The Amaranthine Law by Gun Brooke

Author:Gun Brooke [Brooke, Gun]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2022-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-eight

Olivia knows they’re not going out to buy clothes or anything else this evening. She feels drained after everything that’s happened, and damn it all to hell, she needs to process all this. “Resurrection? Surely this is…you said you were drunk?” She turns to Tristan, who still sits on the armrest next to her. “I know. I said I’d keep an open mind, but this…is…” Her voice falters.

“You can accept that I’m more than two hundred and fifty years old, but not this.” Tristan moves over to the couch. She’s pale, but her eyes burn like blue fire.

“That’s just it.” Olivia looks at the page before her. “You’ve had all those years to take things in, little by little, and I have been thrown into it over a few days. I feel like I’m losing my mind!” She flings her hands in the air. “Then there’s the fact that I’d much rather jump your freaking bones than try to find who’s out to kill you!”

Tristan gapes, and then the corners of her mouth turn up. Chuckling, she slumps against the backrest. “Now, there’s a complaint I can understand.”

Olivia is appalled at how she just spoke to Tristan, but Tristan’s reaction makes her giggle. “This is a bit ridiculous, isn’t it? I mean, people talk about May-December romances, but this…” She points at Tristan and then at herself. “This is—”

“Ridiculous.” Tristan has stopped laughing, but the smile is still in place. “We approach all this from such different viewpoints. I try to protect you—from myself and those who are out to harm me—and, at the same time, I desperately want you to believe me. To understand. It’s all asking too much. I know this.”

“I just need some time to grasp things. This, what did you call it, ledger? This ledger is chock-full of journal entries and theories, and facts, and it’s like opening a book that leads me into another world. The thing is, I want to be on this journey with you, to help you. My brain just can’t keep up, even if my heart does.” Olivia grips the ledger harder.

“You did speak of romance. And now your heart,” Tristan murmurs. “Do you have any idea how painful the presence of hope is to someone like me?”

“What do you mean?” Olivia can’t bear the physical distance between them. She takes the ledger and moves over to the couch as well, sitting down close enough to Tristan for their thighs to touch.

Tristan places a gentle hand on Olivia’s knee. “Hope is what we live by. Right? But I stopped taking such chances more than a century ago. I vowed to never fall into the trap of wishing for things that would ultimately shatter me. You see…you must be selfish when you live a life like mine. You have only yourself because, eventually, everyone else dies. And before that happens, when they age in the way I’m supposed to, they see that I don’t. They realize that something’s wrong, that I’ve lied about something essential.

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