Page 60 of Fate's Sweetest Curse
“You know what I meant.”
His breaths came in short pants. “Finish. The. Sentence.”
“Even back then, you didn’t want me like I wanted you,” I said, head held high. “So why would that matter now? What about leaving me alone is hard for you, Noble? It’s been a decade since we were actual friends.”
“You’re right, ithasbeen a decade,” Noble said, inching close enough that when he inhaled again, his chest grazed mine. “It’s been an entire fuckingdecade, and I still miss you. Haven’t stopped thinking about you.”
I shook my head. “Don’t.” I didn’t want to hear about how he missed my friendship. It made my stupid hearthope, and that was just too painful.
“Don’t what?” Noble pushed. “Don’t tell you that I miss you?”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I said. “We already agreed that it was safer to pretend we don’t know each other.”
“You’re right, we did,” Noble replied. “And you can continue to blame me for your heartache over our situation, Hattie—I’m happy to take the blame for you, if it makes you feel better—but just because we’re better off apart doesn’t mean I relish the idea.”
The air between us had grown humid, pulsing with energy. When at one time his hyper-observant stare would’ve steadied me, the look he was giving me now made me feel exposed. “Noble, I…”
“You’re wrong,” he said. “About how I felt back then. About how I feel now.”
He paused, and—confusingly—his eyes dipped to my mouth. With his heightened eyesight, his attention was never not intentional; when Noble gave something his focus, there was no detail that went unnoticed. And right now, he was staring at my bottom lip like—Fates—like it was a cliff’s edge, and he was holding on for dear life.
Squirming under his intense stare, I sunk my right canine into that lip. His jaw ticked again, a quick clench that I felt low in my belly. My thoughts scattered like sparks into a night sky, twisting and flaring and turning to ash.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Yes, you do.”
I went still. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I’m tired of you believing that our arrangement doesn’t bother me,” Noble said. “I’m tired of you thinking that the rules, the limitations, the constantcarefulnesshaveeverbeen easy for me—because they haven’t. Not back then. Not now. And I know I should justleave you alone, but…” He removed one hand from the wall and touched my cheek, dragging his fingers—slow, reverent, featherlight—down my neck.
Heat followed in the wake of that touch, burning with a different sort of adrenaline.
He flattened his palm over my sternum, my heart. “I care,” he said, voice quavering with an intensity I’d never heard before. “I care more than you know, more than what’s allowed, more than I should. And there’s nothing to be done about it, but…I’m tired of you believing I don’t.”
22
Curse Conspiracy
Hattie
I’m glad you’re all right,” I said to Viren the next morning.
The Collegium’s private hospital was located in the center of campus, attached to Medica College, where healers studied. My apothecary training meant that I took multiple classes there, but I’d never had a need to visit the infirmary.
It was a long rectangular space with high ceilings and lots of light. Rows of beds were partitioned off with gauzy curtains, and healing supplies—linens, metal tools, bottles of tinctures and potions—were stocked on wheeled carts throughout the room. A fountain in one corner trickled musically, emanating calm. Healers and assistants walked back and forth across the tile floor, their footsteps echoing, voices kept at a whisper.
“Without your ministrations, I might not be here,” Viren rasped. She was pallid, feeble—butalive.
Thank the Fates.
“Anyone could’ve followed your instructions.” I was seated in a wooden chair beside her sickbed, the two of us concealed by the shroud of her privacy curtain; I kept my voice low, too, not wanting to disturb neighboring patients. “Did the healers give you a sense of when you could returnto the lab?”
“It’ll be a few weeks, at least.” The attacker’s blade had skimmed along her rib; thankfully, the wound was wide and shallow, but the healers were concerned about infection. “Any strain could prolong my healing, so they’ve advised me to be patient.”
“They haven’t allowed us back into the lab yet,” I said. “Sounds like the Orders of the Mighty and Lawful are going to send more knights to guard the dorms and labs, but none of it has been sorted yet.”
Viren shook her head. “I knew it was a dangerous project, but I had no idea it would be so…” She shook her head again.
