“So I hear.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Has Tristan been complaining about my activities again?”
“No. He simply takes note.”
“Yes, well, I wish he would throw away his note pad and join in on the party every once in a while.” Gabriel waved a finger at Greta for more liquor. “It is a draining thing to be the only happy family member.”
Nathaniel laughed. “Is that what you are?”
“I am certainly not the disgruntled family member.” Gabriel drank up what Greta poured.
“No. I suppose you’re not.” Nathaniel watched Greta pour more into his glass and drank as well. “Have you noticed a change in your brother lately?”
“Yes. I’ve noticed he’s no fun at all. He used to be pleasant, you know. Friendly and content. The bastard.”
“No.” Nathaniel wrinkled his brow. “I mean, have you noticed a darkness in him? He seems…different.”
Gabriel shrugged. He did not have enough alcohol in his body for this conversation. “His love died. Who wouldn’t be dark at that?”
Nathaniel scratched his jaw. “Yes. I think that may play into why he has withdrawn from the world as he has. Scarlet’s death was horrendous.”
A sharp pain shot into Gabriel’s chest and he waved at Greta again to numb it away. He did not want to think about Scarlet and the hope she brought him when she was alive. He did not want to think at all.
“Now, no more talk of Tristan, he is souring my pleasant mood and he’s not even here,” Gabriel said. “Let us speak of other things. Like the card game being held later tonight.”
Greta refilled both their glasses.
Nathaniel smiled. “You have already lost your fortune twice since we’ve been in South Carolina. I’m not sure a card game is wise.”
High stakes made Gabriel feel alive and, without Scarlet, he mostly felt dead. “I have an eternity to win and lose my fortune, so I shall play until card games go out of fashion.”
“You are truly reckless.”
“Why, thank you.” He smiled. “Now, drink up!”
CHAPTER 15
Charleston 1789
Scarlet shivered against the cold chill the wailing wind brought to her body. She slowly opened her eyes to the cutting sun of a winter sky shining off the snow-covered ground, and blinked.
Where was she? And why had she been sleeping outside in the snow? She could not remember anything about her whereabouts and had just started to panic when she saw him.
A boy—a beautiful boy—stood a few yards away from her wearing a pair of low-slung pants and an open black coat over his bare chest. He was breathing heavily, like he’d been running, and looked at her with relief and fear on his face.
“You’re safe,” he assured her, looking like both protector and predator.
But staring at him, Scarlet realized she did, indeed, feel safe.
Slowly, she stood up and took him in. He was not dressed for winter at all and his shaggy dark hair was tousled and wild. But his eyes…his eyes were breathtaking.
Green and piercing, they looked into her and held her captive. Her heart started to pound and somehow Scarlet knew she knew this boy. She just couldn’t…remember….
A commotion behind the beautiful boy broke out and two other figures slowly approached from the forest beyond.
“Scarlet.” A boy identical to the one Scarlet had been staring at carefully neared her, carrying a large blanket in his hands as he smiled.
The third boy, who looked nothing like the other two, said nothing but smiled broadly.
Unlike the first stranger, the other boys were dressed for winter, with coats and gloves and clothing covering their chests. And they both looked pleased to see her, which was more than she could say for the quiet stranger in black, standing off to the side now, but never taking his eyes from her face. She had the sudden urge to touch him.
His eyes darkened for a moment before her attention was called away by the twin boy who was now standing before her.
“Scarlet,” he said. “Do you remember who you are?”
“Yes. I’m Scarlet Jacobs,” she said automatically.
“Do you remember us? Or when you were born?”
She thought for a moment, fear creeping under her skin as she realized she had no recollection of ever being born, let alone when.
Shaking her head, she took a step back.
The twin boy who, she now realized, had brown eyes and not green, smiled at her lovingly. “We are your friends and you were born in 1523.”
Click.
A burning began behind her eyes and the forest disappeared as she slowly went blind with memories. Hundreds of memories. Swooping into her mind, each memory clicked into place against another one and, suddenly, Scarlet remembered everything.
Struggling to get back to the present, she blinked until the forest returned. “Gabriel!” She threw her arms around him with joy and an overwhelming sense of relief.
But then she remembered Tristan and his green eyes and open heart…and the way he’d loved her and how he had fled from her when she had started to die—
“Tristan!” Her arms fell from Gabriel as she whipped around in search of her Hunter, desperate to embrace him.
But he had vanished.
“Where is he?” Scarlet looked first to Gabriel, then to Nathaniel.
“He has left in order to keep you safe,” Nathaniel said.
“If it is so critical to keep us apart, then why did he come to the forest to get me?” Scarlet put her hands on her hips, determined to argue her way into Tristan’s arms, if only for a moment.
Gabriel wrapped the blanket around her. “Tristan is the one who found you, Scarlet. Because of your connection he can feel where you are.”
“Oh.” Right. Tristan could feel her. Could he feel how she wanted to run after him right now?
Nathaniel cleared his throat, his smile a bit too bright. “You’re alive again. Isn’t that wonderful?” He spoke with a strange accent. Odd.
“How long was I dead?” Scarlet asked.
“About a hundred years.” Gabriel said pleasantly, as if skipping a century of time was good news and not severely bizarre.
His voice held the same accent as Nathaniel’s, no longer sounding English. It sounded…less soft.
“Come,” Gabriel said. “Let us take you back home.”
The boys chatted away endlessly as they led her through the trees, telling her about the new land they occupied and what the world was now like. Scarlet was barely listening.
A hundred years. She’d lost a hundred years. She was overwhelmed and confused. And she was impatient to get back to Tristan, where she always felt at home.
They came upon a large home nestled in a thick clump of trees with tall, white pillars in front and shrubs lining the drive.