Midnight Soul

by Kristen Ashley

“Merde,” Valentine whispered.

  Finally.

  We were getting to her.

  “And, just sayin’,” Noc carried on, “he tries that shit, it’s gonna be a lot of explaining on her part when she makes her door a sheet of magical flame to ward him off. A man thinks his drive for a woman has made him so insane he’s seeing things, like doors bursting into flame but not catching fire, he’ll back off real quick.”

  “Merde,” Valentine said louder.

  Excellent.

  We’d gotten to her.

  “I think it best at this juncture to let Circe alone,” I declared. “For the night, at least. We cannot let her retreat, but we need to allow her to lick her wounds. You, however, need to see to Dax. He needs to be controlled. In case you haven’t absorbed all we’re telling you, to say he’s taken with her, and was upon clapping eyes on her, is an understatement. I don’t know what Lahn felt when he saw his future golden queen walking in that hideous parade. But I can now say I hold no surprise he chased her down on his steed and claimed her on the rocks of Korwahk before nary a word was spoken.”

  “I’ll see to Dax,” Valentine stated. “You and I will speak more tomorrow.”

  I felt my body relax and replied, “Thank you.”

  “And I’ll say something now, Franka,” she stated in a severe tone. “You must beware how you wield your power. Allowing your emotions to control it rather than your mind can have catastrophic consequences. I’ve told this to you before. I won’t share it again.”

  I made no response to that for she had shared this thus her admonishment hit true.

  “Is it all, erm, good up there?” Josette called and the sound of her voice told me she was likely at the foot of the stairs.

  “All good, Jo,” Noc called back. “Be down in a minute.”

  “Right,” she yelled.

  I stared as Valentine started to disappear in a billow of green.

  “Valentine,” I snapped, feeling we were not yet done.

  “I’ll see to Dax. Until tomorrow,” she said and disappeared.

  “Bloody hell that woman is vexing,” I bit out.

  “Babe.”

  I glared at where Valentine had been for a long measure then turned in his arm.

  The instant he had my eyes, he asked, “You okay?”

  “What, pray, happened tonight, my dearest, darling Noc, that would make you think I was even near feeling okay?” I asked back.

  “Right, well that answered that,” he muttered but did it watching me closely.

  “I miscalculated,” I declared. “Appallingly.”

  Noc didn’t utter a noise.

  “I thought, with Circe’s approach and, well…activities with you at the Winter Palace, she was ready to move onwards in healing. Valentine felt the same. It would seem we were wrong.”

  Noc remained silent.

  “Unspeakably wrong,” I went on.

  Noc did not confirm, or alternately make an effort to appease.

  He said nothing.

  And nothing was not helping.

  “Noc,” I prompted.

  “You’re on that. You’ll sort it,” he stated. “I don’t need to go over it because I can tell you’re upset and anyway, there’s no need. You were there. You saw it play out.”

  This was all true.

  “But Circe lashed out,” he continued. “At you. Maybe understandable but still unacceptable. So shit went south tonight with Circe. Whatever. Only thing I give a shit about right now is, she cut into you. I didn’t just see, I actually felt those cuts slice deep, so are you okay?”

  His words the night I came to his world rocked through my brain.

  I know what you said to Maddie, right to her face. Lo told me. He knows your story now, Frannie. Like everyone else, he’s changed his tune about you. That said, he’s still pissed about that and he’ll never forgive you for it because that’s the guy he is. He loves his wife, you wounded her, he’s never gonna let that go.

  He loves his wife, you wounded her, he’s never gonna let that go.

  And then…

  So shit went south tonight with Circe. Whatever. Only thing I give a shit about right now is…are you okay?

  I was Noc’s Franka, like Maddie was Apollo’s, Finnie was Frey’s, Circe was Lahn’s, Cora was Tor’s.

  I was Noc’s.

  He had that woman to love we spoke about so many months before, sitting at a fire, drinking whiskey.

  And that woman was me.

  “You really do love me,” I whispered, staring into his beautiful blue eyes.

  His head jerked, his brows snapped together, and his look turned decidedly ominous.

  “You doubted it?”

  “No, darling,” I went on softly. “I’ll rephrase. You love me, you really do.”

  “Uh, well…yeah,” he replied.

  I melted into him, wrapped my arms around his waist and answered his question the way he wished it to be answered.

  “I cannot say that her words felt good. What I can say is that she was on the defensive and feeling things I cannot begin to know how they feel. Her attack on me might not have been warranted, but in my estimation not only was it understandable, it was acceptable. I made a grave error in planning. It was her that suffered for it. So yes. It might have hurt, hearing what she said, but I’m standing here in the arms of the man I really love who really loves me in return. So I’m okay.”

  He examined my face, I knew, to ascertain I was telling the truth.

  His face and frame relaxed when it came clear I was.

  All but his arms, they tightened, drawing me closer.

  “One thing I can say for tonight, she put her hand on his arm, thought that the windows in that restaurant were gonna blow out,” he said.

  “You felt it too?”

  “Think they felt it in the parallel universe.”

  I smiled up at him.

  “Means I’m in,” he stated.

  I blinked up at him.

  “Pardon?”

  “Baby, wasn’t lost on me, seeing the way Frey was with Finnie, the other Lahn with the other Circe, hell, knew it way back when Tor came tearing into this world to come get Cora, this love between worlds business is extreme.”

  At that, I just stared up at him, still confused.

  “And tonight proved it,” he finished.

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  “So I’m in.”

  I tipped my head to the side. “You’re in?”

  “Gonna help you make a match between Circe and her savage.”

  He was going to help!

  Delightful!

  My smile that time was far bigger.

  He dropped his head so his face was close to mine.

  “And just so you know, when I mentioned that love between worlds business, I was talkin’ about hittin’ the door to my bathroom and seeing you in that dress. But what happened between Circe and Dax capped it.”

  At his first statement, I slid my hands up his back.

  After he finished his second, the fingers of both were in his hair.

  So of course I used them to pull him to me and kiss him.

  But because he was “in,” he was going to help me make a match, I let him take over the kiss.

  Well, because of that.

  And for other reasons besides.

  * * * * *

  In the mirror, I watched Noc shove his face into the side of my neck, feeling the shudders thunder through his powerful frame with his climax.

  I had already had mine. Therefore in the throes of my afterglow, I was able to fully enjoy a visual of how our passion overwhelmed my beautiful Noctorno.

  Prior to leading me to his bathroom, Noc had only taken off his suit jacket.

  And he’d only taken off my panties.

  This before he’d taken me, both of us facing the basin, my skirt about my hips.

  And right then, I had a hand braced against the counter and a vision of my face flushed, Noc’s lost in my neck, only hi
s thick, dark hair could be seen. I could feel his warm breath against my skin, see his hand in the slit of my dress, feel his fingers cupping my breast, his other arm out straight, his hand covering mine beside the basin.

  And his cock, obviously, was still thick and hard inside me.

  We were separate and we were one.

  We were beauty.

  I felt his fingers weaving through mine at the counter as I felt his lips brush my neck.

  Then I watched him lift his head and press his jaw against the side of mine, his glorious eyes moving over us in the mirror, the expression in them not hiding he felt as me with what could be seen.

  Finally, those stunning blue eyes caught mine.

  Noc said nothing.

  I said nothing.

  We just held each other’s gazes in the mirror before he slid his hand out of my dress and lifted it to my jaw.

  He needed no words to share what he wanted.

  Therefore I gave it to him, turning my head and offering him my mouth.

  He took it.

  We kissed languidly but greedily, like kings and queens assured of their power, their treasure their reign, nevertheless indulging sumptuously in the lap of luxury that was theirs by right of birth and the grace of the gods.

  When Noc finally broke the kiss, he whispered, “Ready for bed, baby?”

  I nodded.

  Only then did he break the connection of our bodies, but soon enough he sought it again, tangling himself in me in the warmth of his bed.

  And there we slept.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Just a Guy

  Noc

  Noc knocked on the door and stepped back just in case it went up in flames, or maybe shot magical laser beams at him.

  He was there because he and Franka had had a meeting with Valentine that morning, he’d been briefed about all things Dax Lahn, and Noc had volunteered to go smooth things over with Circe.

  He wasn’t looking forward to the task, but he was the man for the job mostly because, if she’d slept on it and was still pissed at Frannie, after all she’d said the night before, no way in hell he was setting up his woman to face whatever Circe felt like dishing out.

  Valentine had assured them she was seeing to Dax. She didn’t share how she was doing this. Noc also didn’t ask because he really didn’t want to know.

  As he waited outside Circe’s place, the door didn’t explode.

  It also didn’t open.

  He got close again, knocked again and stayed where he was, saying through it, “I know you know it’s me. What you also gotta know is, until I see you’re all right, I’m not leaving.”

  She made him wait but she finally opened the door.

  Cutoff jean shorts, a little tee, bare feet, hair wild, face makeup free, fuck, Dax was going to like every version of Circe.

  “I’m all right,” she snapped and started to close the door again.

  Noc lifted a hand to hold it open.

  She didn’t push it. Instead the battle she waged was with her gaze, trying to stare him down.

  He didn’t just take it.

  He pushed back, but only verbally.

  “She meant no harm. She wants good things for you. She’s lived the life she felt she had to live to keep herself safe. That’s not her life anymore but she’s used to doing things a certain way. But now she’s doin’ those things for good. She just doesn’t have it down how to go about doin’ that yet. She’s not the woman you said she was last night, Circe. Valentine told me she’s kept you in the loop about what’s been going down with Frannie, so I figure you know it. But even with all that, she shouldn’t have played it that way. She fucked up. She knows that now. And she’s gutted, babe. Kicking her own ass and worried as shit about you.”

  Circe could only hold the attitude for a few seconds before she looked away and stepped away, opening the door further, inviting him in.

  He went in and saw that, with the little she had, she had good taste. But even with the treasure she’d been given, she wasn’t about pimping out her space.

  Noc moved to the middle of the small living room and stopped, turning to her.

  Circe followed him and leaned the side of her thigh against the arm of her couch where a cat instantly appeared, rubbing its side against her skin.

  She did not ask Noc to sit. She did not offer him coffee.

  She just dropped a hand to scratch the ruff of her pet and held Noc’s gaze.

  He laid it out.

  “I should have stopped her. I knew it wasn’t the right play. I told her that, she was determined. I still should have stopped her.”

  “What’s done is done,” she stated shortly.

  “It is but you gotta know, I felt how it made you feel last night and I’m sorry about the part I played in it.”

  Circe, unsurprisingly not a woman who would carry a grudge in the face of an open apology, visibly lost some of the attitude and repeated, “What’s done is done,” but this came far more gently.

  Right, they were beyond that, now it was time to lay more shit out.

  “We need to talk about Dax.”

  She straightened from the couch, going instantly wired.

  “There’s nothing to say.”

  He took only one step toward her before he stopped and pointed out, “I don’t get, at the same time I do, why you’d be in denial about what went down last night. But I wouldn’t be a friend if I didn’t try to pull you out of that.”

  “You and Franka are proof that there are differences between our two worlds and they still carry on. This being so, I understand why Valentine and Franka would think this needs to happen between me and that man. But it’s also obvious that it actually doesn’t.”

  “True enough,” Noc replied. “But that doesn’t explain your reaction to him last night, or his to you.”

  She looked away.

  He kept at her.

  “Circe, babe, please don’t shut me out. I’m here to talk to you but I’m also here for you to talk to me. Share with me. Give me whatever shit is holding you back from something I know rocked you in bad ways last night. The thing is, it also rocked you in good ways. Really good. I can’t know, but my guess is that the good parts are what are holding you back. And knowing all that’s in play here, I would be no friend at all if I didn’t try to help you see that good as just what it is.”

  When she again gave him her attention, her face was a mask and her eyes were angry.

  Even so, she couldn’t hide they were also haunted.

  Fuck.

  “There is no way you can understand where I am with this.”

  “No,” he whispered. “No,” he repeated, letting all he was feeling out with that one syllable and seeing the anger dissolve, but also seeing the wounds surfacing. He fucking hated what he saw but he didn’t give up. “I can’t know. But I know what’s there. I know why you’re there. And it kills me there’s not a fuckin’ thing I can do about it.”

  “No one can do anything about it, Noc,” she said quietly.

  “This guy can.”

  She blinked up at him.

  “I was not that guy,” Noc went on. “We both knew it. I could not be that guy for you. I knew and you knew. We both understood I was not strong enough to handle all that happened to you. Not for the long run. So what we had was what it was because we both knew I couldn’t be the guy for you to give you what you needed.”

  Now she was staring at him with big eyes that showed she was confused and he didn’t get that.

  But he didn’t ask after it.

  He stayed on target.

  “But this guy, Circe,” he kept at her, “this guy is not any guy. He’s an attorney. He’s a good one. Not a fighter. A warrior. He’s wealthy and he earned that, he didn’t get born to it. And he does pro bono for a domestic violence shelter for no reason than that’s his mission. And he buys a ten thousand dollar table at their gala event, leaning on all his attorney buddies to do the same. That was how we got him there
last night. He probably could be doing a hundred things on a Friday night. He was not doing those things. He was there facilitating a donation from Franka.”

  She seemed surprised at this information but said, “Noc, his commitment to that says nice things about him but it has nothing to do with me. Now what I’d like to talk about is how you feel about—”

  He interrupted her.

  “What I’m saying is, we’re not talking sympathy. We’re not talking empathy. We’re talking about a man who respects women, knows how they should be treated and does something about it when that shit doesn’t happen,” Noc informed her.

  She shut her mouth.

  Noc kept going.

  “No one can look at that man and not think he has his head up his ass about his looks, his money, his talents. He’s confident, but that’s not what he’s about. What he’s about is that he’s all that and he’s still the man he is for women.”

  “Again, this is all very nice to know about him but, Noc, it has nothing to do with me.”

  “Not sure how you see it that way when the minute he saw you, the world faded away.”

  That was a blow she didn’t expect. So much of one, she took a step back.

  “And Circe,” he pushed, “when you saw him, your world did too.”

  “I was simply surprised to see Lahn there,” she bald-faced lied.

  He gentled his tone when he shared, “This wasn’t about Lahn. You knew that man was not Lahn. This was about Dax. All about Dax.”

  “Noc—”

  “I did not like this idea,” he stated. “When Franka shared what she and Valentine were up to, I didn’t like it at all. And she never talked me around to liking it. I was there last night to look after her, because I didn’t know this guy, and to look after you, because she was determined to throw you in his path. Then I saw him with you, Circe, and no way in fuck I’d let anyone get near you I didn’t trust. But I saw him with you and here I am.”

  “Noc—”

  “I want you to be happy. Franka does. Valentine does. Hell, everyone does. The only one standing in the way of that is you.”

  “I like my life,” she asserted.

  “Are you happy?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  It was the truth.

  And it totally wasn’t.

  “Are you really happy, babe?” he pressed.