Page 96 of Crown of Thorns
“Then how did you? You didn’t reply to my texts. Weren’t in your office. Where were you?”
“Everywhere and nowhere.” He shrugs, eyes darting away as if trying to dodge something raw. My gut twists. I hate playing therapist, but fuck if I don’t want him to spit it out. Frustration claws at the edges of my temper, and underneath it all, there's a flicker of worry burning low and hot. And I need to clamp my mouth shut, because I’m too fucking impatient to keep on pulling the words out of his throat. I want to be let into his beautiful mind. “I went through all the photos Granddad left me, then found a box with letters.”
“What kind of letters?”
“From Mom.”
Something clenches in my chest. I don’t know what to say, which is a first, suddenly afraid that my words will stop him from speaking. And now is not the time, because I want to know every single word he says. Every single unspoken truth. Every emotion, no matter how raw, confused, or sad.
His hand grazes my naked thigh, searching for comfort, and I shiver. “I didn’t know she wrote to me.” His voice wavers, barely above a whisper, and there’s the faintest tremble in his hand where it rests against my thigh, a tell he probably doesn’t even realize he’s showing. It’s subtle, but it spikes something hot in my chest. He’s unraveling for me, even if he doesn’t know it yet. His eyes don’t meet mine, like if he does, the emotion might splinter out in all directions. “I thought she’d simply moved on. Without me.”
Oh, Noah.
“But then I found all these letters. She wrote to me every single month since I left. Can you imagine that?” He looks up, searching my gaze. His smile is fragile, something close to hope shining through his despair. I am speechless, utterly overwhelmed by his beauty. “There was also a letter from Granddad. He was a member of the Brotherhood, Louis. I don’t know what that makes me now. I’ve always felt like I didn’tbelong, like there was something broken in me. But if this was in my blood all along… then maybe I was never really free, Louis. He speaks of mistakes and pissing off the wrong people. I needed space to think.”
“Where were you?”
“I went to the cemetery. Then the church. I needed space to read everything, to understand. When I got back, it was late. I saw people in the forest, wearing cloaks. I panicked, threw on Granddad’s and ran to my office. That’s when someone scratched my door… and I followed them. That’s when I walked into your gathering.”
A silence stretches between us for a moment. Noah’s eyes flicker with the weight of what he’s just admitted. I watch him as he stares past me, jaw tight. I know that look. It’s the look of someone measuring the cost of truth. And maybe he’s only just realizing the line he crossed last night wasn’t just a threshold, it was a fracture. A split between who he was and who he might now have to become.
“I just don’t understand. We weren’t rich.”
“Well, you own forty acres of forest land. Perhaps some secrets aren’t meant to see the daylight. Where did you go downstairs?”
He lets out a heavy sigh. “Around the corridor from my office. I found a hidden door.”
“Is that the same door you used that night when I found you in the Atrium?”
He nods.
“And that noise on your door? It could have been one of my brothers, though they shouldn’t be hanging out there.”
“I decided to go down and see. Perhaps get answers to my questions.”
I let out an appreciative whistle. “Bad ass. I like it. So, you came stalking down whoever had pissed you off and landed right in our gathering?”
“Yes.” Noah’s grip on my thigh tightens. He shifts slightly, and I see the hurt sharpen into something else. Defiance, maybe. Or fear he’s too proud to name. “That’s when they burned the shed,” he says, voice low but steady. “You saw that, right? You were all staring at me. Why?”
“Because you were wearing a different mask. We knew you were an outsider.” I stare at the hand he has wrapped around my thigh. “Show me the letter.”
Noah hesitates but quickly cracks. Snatching it from under his pillow, which is the cutest thing, he whispers, “Careful, please.”
I quickly scan the message. My eyes caught the signature at the bottom: Noah Martin. My grin sharpens. “So your granddad made a mistake then pissed off the wrong people.” I keep on reading, frown deepening when I read the part about letters. “He kept your mother’s letters aside, knowing he wouldn’t post them. He wanted to protect you. So, you took your grandmother’s name, huh?” I murmur, piecing it all together now. The name, the distance, the secrecy. Makes sense. And it suits him, somehow. Sounds like something old and sacred and sharp-edged, like him.
“I did. My teenage self was angry and didn’t want them to search for me.”
“Your adult self is often angry, too.” I wink when he snorts at that. I’m right though, he’s a prickly, sexy fuck.
“Your granddad hoped that you were safe, wherever you were.”
Noah snorts. “My life wasn't safe, Louis. That had nothing to do with my family. It was a choice I made.”
“Was it…a choice?”
He shakes his head, but I don’t miss how his breath stutters. Or how his nails dig into my skin. Or how he closes off the expression in those wild eyes. Hello, again.
“What made you leave home?”
