Page 70 of Fate’s Sweetest Curse (Mirrors of Fate #2)

Dream

Noble

N oble’s life had never felt like his own.

When he was a boy, his days had revolved around preparing him for proper society—a dream of his mother’s, while his father climbed the ranks in Marona’s branch of the Order of the Mighty.

When he was an adolescent, and his father was promoted into King Braven’s inner circle, Noble’s existence had then centered on training to become a Mighty Knight, himself—a dream of his father’s.

When he’d entered the Order of the Morta, of course, his existence had been all but forfeit.

There were flickers of respite, though, where Noble felt like his life was in his hands, on the tip of his tongue, in vivid color—his wants not so forbidden.

His mind went to one of those days, now: Hattie’s postponed birthday picnic.

Sneaking off to their secret grove by the river.

Spending hours swimming in the gentle current, splashing each other, laughing.

He’d tried so hard not to stare at her in her soaked underclothes, but nonetheless, his keen eyes had gravitated to those intimate places he’d wanted to touch so badly—her breasts, her bottom—and eventually he’d had to leave the water to get ahold of himself.

Hattie had called after him, chiding. “Where are you going?”

“I’m tired,” he’d drawled, even though every part of him felt awake .

While Hattie continued to splash around in the shallows, Noble had collapsed onto the mossy ground in the shade.

He crossed his arms behind his head, resting but nowhere near asleep.

Dappled light danced across his eyelids, a patchwork of leaf-shaped shadows and the orange-gold quality of summer sun.

Droplets of cool river water had warmed and evaporated on his skin.

A gentle breeze had caressed his bare chest. And everything, everything felt warm and heady.

Adolescence had a way of turning sweet moments into agony.

Yet while he longed to tell Hattie how he felt and ease the tension between them, and it made his chest hurt to deny them both that relief, sixteen-year-old Noble—in the briefest of moments in that grove—had felt content with the life unfolding around him.

Because in spite of it being a life that actively kept him from being with Hattie in the fullest expression of his desire, it was a life that had brought him to her doorstep, too.

Somedays he felt cursed by the limitations of his station, but that day, he’d thought to himself that if he was cursed, this curse was sweet. Lounging on the riverbank with the girl he loved was about as close to perfection as Noble could imagine. Even when it ached.

Eventually, Hattie had climbed out of the river, cool water sluicing down her body onto the moss beneath her bare feet.

She’d padded over to him, purposefully dribbling water onto his face from the wet ends of her hair, filling their secret grove with mellifluous laughter.

He’d peered up at her and known he’d never love anyone else.

In the years that followed, that memory had remained imprinted on his heart like a thumbprint pressed into clay. He could almost feel the warmth on his skin, now. Sunlight on a broken body—or maybe that sunlight was inside him?

His veins were alight with it—heated, blazing, burning.

The ache of adolescent yearning turned into a searing, full-body torment.

Shadow flickered through him like clouds covering the sun, cooling his blood with something sinister and wrong —but then his world was turning, sun swiveling, shade clearing .

Soon, Noble wasn’t in the dark at all.

He felt warmth on his face.

He heard Hattie’s voice, calling his name.

Had he fallen asleep?

Was this him waking up?

When he opened his eyes, would he see the riverbank and the bright green boughs of trees? Would he see the Hattie of his youth, tan and sopping wet, grinning at him with her plump bottom lip pinned by a playful canine?

If he woke from his slumber, could he still hold onto this dream?

He wasn’t sure.

He hoped so.

But just in case, Noble decided to bask on the riverbank a little while longer.