Page 54 of Crown of Thorns (The Initiation #3)

LOUIS

T he office smells like old power and older secrets—dark oak walls, leather-bound books, and a ghost of cigar smoke thick in the air.

Dad ushers Arthur out with a nod and a firm pat on the back, closing the door to give us space.

The latch clicks, and suddenly it’s just us.

I breathe him in before I even touch him—cedar soap, city rain, something worn and warm and unmistakably him.

He smells like home and heartbreak. The skin of Noah’s biceps feels warm and smooth under my fingertips, until I touch jagged edges.

He sucks in a breath. My chest tightens, anticipation curling inside me like smoke, because I need this to be real.

I need to know he came back for me, not out of guilt, but out of love. I need to believe he still wants me.

He doesn’t speak right away. His eyes flick to mine, full of something unnameable, such as fear, regret and determination. His hands flex at his sides, like he’s fighting the urge to reach for me. His throat bobs. I watch a tremor pass through his shoulders, and it roots me to the spot.

My fingers ache with the need to touch him, but I make myself wait.

Just one more heartbeat. Just to be sure he’s real.

Just to be sure I’m not mistaking hope for fact.

I should be furious still. I should remind him of the way he left me bleeding in that basement.

But all I feel is the press of longing, the pull of him that’s stronger than betrayal.

“Why did you come?” I ask quietly. “Really.”

“Because I couldn’t not come,” he whispers. “I couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing you again. Of never touching you again. I wanted to make it right.”

“You broke me.”

“I know.”

“I should hate you.”

“You don’t.”

And he’s right. I don’t. I should, but I don’t.

The air shifts between us—tighter, denser—and finally, I reach for him. My fingers trail over the warmth of his biceps until I feel jagged edges. He sucks in a breath.

“You got a tattoo,” I whisper, my voice catching on the edge of wonder.

I reach for him with both hands, reverent, not teasing.

My fingertips trace the ridges of the ink through the plastic bandage, my heart thudding when I recognize the shape beneath.

He lifts his sleeve and begins peeling it away with care, revealing the mark he’s carved into himself—for me.

A knife with two stars. Etched into his skin. My professor. The one who used to flinch at public touch, who lived buried in books and codes and restraint—Noah. Noah fucking got a tattoo. For me.

My fingers shake as I touch the slightly red skin, tracing the pointy curves with reverence, disbelief curling inside my chest like flame. It’s bold. Permanent. Inked right into the flesh of the man who once wouldn’t even say my name in daylight.

“I got it yesterday. When I decided to come for you.”

“A knife… and two stars?” My lower lip wobbles. My heartbeat thuds in my throat.

“You and me, sweetheart. You helped me remember my strength.” He cups his hands around my face, claiming my attention, and I can’t do anything but wrap my hands around his cheeks too, cradling him reverently.

“I wrote that paper because I was angry with the world. I couldn’t bear seeing you so comfortable in your skin, with your sexuality.

It made me furious the way I was defenseless against your charm.

The way my body reacted to you, wanted you, became obsessed with you. I fucking hated it.”

He kisses my fingertips one by one, then stares at me through hooded eyes. “All my life, I’ve hidden my sexuality. I was furious with myself for being…”

“Gay? Bisexual?”

“I don’t know.” His voice breaks. “I tried with women, as you know, I really did. It was safe and I could continue focusing on my studies.” He lets out a shaky breath, then glances down at the mark on his arm.

“That’s why this tattoo matters,” he adds. “I’ve never done anything impulsive before. Never claimed my truth in front of anyone. But I needed it etched on my skin. That you changed me. That I chose this. You .”

His smile is weak, and it makes my heart ache for him.

“Then there was you. You just barged into my life, unapologetic, rude, sexy as sin, and you threatened everything I stood for. Everything. You made me delirious with longing. And then you played me, set me up, used me like a toy. Eleven years your senior and you had zero fucks to give. You just did whatever the hell you liked. You gave me the sort of attention no one ever did. You looked at me and made me feel seen. I… I couldn’t comprehend it.

So, when you brought me to that gathering and I saw all these guys fucking each other…

it made me furious. I wrote that paper with all the hatred I mastered.

But my heart melted for you, and all I wanted was you. ”

He takes both my wrists and places a kiss on them. “I’m so fucking sorry for what I’ve done. When I saw you in that basement, all battered and disappointed…it ate me alive.”

The skin he touches blazes, his lips blaze, my heart blazes for him. My voice trembles with how much I want to believe him, how much I already do. “Can you please forgive me?”

“Yes, baby, I forgive you. But don’t do it again. Ever. You made me so sad. You made me so angry. Furious. I was looking to get both of us burned.”

“Why?”

I shrug. “It’s the kind of reaction you have on me, baby. I wanted to ignite something in both of us, baby—a blaze we couldn’t put out. Something that would connect us, brand us, burn everything else away. Something that would make you come to me in darker times, not hide from me.”

“I will.”

I press my knuckles against his cheeks, drinking in this soft glow he so rarely shows.

“The code of life rarely yields to education,” I murmur, brushing my thumb along the corner of his mouth where a faint tremor lives.

The warmth of his breath lingers on my skin, grounding the thought with something human, real, painfully intimate.

“Things just happen. Feelings flare up, not letting themselves be dictated by values. I wanted you the moment I entered the dark room in The Black Cat. The air smelled like wet stone and incense. I still remember the way your silhouette caught the candlelight—sharp, deliberate, forbidden. There was something about you, this contradiction and the heat that made me want to pursue you. When I found out you were my professor, I knew what you were in for.”

“You played me.”

I laugh. “I did. And I loved every second of it.” I pause, my laughter fading into a slow breath. “But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.”

“And then I hurt you. I betrayed you.”

“You betrayed yourself, Noah. By ignoring your own impulses and desires. So, yes, you hurt me.” I rub my chest. “Here. Because you were not talking to me.” His eyes go soft, a kind of brokenness behind them that makes me ache.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Life doesn’t have to be that hard, baby. And life definitely isn’t all about studying. You often learn more by truly seeing what goes on around you. What people are really trying to tell you. But then, in a place like Saint-Laurent, things are often not what they seem.”

“Come on, let’s go up, baby. To your new room.”

N oah tries to hide it, but he looks damn impressed with my wing.

I mean, it looks pristine—all whites and golds and greens.

I love my place, but like Arthur and Gael, I’m going to have to organise my own place in Monterrey Castle.

Or most likely, around, since Noah owns a significant ass amount of ground.

And though he may not have the money to build a house on it, I do.

“Your place is pretty.” His grey eyes are turbulent when they take in everything, then linger on the bed.

He looks at me like I’m a miracle he thought he’d lost.

I drop my robe, step into his arms, and he holds me like he never intends to let go. We don’t speak for a while. There’s only breath, and warmth, and the way our skin remembers each other. The bed creaks as we fall into it—slow, reverent, greedy for all we lost.

Later, I lie against his chest, drowsy and filled, and I know, we’ve rewritten something tonight.

Noah lifts me and slides me on top of him as he sits against the headboard.

His big arms wrap around my waist as my back rests on his chest, my legs between his, and my head pressed to his shoulder.

For just a moment in time, it feels like we’ve lived here our entire lives, just existing together, being peaceful.

Happy.

“It’s time to let the past go. Time to live in the present and the future,” his quiet voice carries through the room, sucking all the air out of it.

“Time to rewrite your legacy, baby. You’ve got powerful ancestors. All this land, countless possibilities.” He turns my way, but I shake my head before he can say anything.

“I have money. You can build whatever the fuck you want.”

“A castle?”

“Absolutely.”

“I often wondered who I would have become had I not been kicked out of my home,” he says out of the blue, the rough timbre of his voice vibrating against my back, sending shivers down my spine.

“W-what do you mean?” I whisper, my voice cracking under the weight of his words. I know what he means, I think at least, but I want him to continue talking, need him to open up further until I can crawl inside and offer shelter.

“I used to look up at them. Teenagers my age who hung out on the streets without a care in the world. They’d look down on me, taunt me as they left a coin, or accuse me of running off to my dealer for my next hit.”

“Did you…”

“No, darling, never. And the day I turned eighteen, I left the streets and rented a shared bedroom. I just wonder…if I’d been a careless teenager myself, where would I have ended up?

Would I still live here in Saint-Laurent?

What sort of work would I have chosen? What would have been my favourite colour? ”

“Red,” I joke.

He grins at that, losing some of the tension.

“And then you danced into my life. You tore my heart open and made yourself a home inside. You’re the one who makes me question everything I’ve ever believed in and take away the heaviness that has always surrounded my world.

You make it light. Fun. The sort of life I always wanted to live. ”

His words blast into me like a rocket, and my chest swells, until it becomes impossibly full. It’s dizzying, overwhelming...

“For so long, education was the only thing that mattered in my life. It was the only guarantee of keeping my bed and staying off the streets. It was my safety net, my friend, my lover, my enemy. It was the only thing I had. But then you came into my life and filled me up. Not the darkness, me. So I mean it when I say that you, too, live inside me. You’re etched into the stillness now, where the war used to rage.

I don’t just love you—I need you in ways I can barely speak aloud. ”

“Good.” My breath skims his lips. “Because I refuse to think about it.”

“I might be a little grumpy.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“And I need my personal space.”

“I’ll give you just enough to miss me.”

“What if I continue working in Monterrey?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” I lift a brow.

He shrugs. “Perhaps your dad?—”

“No.”

“You’ve graduated.”

“We’ll build our own palace next to the castle. You can crawl to work.” Fuck, that sounded hot. Now I want to see him on his hands and knees, the kind of king who rules with his mouth.

“What if?—”

“Noah,” I cut him off.

“Shut up and kiss me instead.” I close my eyes, shifting closer, but his lips don’t come, so I peek at him, and he’s watching me with a slight frown.

“What?”

“I…I love you, Louis, darling.”

I quirk a brow. “And that surprises you?”

“I mean?—”

“Just kiss me, baby. Don’t make this awkward.”

“Brat.”

“Grumpy bear. You—” My words end with a moan because his lips are on mine then. He captures me, tastes me, devours me. And I consume him. Noah has been away, has been alone. But at least he’s come home—where he belongs. To us.