Chapter 38
Evelyn
Carter was right—I should have known. What an embarrassing first move as a future Compass Point, not realizing what he’d been telling me.
My veil cat licked her paw and swiped it across her face as if to say We shouldn’t be bothered, we had a lot going on.
Which … fair.
I had so much to do, so much to consider.
So many things I needed to figure out, given how drastically my life was about to change.
It was during times like these that making lists became a calming activity.
And here Ambrose was, whipping out that stupid pencil and notebook, starting my work for me.
“We can start with easy items, like what to do with your current experiments,” he said.
I snapped my head up to look at him. I’d been doing the same thing in my mind, starting with the easy stuff and working my way toward the items that would thoroughly tear me apart. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to throw him against the wall of books and climb him like a tree.
His gaze met mine, and a sheen of gold slid over his eyes, like he knew exactly what I wanted and would happily oblige.
But my and Ambrose’s relationship was a whole separate list of things to consider.
He hadn’t accepted my offer to be Vesten historian.
Did he not want the job? Or did he not want to be with me?
Before I could completely spiral, he tapped the edge of his notebook. “List first.”
I halted my next pace across the length of the restricted section and tried to think.
“Job at the tavern,” he said. “You have to tell Seraphina, and Luna, and hopefully you can give them some time before you have to move to Compass Lake.”
I swallowed. So much for sticking with the easy things.
“Find a place to live at Compass Lake,” he said. Then he scratched that off. “I’m sure you get rooms in Vesten House, right? What do you think the allowance is for adding plants to the Burning Garden? I’ll make a note about transplanting your flowers.”
I stuttered, unintelligibly. He had never seen the garden outside my and Mom’s apartment. “How do you—”
His smile was warm like the sun, and I was a plant gravitating toward its life source. “There is no way you would even think to conduct most of the experiments that you do without having your own garden.” He laughed to himself. “Not many people know that morning glories tend to strangle roses.”
He had a point. My cheeks heated anyway at how much he noticed.
His lips flattened into a thin line as he started writing another item down. “Your parents? Finding them a place at Compass Lake?”
It was plural. What I’d realized yesterday was already a foregone conclusion in his mind. Mom and Stephen were together. They wouldn’t be separated again.
“Ambrose,” I sighed.
He looked up.
“I’d really like to talk about the item you seem to be avoiding.”
His ears pinkened. “Which one is that?”
I took slow steps toward him, and with each movement, my veil cat purred, hearing his heart beat a little faster.
“Well, this is a turn of events,” I said, trying to sound playful. In truth, it probably came out more strangled and unsure than anything.
“What is that?” he asked, still writing furiously in his book.
“Usually it’s my heart that’s a scattered mess when you approach.” I tilted my head to listen again. “Today, it appears we switched roles.”
He chuckled as he finished the note. His gaze locked on mine as I took the few remaining steps across the room toward him. “Do you want to be the kettle or the pot in this particular instance?”
I tilted my head in question.
He pointed to my chest with the end of his pencil. “Your heartbeat is also currently a mess, Evelyn.”
Dammit. I winced, finally evaluating myself.
“And mine has always been a mess when it comes to you. You have just … previously decided not to notice.”
I wasn’t going to let him distract me from this conversation. “When you thought of the Vesten historian position, where did you want to conduct your duties from?”
His hand was in his hair before I finished the question. “Evelyn.”
My name on his lips in that moment sounded like a prayer. I couldn’t help but notice he didn’t continue. I needed an answer. His family was here. His siblings were at his apartment every morning. I couldn’t ask him to come with me.
It’s not your decision to make for him. All you can do is ask.
And I knew that was right. I needed to wait for his answer. His focus was on his notebook. I had a deep desire to know what he studied. I gently tugged it from his hands. He let it go regretfully.
“I imagined the position here.” He sighed. “In Sandrin.”
White noise filled my ears. It was what I’d expected, but I hadn’t been ready to hear it.
I had dreamed of the position being at Compass Lake, but it was flexible.
The necessary meetings were infrequent enough that one could travel for them.
The core of the responsibility was in the documentation and research, which only needed one of the Vesten’s most prestigious libraries.
There were only two worth knowing about—the one we stood in now, and the one in Vesten House.
My eyes brimmed with tears, but they didn’t spill over as I glanced at the notebook.
Ambrose had written down everything that he’d said aloud. He’d even added another item to the list that said Determine what you want from Ambrose.
The list didn’t end there. It seemed he had continued with his own list at some point in my panic.
The page resembled a pros and cons list. One column listed Sandrin, the other Compass Lake.
He hadn’t finished filling it out. The only item was in the Compass Lake column in his tidy scrawl.
The tears rimming my eyes slipped free as I read it.
The privilege of loving Evelyn, if she’ll let me.
A drop of water hit the page. My eyes were officially leaking.
I glanced up, meeting his patient hazel gaze, which softened as he watched me crumble.
“What about your family?” I asked.
He pointed needlessly to the notebook, to the item I knew he was most invested in. “That will be on my to-do list to figure out … if you have completed the final item on your list there.”
I opened and closed my mouth and flipped back a few pages in his notebook as I gathered my thoughts.
I wanted everything with him. I wanted him to come to Compass Lake with me.
He seemed to know it. But once again, he seemed intent on making me voice those desires for both of us to hear and acknowledge. Could I do it?
Then I caught my name in one of the notes on a prior page. My thoughts scattered as I flipped to another page and saw it again.
I gave him a final glance, checking for permission, before falling headfirst into reading his notebook. He only gave me a small smile, seemingly unworried about what I would find.
Evelyn’s sense of magic is extraordinary. In the Vesten Point’s study, she feels magic that seems connected to something on the property. The range on the sense is better than anyone else I’ve observed. Need to discuss, maybe when I’m less distracted by her.
Then another one.
Evelyn doesn’t seem to realize that I notice her in every room. (Explain in a non-creepy way). Is this due to the bond between us?
Added note: This persists even after the bond is dissolved.
I flipped farther back and found my name scattered throughout, even before our magical entanglement.
Ask Evelyn how she thinks about which plants or animals to test. Want to understand the selection process better.
To Do: Tell her why I don’t do that testing as of yet; maybe then I will seem more like an anxiety-ridden mess than a jerk.
I laughed at the last. “I figured this one out.” Then my gaze held his again, and everything I’d been trying to avoid by perusing his notes slammed back into me.
“You write about me a lot,” I said, wincing as the words came out.
“I think about you a lot,” he said with no hesitation.
When had he started doing that? When had he started saying things like that without worrying about the consequences?
“Evelyn, I know this thing between us is new and untested…”
I gave him a flat stare. “We were magically bound to learn about each other’s lives while competing for a position we both wanted.” I tilted my head. “With a meddling god cackling at us the whole time. I think it’s tested.”
He sighed. “Time will test it further, but with your news, there seems to be more pressure on it than you might have wanted.”
I opened and closed my mouth again. That wasn’t how I felt. I didn’t feel pressure to ask him to come with me.
“It’s new, but”—he ran his fingers through his hair—“it doesn’t feel casual to me. It never did. If that’s all you wanted, that’s obviously within your rights. I just think you should know that I love you and would follow you if you want me to.”
My heart skipped a beat, and I was sure he heard it. Had he just said that? He loved me? Wasn’t that what I’d been trying to find the words to tell him?
Time slowed around us, and I knew everything I wanted was within my grasp. My hope hadn’t been in vain. Ambrose wanted to give us a chance. All I had to do was tell him I wanted it too.
I reached up to cup the side of his face with my palm.
It was an intimacy I would never tire of.
I spoke the following words with all the hope in my heart, still scared of his response even though he’d already told me his answer.
“I love you, too, Ambrose, and all I’ve been trying to spit out this entire conversation is a single question.
It might not have been what you originally wanted with the position, but will you come to Compass Lake … with me?”
As his chin dipped in assent, I pulled his lips down to mine.
Kissing him was all I wanted now. We’d still have plenty to learn about our relationship, and he wasn’t wrong: it would be in a more public position than we probably would have wished.
But I was better when he was with me, and I liked to think the same was true for him.
The soft press of our lips against each other turned into a heated exploration, and my temperature rose with each stroke of his tongue.
Our fires seemed to reach out to one another, like licking flames searching for more to burn.
An inferno of desire cascaded through me.
I glanced behind us. The door was closed; Lord Arctos had shut it upon his exit.
Intentionally? I decided to believe he owed us this.
“I’ve had a particular fantasy about this library and you for longer than I care to admit.”
Ambrose hummed, urging me to continue as he kissed my neck and slid his hand down my side.
I walked us backward and pushed him into the wall of books. “You and me, against the books in the restricted section.” I paused dramatically. “Without the proper paperwork.”
His laugh was decadent. “The library doesn’t have paperwork for having sex in the restricted section.”
As if he checked. My body warmed at the thought.
He flipped us around so my back was pressed into the shelves, and he dropped to his knees. Every inch he peeled my leggings down had my breath hitching. “Are you sure—”
He paused his progress, waiting for me to continue. I couldn’t catch my breath to do so. He glanced up, those hazel eyes rimmed in gold. “Do you want to stop?”
I glanced at the door. Knowing Lord Arctos, he’d probably locked it, too. I shook my head. “I don’t want to stop. But if you’re uncomfortable, we don’t have to—”
He pulled my leggings down farther, exposing me to him. “I’m doing just fine. Haven’t you heard? I’m as reckless as you are. I test blood magic on living subjects now.” He leaned into my center. His nose slid against the curve of my thigh. “Heavenly.”
With his first lick, my knees threatened to buckle. With the second, they shook. He pressed against my stomach, holding me in place against the shelf. With the third pass of his tongue, something in him snapped.
My fingers laced in his hair. I wanted to run them through it in the way he was always doing. My mind echoed his word choice—heavenly. I had no opportunity to speak the word as he feasted on me with a single-minded devotion.
He noted every hitch of my breath and shake of my legs to catalog my likes, my desires, and pursued them rigorously.
I was a research project he seemed more than passionate about.
He hooked one of my legs around his shoulder and pressed in farther, his fingers sliding in to fill me as my pleasure built.
I had no time to think, no time to realize where I was or who might hear.
Fire burned through me, and I cried his name with my release.
My breaths were heavy as he stood and kissed me. It was a heady thing to taste myself on his tongue. I licked at him, wanting more and unafraid, for the first time, to reach for it.
“Was there more to the fantasy?” he asked.
I nodded, pulling him close. Our tongues slid together, igniting another flame of desire as I worked to free his length from his trousers. “A lot more.”
He chuckled as I brought us together. He pushed inside me in one heated stroke, my body more than ready for him. He nipped at my ear, and his words were a whisper. “We’ll have to thoroughly investigate each part.”
“I’m sure you’ll have some ideas to add.”
He smiled. “We do tend to bring out the best in each other.”
And then our hearts beat in unison as we drove toward our shared goal. Together.