Avow Read Online Free PDF Page A

with something—pain, maybe? Sadness?—before falling to his mouth.
    His heart stopped beating.
    Bad idea. He was way too close to her. Close enough to feel her hot breath feather across his chin as she exhaled. Close enough to see the beating pulse at the base of her throat.
    Close enough to touch her…
    Her eyes shot back to his with renewed hardness and she ducked underneath his left arm. “Let it go, Tristan.” She marched to his room.
    “No.” He pushed off the wall and followed her to his bedroom.
    Another poorly thought-out idea.
    He crossed his arms and focused on the situation at hand. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
    She glowered at him. “Nothing is going on. I’m just nervous about Heather. And Gabriel. And Raven and everything.”
    “Right.”
    Her eyes flared. “Why are you mad at me?”
    “I’m worried about you.”
    She threw her arms in the air. “There’s nothing to worry about!”
    “Bullshit.” He moved past her in into his master bathroom and turned on the shower so the water would warm up. “I can’t protect you if you won’t be honest with me—
    “I don’t need your protection!”
    He shook his head with an angry smile as he left the bathroom and walked to the dresser by his bed. “That’s right. Scarlet doesn’t need anything.” He pulled out a soft T-shirt and a pair of running pants. “Scarlet can do whatever she wants and keep all her little secrets to herself and run away and die.” He gave a jerky shrug as he turned to face her. “Because who cares who you hurt in the process of all your deception? It’s all about Scarlet, after all.”
    “You should talk.” She narrowed her eyes at him across the bed. “Just last year, you tried to kill yourself—“
    “To save you!”
    “I don’t need you to save me, Tristan! I need you to trust me!”
    “Trust you? The last time I trusted you, you disappeared and died!” His voice nearly cracked. “You died alone and terrified and there was nothing I could do about it.” Fear clogged up his veins as he threw the T-shirt and pants on the bed. “I don’t want to trust you, Scar. I want to keep you alive!”
    “What are those?” She pointed at the clothes.
    “Your pajamas!” He turned and left the room, slamming the door behind him.
     
    ***************
     
    Gabriel regained consciousness and rolled his neck as his bones mended themselves. Now he was pissed.
    He opened his eyes and found Heather still hanging across from him, her eyes squeezed shut as she muttered something about ponies.
    “Why are you chanting about horses?”
    Her eyes flew open. “Gabriel! Oh, thank God! I thought you were almost dead or something.”
    “Nope.” He felt his neck finally crack back into place and winced at the last sharp pain of healing. “Still alive.”
    “I can’t believe Raven did that to you. What a beast. When we get rescued by a crew of hot SWAT guys—because that’s how it goes down in my head; a shirtless SWAT team will rescue us—”
    “A SWAT team is not going to rescue us—“
    “A shirtless SWAT team,” she raised her voice, “will rappel into the warehouse and rescue me and my pink shoes—but not you, because you don’t believe in shirtless SWAT teams—and when they do, I’m totally going to slap Raven The Beast with a piece of this sandpaper rope.” She jostled her arm restraints.
    “Yeah. That’ll show her.”
    “B-T-W,” Heather said. “What’s with the death wish?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “I’m talking about provoking the wicked witch of the west. You look old? Are you trying to get us both killed?”
    “She does look old. Or at least, older than she used to.”
    “It doesn’t matter! Two things you never comment on when it comes to girls: their age and their weight. That’s male survival 101. Come on!”
    Gabriel rolled his eyes and tuned her out as he started wrestling with the ties around his wrists again, twisting and yanking in the hopes they might