriel shifted his body and his stomach muscles flexed with the movement.
Okay, so maybe the half-naked immortal guy part wasn’t all that bad.
“So…” Heather nodded slowly. “We’re still here.”
“Yep. I think your team of SWAT guys got lost. Probably looking for their shirts.”
She made a face at him. “You’re effing hilarious.”
“I try.”
Heather wiggled her freezing toes. She could really go for a blanky or some long underwear. She closed her eyes and dropped her head back against the pillar. “I want to go home.”
“You will,” Gabriel said. “Soon.”
“Is that right?” she said dryly.
He nodded. “Tristan won’t stop until he finds us. Well, until he finds me. He’ll find you by default.”
“How are you so sure Tristan will track you down?”
“Because if Tristan had been kidnapped, I wouldn’t stop until I found him and got him the hell out of wherever he was. He’ll find us.”
“I hope you’re right.” A shiver went through her as she shifted against the pillar. “It’s so cold.”
Gabriel scoffed. “Try hanging out without a shirt on.”
Their eyes met.
Awkward.
He cleared his throat and looked at the ground while Heather tried not to think about being tied up and topless with Gabriel.
Another shiver went through her. “Do you think the Hostage Hotel serves food? A bagel sounds good—Ooh, or a cappuccino. A cappuccino sounds delicious.”
“Yeah, I’m sure Raven’s whipping up a five-star breakfast for us in her Millhouse apron right now.”
“Wow. You’re king of sarcasm today.”
“Maybe sarcasm is how I cope,” he mocked.
“Ha. Ha.” Heather shifted again and winced as the ties around her wrists cut into her raw skin. She frowned at the crappy rope. “Your ex-girlfriend sucks, Gabriel.”
“Yeah, yeah. I have terrible taste in women.” He jiggled his own ties, staring up at them like maybe he’d overloo
ked a secret trap door out of the bindings.
“Not entirely. I thought Scarlet was a good choice.”
Heather watched as the skin around his wrists tore open against the rope, only to immediately close back up.
“Yeah.” He twisted his arms. “But Scarlet wasn’t really a choice.”
Heather blinked. “Wait, what?”
“Tristan was with her first, but he asked me to marry her when he was sent off to war,” he said casually.
Like this wasn’t a giant bombshell that changed everything in the whole freaking world.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up, Romeo.” Heather was fully awake now. “Start at the beginning.”
Gabriel stopped wiggling his ties and briefly recounted how Scarlet and Tristan had been engaged, but Tristan had been sent away and asked Gabriel to marry Scarlet in his place so she would be taken care of. And then how Gabriel and Scarlet had grown close, only to have Raven shoot Scarlet through the heart with an arrow on their wedding day.
Heather’s mouth hung open as Gabriel finished his story. “Well, that explains it.”
“Explains what?” he said.
She shrugged—or at least tried to shrug. Shrugging while tied to a block of ice was difficult. “Why you and Scarlet don’t have chemistry. I always thought it was strange—like how can two people who so obviously care about one another not have chemistry? But now it makes sense.”
He frowned. “Scarlet and I have chemistry.”
Heather rolled her eyes. “Oh please. Don’t get me wrong. You’re both hot and you look great together, but there’s no passion between you guys. Like at all. And you never fight. It’s super strange.”
“We’ve fought,” he said.
“Really? Over what?” she challenged.
He furrowed his brow.
“Wow. If it’s that hard to remember a fight, then you’ve never had any fights worth remembering.” Heather shook her head.
“Who wants to have memorable fights?”
“People who are passionate about each other!” she said. “Geez, Gabriel. Haven’t you ever wanted to kiss someone and kill them at the same time?”