Her head felt fuzzy as she drifted back to the present.
Scarlet stared at the floor as she thought.
It was true.
Everything Gabriel and Tristan were telling her was true.
She had lived centuries ago.
She’d been engaged to Gabriel.
She remembered. She couldn’t deny it.
Scarlet took a deep breath.
It was all true.
Which meant….
Scarlet looked at Gabriel, then at Tristan. “Holy crap. You guys are immortal?” Her small voice cracked.
The brothers nodded.
“And I…I keep dying and coming back to life?” Scarlet could barely get the words out without choking. Or coughing. Or shuddering.
Because dying and coming back to life was totally creepy.
And gross.
Gabriel looked sympathetic as he nodded.
Scarlet took a few more deep breaths. Okay, so she was semi-immortal. She died and came back to life. She could accept that…right?
Her hands started shaking again.
Gabriel sat next to her and put his warm hand on her knee. “You don’t remember…any of this? At all?”
Scarlet shook her head, utterly overwhelmed. “No, Gabriel! Clearly, I do not remember. I think if I remembered I wouldn’t be sitting here, freakin out!”
“Hey…hey.” His voice was soothing as he tried to calm her down. “It’s okay.” He nodded reassuringly. “Everything will be okay. I promise. You can do this. You can handle this. You just have to trust me…okay?”
Scarlet looked into his brown eyes and tried to summon the strength to breathe without crying.
Or, at the very least, not throw up.
She nodded at him and took a moment to gather her thoughts and approach her situation rationally.
Which was impossible, because rationality had no place amongst immortality and curses and elves.
Okay, so maybe there weren’t elves involved, but there were curses, which was just as crazy.
Scarlet exhaled.
She just needed to suck it up, and accept her new—albeit totally bizarre—reality.
She could do this.
“Okay,” Scarlet said, standing up so she could shake off the nervousness inside her. “Just…just give me a minute to wrap my head around all this….”
Or maybe to throw up.
No, Scarlet chastised herself. I will not vomit in front of the two most attractive guys I’ve ever seen.
Scarlet paced.
I’m five hundred years old.
I die and come back to life.
My boyfriend is immortal.
And, oh yeah, and there’s a curse.
So much for being normal.
She stood up straight and took a few deep breaths until her hands stopped shaking.
She had questions—lots of them.
“Okay. So, I die.” She tried to say this like it was a fact, and not a dire fate.
Gabriel nodded. “Yes, but you always come back to life.”
Like that was supposed to make her feel better.
“Do I come back to life right away? Do I just die for a few seconds and then pop right back into a new life or something?”
“Um, no.” Gabriel rubbed his palms on his jeans again. “It’s different every time. Sometimes you’re dead for a hundred years, sometimes only a few decades.”
I sometimes stay dead for a hundred years?
This day officially sucks.
She swallowed, trying not to think about her body decaying in a grave while insects crawled all over her. “And…why do I keep coming back to life?”
Gabriel’s voice was regretful. “Because you have immortal blood inside you.”
“Right.” Scarlet nodded. “Because I’m semi-immortal. Was I, like, born this way? Am I a hybrid or something?”
Both brothers shifted uncomfortably.
“Not exactly,” Gabriel said clearing his throat. “The arrow Raven used to kill you was coated in immortal blood when it pierced your body, embedding the blood in your heart. Immortal blood never dies, so when your body dies the blood inside you fights to bring you back to life.”
Questions tumbled over themselves in Scarlet’s mind. “Immortal blood inside my heart brings me back to life?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Then…why do I keep dying?”
“Because the immortal blood doesn’t belong to you. It’s a supernatural element that’s too strong for your body to contain, so in each new life the blood fights to break free of your heart. It forces your heart to beat faster and harder than a human heart should, straining your heart until it begins to rip. Over time, your heart slowly breaks until…you die. Again.”
Tristan stared at the ceiling, his jaw fixed tight.
Scarlet blinked rapidly, unsure of what to say. “I keep dying of…a broken heart?”
Gabriel nodded. “But the immortal blood inside you brings you back to life.”
“Until,” Tristan said, looking at her from his dark corner, “the same awesome blood tears your heart in half again and kills you. Basically, the blood gives you life…and then takes it away.” Tristan’s words sounded angry but his eyes looked hurt. “You die…you come back to life...you die…you come back to life. It’s a vicious cycle.”
Scarlet swallowed and looked at Gabriel. “Is that the ‘side effect’ you were talking about?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Okay…okay, okay, okay.” She ran a nervous hand through her hair. “So, why did…what’s-her-name, Raven?...why did she want me to keep coming back to life? Why did she put immortal blood on the arrow in the first place?”
Gabriel said, “She…didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
Tick…tick…tick….
Scarlet looked back and forth between the silent brothers. “Whose blood is in my heart?” She looked at Gabriel. “Yours?”
Gabriel looked at the floor.
Well, this can’t be good.
Gabriel cleared his throat. “The blood on the arrow wasn’t mine. It was Tristan’s.”
Scarlet’s eyes shot to Tristan—who was also staring at the floor.
Shifting uncomfortably, Gabriel looked back up at Scarlet. “At the time, Tristan and I didn’t know we were immortal. So, we had no idea Tristan’s blood would trap you in a life-and-death cycle. Tristan didn’t know—we didn’t know…anything, really.” Gabriel rubbed the side of his face and looked back at the floor.
“How did you not know you were immortal?” She looked at Tristan and scrunched her face. “And why on earth would you put your blood on the arrow anyway?”
Gabriel swallowed. “No one deliberately put blood on the arrow. That was…an accident.”
Tension laced the room.
“An accident?” Scarlet looked back at Tristan and waited until his eyes met hers.
He looked haunted. Pained.
Her heart thrummed as she felt something sorrowful settle upon her. Heavy and warm and full of regret, it whispered something to her soul.
Something powerful.
Something sad.
Something Scarlet couldn’t remember.
She searched his face, hoping for answers but he said nothing.
A silent moment passed. Tristan slowly turned away and left the room.
Scarlet’s eyes trailed after him as he disappeared, her rapid heartbeat calming down as he walked away.
Gabriel watched his brother exit with a sigh. “Um…Tristan has issues. So, just try to ignore him.”
Yeah, right.