“No,” I answered my father hoarsely. “You must go, Noc,” I whispered to Noc, not wishing to whisper, but I had the strength for nothing more. “Please. You must. It will be worse if he doesn’t get to finish. I need to complete my punishment.”
A flare of rage blazed in his eyes but he simply repeated, “Let go of the hook. Hold on to me.”
“I need to endure or they’ll turn to Kristian,” I told him.
“Please, baby, let go. I got you,” Noc replied.
“Stand back,” my father ordered.
“You must go,” I went on.
“Promise, Franka, I got you,” Noc said.
“Stand bloody back!” my father commanded, his voice no longer affronted and annoyed.
No, it was much worse.
At the warning of it, sheer terror coursed through me, almost paralyzing.
“You must go,” I declared. “Now or he’ll—”
As I spoke my last, my father thundered, “Stand back!”
But through his thunder, I heard the whistle of the whip.
I knew he’d repositioned and I knew his aim.
It was not me.
Therefore I did what I did next automatically, without thinking. I did something I never did. Not since I was a youngster. Not since I’d learned how vile it was, what I had in me, what my mother gave to me, what I took great pains to hide, using intrigue and torment like weapons not only as was expected of a Drakkar, not only as a way to hold others at bay so they wouldn’t be touched by the darkness of my soul, but as a way to conceal the true power I held.
I let go of the hook and twisted. Unable to bury my cry of pain when the fire of the movement tore through my back, I lifted a hand and swept it wide and high, the sapphire glow bursting forth, the tip of my father’s lash glancing against it, sending it back where it tore through the skin of his face.
He fell back in surprise and pain, his feet slipping from under him, landing on his arse.
That would not mean good things for me.
But at least he’d not landed the whip on Noc.
“Holy fuck,” Noc whispered.
I turned back to Noc urgently.
“You must go. I’ve done wrong. Kristian has done wrong. I must endure or they’ll turn their attention to Kristian and he won’t endure, Noc. He won’t. And I must protect him.”
“Franka, who the fuck is that guy?” Noc asked.
His look of shock barely penetrated when I answered, “My father. And I must complete the punishment. I must.”
“Baby, this shit is whacked.” He started to unbutton his shirt. “Let’s get you covered. Frey can deal with him. Let’s see if this place has a doc—”
I’d heard my father scramble up, felt his fury sparking the air, and I instantly lifted my hands to the hook, curling my fingers around.
“I’ll endure,” I announced to Papa. “Don’t hurt Noc. I will not fall. Tell her. Tell her I’m still standing.”
Noc’s hand returned to my waist and curled in. “Baby—”
I looked in his eyes. “He’ll break. Kristian will break. I must—”
“She’s used her magic, Anneka,” my father said from behind me and terror gripped me because I knew he was sharing this with my mother.
“No!” I cried. “Recommence! I will not fall!”
“Go to the boy,” my father ordered.
Gods!
Kristian!
“No!” I shrieked.
“What the bloody hell?” Frey’s voice came from the direction of the door.
I let go of the hook and whirled to my cousin.
Lifting my arms crossed in front of me to cover my bared breasts, I beseeched, “You must stop her! You must command the elves! You must bring the green witch! She’s going to Kristian. He’ll break. The green witch must go there and stop her.”
Frey’s face was a picture of disbelief and distress as he stood in the doorway staring at me, Josette cowering behind him.
“Explain what’s happening,” he bit out tightly.
“We need a doctor, Frey,” Noc stated.
“She’s committed treason and so has her brother. For that, she’s being punished,” Papa explained.
Frey turned to my father.
“And that punishment would come at the command of your queen if your daughter hadn’t moved to make amends,” Frey clipped, twisted at the waist and ground out to Josette, “Get Valentine. And find a bloody physician.”
Josette nodded at the same time she turned and vanished from sight.
I rushed across the room to my cousin, curled a hand into his sweater at his chest and begged, “You must go. You must take Noc. If I withstand what he wishes to mete, they’ll leave Kristian alone.”
I was too deep in my state to notice my cousin for the first time in our lives addressing me gently.
“And how long has this been the understanding, Franka?”
I simply replied on a plea.
“Please, Frey, let him finish.”
Frey looked in my eyes but a moment before his went over my head.
“Cover her, Noc, and take her from here.”
“No!” I cried as I felt careful hands on my shoulders pulling me from Frey.
The pain at my back was too immense to struggle so I didn’t. I watched Frey look to my father.
“You’re communicating with Anneka?” he asked.
“Family business is family business, Frey,” my father returned.
Frey’s tone deteriorated while Noc turned me to face him. I saw his chest bare and felt the agony of the whisper of material of his shirt hitting my back.
“Are you…communicating with Anneka?”
“I don’t have to answer that,” Father retorted.
“Kristian is more than a week’s sled ride away. If she’s taking guidance from you, that means you’re a sorcerer or she’s a witch. Either way, you or she are undeclared. Which is it?” Frey demanded.
“This is none of your concern, nephew,” my father snapped.
I flinched as Frey roared, “Which is it?”
At this juncture, my tortured cry slashed through the room as Noc lifted me to cradle me in his arms.
“Sorry, Frannie, so sorry, baby,” he cooed. “Stick with me. Hold on just a little longer until I can get you to a bed.”
I battled the pain of his arm against the torn flesh of my back and looked into Noc’s eyes. “He must finish.”
Noc’s face turned hard as he stated, “He’s not gonna fuckin’ finish.”
“Noc—”
“Quiet, Frannie. Frey’s got this.”
I shook my head fervently as Frey moved out of our way and Noc took us toward the door. “No, you don’t understand.”
“No, sweetheart, you don’t understand,” Noc declared, striding through the door and into the hall. “They didn’t get it. Now they’ll get it. And, baby, that means you are no longer alone.”
My panic overwhelming me, I barely heard a word he said as we moved down the hall.
I shifted my gaze over his shoulder toward the door, hearing Frey demand on an enraged bellow, “Talk, Nils. Now!”
But that was all I heard as Noc quickly carried me down the passageway.
“This isn’t good,” I whispered.
“It’s gonna be fine,” Noc assured.
I closed my eyes tight. “You don’t know.”
“What on…?”
This was a female voice, and I opened my eyes and turned my head to see the green witch rushing toward us.
“Frey needs you,” Noc grunted, not pausing a step, meaning Valentine needed to jump to the side as he forged right ahead, passing her. “Room at the back,” he finished.
I turned my attention over his shoulder and watched Valentine disappear in a tall, thin spiral of green smoke.
Noc kept moving.
I took in a deep breath, closed my eyes again, and for the second time that night, the second time in decades, I used my power, opened my senses and s
ought my brother.
I was out of practice and in immense pain. I couldn’t sense him.
Either that or she’d already broken him. With Kristian, it never took long.
“I can’t sense him,” I told Noc, still trying to do so and feeling us ascending stairs.
“Franka, just focus on you, yeah?”
“This could mean she might have already broken him.”
“Frey and Valentine have this.”
I opened my eyes only to narrow them at him. “What do those words even mean?”
Noc blinked as he kept climbing stairs, and when he was done with his blink, his lips quirked.
“There’s my sugarlips,” he muttered.
I didn’t have it in me to cut him with a reply. The pain jarred through my conscious and I felt bile drive up my throat.
I swallowed it down but whispered a horrified, “I may be sick.”
“Please, fuck, wait ten seconds until I have you in my bed,” Noc begged.
“I’ll try,” I promised, and fortunately, after what felt a great deal longer than ten seconds, I was able to keep that promise.
I bit back a moan as he carefully extricated his shirt from me and gnashed my teeth silently as he rolled me to my belly. Once he’d positioned me, I felt the covers being pulled up over my bottom.
I then watched as he reached to the cord beside the bed and tugged on it.
“How did you know to come to the buttery?” I asked.
He looked down at me. “Your girl. She woke me up, totally freaked.”
I felt my brow furrow. “Freaked?”
“Panicked,” he explained. “Worried about you.”
“How did she know?” I asked.
“I don’t know, babe. She woke me, she was freaked way the fuck out, said you were in danger. I didn’t take time to interrogate her. I put some clothes on and hauled ass.”
I decided to leave that alone. I’d speak with Josette about how she knew later, after I was assured Frey and the green witch “had this.”
Therefore, I changed the subject as I watched Noc stride purposefully across the room. “Why did you pull the cord?”
He disappeared through his dressing room door but still called out, “Gonna need clean towels. And more water. And one of those sleeping drinks you talked about. And a bunch a’ other shit, this place has it.”
Being slightly twisted to observe the door to the dressing room was causing too much pain, so I rested my cheek on my arms crossed under me and demanded loudly so he could hear (meaning indecorously, which I found irritating), “You need to go back to Frey. Ascertain he has things in hand.”
Noc came back wearing another shirt, this one odd, seeming to be one piece of material, no buttons, long sleeves, the fabric looking soft and fitting snug at his chest and shoulders.
He was also carrying a drying cloth that looked wet but wrung.
“Your cousin’s got dragons on call, Frannie, I think he’s good,” he denied my demand.
“I—” I began just as he stopped by the bed.
“Please be quiet, baby,” he said in a soothing tone. “Try to relax. I’m gonna lay this on your back, maybe the cool will give you some relief, and we’ll hope a doc gets here soon.”
He said that and I had no response, just kept my eyes tipped up to him, fascinated that the soothing tone of his voice was reciprocated by the look on his handsome face.
After some time, he asked, “You good with that?”
“Pardon?”
“Me putting this on your back, Frannie, you ready?”
I felt my face pucker. “I dislike this name you call me.”
He bent at the waist so his face was much closer to mine.
Confronted in that proximity by his striking good looks, I felt my face unpucker.
“Franka’s a good enough name, I guess. But it’s hard and that’s not you.”
I mentally pulled my famous Franka Drakkar bravado around me and would have tossed my head if I didn’t know it would cause intense pain. “You don’t know me.”
His voice got lower when he returned, “You know I do.”
That made me shut my mouth, for oddly and with not a small amount of panic at the mere thought, I imagined he did.
“You ready for the towel, sweetheart?” he asked.
I did not bite my lip. I did not tense (for tensing made the pain worse, I’d learned that long ago). I did nothing but nod.
Noc nodded back, straightened, and with a tenderness that made my nostrils sting in order to fight back a different reaction, he laid the cool, wet cloth along my burning, ravaged back.
I closed my eyes.
“There,” he whispered.
When I opened my eyes, he was crouched low close beside the bed so he was all I could see.
“How long’s he been doin’ this to you?” he inquired softly.
“That’s hardly your business,” I replied, though I couldn’t infuse even a small measure of condescension in my voice after the care he’d taken of me.
His glance slid in the direction of my back before it came again to me.
“He got that far, no one could take that shit without passing out. Unless they had practice,” he remarked.
He was correct.
I didn’t answer.
He lifted a hand, used the tip of a finger to slide my hair away from my temple and my cheek as he spoke.
“You’re a grown woman, Frannie. You don’t have to take that. Why didn’t you put a stop to it? Hell, why’d you go down there at all?”
That, I answered.
“Because my brother wouldn’t be able to take it.”
There was a change in his gaze. A glittering hardness that I found fascinating.
And that hard was now in his tone when he declared, “You are not one fuckin’ thing like they think you are, are you?”
“I’m exactly what they think I am,” I retorted.
“Keep tellin’ yourself that, babe. See you believe it. But it’s utter bullshit,” he returned.
Before I could get in a rebuttal, there was a knock at the door.
I watched Noc straighten from his crouch, move quickly and with masculine fluidity to the door and open it.
A palace maid was beyond it.
Her eyes flicked to me and I drew breath in through my nostrils at the indignity of my position and her attention.
Damned, bloody Noc.
“I need towels, please,” Noc stated. “Lots of them. Hot water. Mild soap. You got a bad bottle of whiskey around, bring that too. If you don’t, bring a good one. And one of those drinks that puts you to sleep. Her girl was sent for a doctor,” Noc went on, doing this jerking his head back to indicate me. “If you could find out where he is and have him come to us as soon as he can, that’d be awesome.”
The maid nodded and dashed away even though I suspected there were several things he said that she didn’t understand.
He closed the door and turned to me.
When he again got close and hunkered beside me, I tried to take a different tack.
“It would mean a good deal to me, Noc, if you were to return to Frey and ascertain what’s happening with my father, my mother and my brother.”
“I’ll do that, once the doc’s here and you’re good.”
“Noc—” I began to protest but he again leaned closer.
“Frey know you got magic?”
Uncharacteristically, I allowed my eyes to slide away.
“Frannie,” he called.
My eyes slid back and I snapped, “Cease calling me this.”
He ignored my demand and asserted, “I gotta know. You don’t want me to say anything, I gotta know.”
I felt my lips part in surprise at the fact that he’d just shared he’d keep my secret.
“And if your dad says shit, I gotta be on the ball with that too,” he carried on.
Oh balls.
I should have thought of that.
“I don’t practice,” I told hi
m swiftly, lifting my head slightly but lowering it when the numbness in my back disappeared and fire shot through my mutilated flesh. “I don’t ever use it. I just…inherited it from my mother. She uses it.”
Noc nodded. “Gotcha.”
“You must believe me, Noc, for I’m telling the truth,” for some reason I persevered. “When I was young, I experimented with it. But seeing what she did, how she used hers.” I shook my head. “I didn’t want a thing to do with it.”
He lifted a hand and cupped my cheek, saying comfortingly, “I said gotcha, baby. That means I get you. I understand you. It’s all good. I got your back. Okay? You get that?”
I wasn’t sure but I thought I did, therefore I gave a slight nod.
“Now, relax for me, yeah? I’m gonna go get another towel, take this one off, change it.” Even as his mouth got tight, his voice turned into a mutter while his attention wandered to my back. “Blood’s soaked this one through.”
Humiliation belatedly stole through me, and I closed my eyes against the sight of his fine-looking face set with anger that warred with concern.
“You good with that, Frannie?” he asked.
This name, it was common. I detested it.
I didn’t say that.
I sighed, kept my eyes closed and replied, “Whatever you wish to do, Noc.”
“Babe,” he said.
I lay there, unmoving.
“Sweetheart, look at me.”
I didn’t wish to but felt it would be a show of weakness if I didn’t.
Therefore I did.
“Gonna take care of you,” he promised, the look in his eyes now one of warmth and determination. “Get you back to fit. And I’m gonna see he’s taken care of too. Do you believe me?”
I wished to do that.
But that would not happen.
“He’s a member of a powerful House, Noc. You may not understand this but that means something. He’s detested by Aurora, as he was by Atticus, for reasons I don’t know but it wasn’t surprising. The king and queen felt even less for my mother. They do not consort with the royals and only allowed Kristian and I to do so when we were younger through my uncle, Frey’s father. Regardless of that, his position, and hers, gives them leeway. And further, I went to him uncoerced.”
“When’d it start?” he asked.
“Pardon?”
“Got scar tissue he didn’t get to opening up this go, Frannie, so don’t think you can pull one over on me. This is not your first time. How old were you when it started?”
Midnight Soul Page 7
