Page 32 of Fortress of Ambrose (House of Marionne #3)

Twenty-Five

Nore

Nore walked beside Yagrin toward a cluster of guesthouses tucked away in the peaceful hilltop greenery of Begonia Terrace.

But all she could think about was how close they were to finding the last piece of the Scroll.

She’d pulled the entire stitching out of the hem of her dress on the trek over.

She was filled with equal parts excitement and dread.

The House secretary escorting them, who donned an ornate mask of feathers, stopped at a petite gate overgrown with vines. Nore lifted its latch and followed a gravel path to two garden houses, facing one another. Each boasted a wide deck with a firepit between.

“Headmistress said you needed two accommodations?” The secretary dangled two keys.

“Yes,” Yagrin said before she could respond.

He was into her. She could see it in the way he looked at her, and that entire monologue he gave her earlier.

She was winning him over. But the walk over to the guesthouses had shaken her nerves completely.

The more she thought about the different ways this could go, the more she spiraled.

The more she spiraled, the more she thought.

If he found out she was Red, could he really love her as Nore?

Because she wasn’t just Red. She was Nore, too.

Heir to an ancestral magical House; daughter to a complicated, toxic family; bitter; and angrier than she cared to admit.

She’d never been enough for anyone. Was it foolish to think somehow Nore could be enough for Yagrin now?

She bit her lip so hard she tasted copper.

I have to hope. Without it, she had nothing left.

“Breakfast is served in Cerebvis dining hall.” The secretary turned to leave. Nore watched him go. When he was out of earshot, Yagrin handed her her key.

“Are you tired?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“So there’s nothing else really to talk about.”

“Not really, I guess.” She hated this distance between them.

“Sleep well.” He climbed his steps, pulled the glass door open, and stepped inside.

She watched as he walked the length of the house.

There was a petite bedroom, a few counter spaces, and a single chair, all open to see, thanks to the wall of glass windows with pulled-back curtains.

It was a fully functioning house, but bite-size.

He kicked off his shoes and sat on the bed.

When he gazed outside at her tiny garden house, Nore realized she hadn’t moved.

She waved, then hurried up the deck to her door.

It was cozy and filled with a floral scent.

The bed was very soft, and the lamps and patterns on the covers were all artsy choices.

Mosaic tile sparkled in the bathroom. When she exited the bathroom, she could see Yagrin across the way, reclined on his bed.

It was silly for him to be all the way over there and her all the way over here, when they’d slept beside each other more times than she could count.

The memory of his body molded around hers clawed its way into her mind.

When they lay together, they’d tangle their legs, and his fingers would graze her back so softly.

He was so gentle. That’s what she loved most about him.

Dragun, heartless, cold. That was the mask.

Inside, Yagrin was tender and sensitive.

He’d mentioned very little about his childhood when they dated.

But she could tell that his parents were not very kind to him.

There were rumors about the dark things that went on at House of Perl.

She saw the fingerprints of cruelty all over his heart.

She climbed in bed and rested her head back, trying to look somewhere else other than the boy she loved, yards away in a bed all by himself. She hopped up and took a shower.

When she was clean, she tied her hair up in a messy bun and slipped into a robe. She stepped out of the bathroom and screamed. Yagrin was standing outside her door. His face flushed. Sorry, he mouthed. She hugged her robe tighter around herself and opened the sliding glass door.

“Is everything alright?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…I didn’t know you were…”

“Yagrin, it’s fine. Is everything okay?”

“There’s no soap.”

“What?”

“My shower has no soap. I was going to see if—”

She snorted. “Sure, just a second.” She grabbed the soap from her shower, which was still wet, and brought it to him. He took it from her, and their hands slipped over each other, trying to prevent dropping it.

He thanked her and walked away. Then he stopped. “I was thinking of lighting the fire. Would you like to—”

“I’d love to!” Clothes. She had no clean clothes. “Um.”

“It’s fine if you don’t want—”

“No, I do. I just. I’ll have to wear this.”

“I’ll be on my best behavior,” he said, and she giggled.

After he showered, he threw on his same clothes, not bothering to fully button up.

When he slipped back out onto his deck and headed toward the firepit, she joined him.

He sat on the stone ring’s edge, and she sat on the opposite end as he worked on the fire.

He jostled around the logs and struck a match, but the flame kept dying out.

“Try giving it more air,” she told him.

“Are you counseling me on how to build a fire?”

“Yes. Does that offend your masculinity?”

“No, I’m happy to sit my butt down.” He handed it over to her. Nore shifted the logs and struck a match again. Then she blew on the glowing flame. Yagrin watched her with a grin.

“What?” She blew the fire again, harder this time. The flame flickered but resisted latching on to the log beside it.

“How’d an heir learn to build a fire?”

“My brother taught me.”

“Sorry I asked.”

“He also taught me to fish, to string a bow. I’ve chopped my own wood and skinned a rabbit.”

“He likes to hunt.”

Her brother did love hunting. The thrill of something running for its life. A shiver ran down her spine just as the flame swelled. “I think that’s good.”

“Does he know you don’t have magic?”

“He found out when I was little. My mother wasn’t happy about it. She would try to do terrible things to make me have magic. And my brother usually got in her way, on purpose.”

“So what happened? Why are you at odds now?”

She shook her head. “I wish we had marshmallows.”

“Did you not check your cabinets? Because I did.”

“No way! You have some?”

“No crackers. But there was a half bag of marshmallows and chocolates in the small cooler.”

She galloped past him and dashed over to his deck. “Find sticks!”

They met back at the pit, and the flames had settled nicely. Yagrin handed her two knobby sticks, and she shoved a stale marshmallow on them. He held both over the fire, while she opened squares of chocolate.

“What kinds of things did your mother do to you?”

She froze, remembering.

“If my questions make you uncomfortable, we don’t have—”

“Your questions make me feel close to you.”

Yagrin broke their eye contact. There it is again. Something that caused him to pull back from her. It has to be Red.

“She did many things. But the worst was probably being chained to a cement block as she rubbed heated Sun Dust all over my body.”

“Deplorable.”

“I left.” She had to stop talking, but it felt so good to open up. Especially with someone whose heart she trusted.

“Where did you go?”

“Here and there. I just ran. Until I couldn’t anymore.”

“So your brother is trying to do you a favor?”

“No. He isn’t. I don’t want to be Headmistress.

But I don’t trust him to bring me back from the dead!

” The chocolate squares were getting all over her hands.

Yagrin brought the stick with a scorched marshmallow to her.

She squeezed the marshmallow between the chocolate and pulled it off the stick. First on hers, then on his.

“I’ll take that.” He reached for his cracker-less s’more, but the chocolate was all gooey next to the hot marshmallow. “This is a disaster.”

She giggled as he tried and failed to pull the quickly deteriorating treat from her fingers. It was no use.

“Open up.” She shoved the sugary mess into his mouth.

“Mmmm.” His lips lingered around her fingers. Meanwhile, in her other hand, her own confection had lost its shape.

“Your turn.” He took her by the wrist.

“No, wait!” She wriggled. But the s’more ran smack-dab into her mouth, with more on the outside than in.

“You!” She scooped a finger of chocolate off her face and swiped it across his. He warmed another square of chocolate over the fire and returned the favor. So did she. This time she swiped it across his chest.

“We should probably get inside,” he said, eyeing the place where her finger on his bare chest lingered.

Then he took off his shirt. “You have a little something.” He pointed, and she leaned into it.

He smoothed his shirt carefully over her face, wiping the chocolate.

He was slow around her lips, and when her face was clean, he used his thumb to brush a last bit of food from the corner of her mouth.

She turned into his touch. But he cleared his throat and started cleaning his own hands and face with his shirt.

“Yagrin, stop running.” She set her fingers back on his chest tentatively.

“What are you talking about? I—” But his next words left him.

His brown eyes shimmered golden in the evening light.

She let herself relax her hand on his body, finger by finger.

He didn’t move. She stepped closer until her whole arm rested against him.

He was warm. His skin was so soft against the palm of her hand.

“Admit it,” she said.

“Nore.”

“It’s the girl you mentioned, isn’t it?”

“You don’t even understand what you’re saying.” He grabbed her wrist tightly and started to pull her hand off him.

She resisted his grip. “Make me understand.”

“I can’t.” He let go of her and looked away, but she closed the remaining distance between them, zipping their bodies together, and placed her other hand on his chest. His arms dangled at his sides as if terrified to touch her.

“Try.”

“I can’t tell you what you want to hear.”

She let her hands explore his frame, following his strong shoulders, the curve of his arms, the sharp angle of his collarbone, the soft parts of his chest, where she used to lay her head. Her eyes stung with tears.

“Then lie to me. Just for a moment.” She brought her mouth close to his.

“Nore.”

“Please,” she breathed onto his lips.

His chest rose and fell harder, his breath quickening, as his hands found her waist, finally giving in.

His touch flooded her with a rush of feelings: longing, need, hope, comfort, as he traced her.

She stopped breathing, wishing she could freeze time in this moment.

Wanting to believe this could truly be real.

He slipped an arm around her and pulled her tighter to him.

With the world on fire, this is what she’d wanted, the security of his closeness.

The tightness of his hug rooted her to the ground, no amount of chaos could rip her from him—her anchor.

Don’t let me go, she wanted to say. Then their lips grazed each other.

She couldn’t bear the tease, so she dove for the sweetness of his kiss.

And to her relief, he didn’t push her away.

He parted his mouth. Tentatively, at first. Then his mouth opened wider, deepening the kiss as his arms tightened around her.

The entire world disappeared, and she kissed him back the way she knew he liked to be kissed. She flung her arms over his shoulders as he lifted her off her feet. Her legs knotted behind him, and she ran her fingers furiously through his hair.

This was the Yagrin she knew. One who burned with passion. She became a fire finally getting air. He breathed into her mouth and she nibbled at his lips eagerly. The sounds he made as he kissed her covered her in goose bumps. She pushed her robe off her shoulder.

He froze, their mouths still connected.

“Nore, I love someone else.” He pulled back. “And I don’t think she’d like this very much.”

She wouldn’t care! She groaned as he set her back on her feet. “You love me!”

He looked at her wholly confused. “I like you, but—”

“Just shut up. Shut up, okay?”

She ran off to her small house, threw herself in bed under covers, and cried herself to sleep.