Midnight Soul
Kristen Ashley
Discover other titles by Kristen Ashley:
Rock Chick Series:
Rock Chick
Rock Chick Rescue
Rock Chick Redemption
Rock Chick Renegade
Rock Chick Revenge
Rock Chick Reckoning
Rock Chick Regret
Rock Chick Revolution
The ’Burg Series:
For You
At Peace
Golden Trail
Games of the Heart
The Promise
Hold On
The Chaos Series:
Own the Wind
Fire Inside
Ride Steady
Walk Through Fire
The Colorado Mountain Series:
The Gamble
Sweet Dreams
Lady Luck
Breathe
Jagged
Kaleidoscope
Bounty
Dream Man Series:
Mystery Man
Wild Man
Law Man
Motorcycle Man
The Fantasyland Series:
Wildest Dreams
The Golden Dynasty
Fantastical
Broken Dove
The Magdalene Series:
The Will
Soaring
The Three Series:
Until the Sun Falls from the Sky
With Everything I Am
Wild and Free
The Unfinished Hero Series:
Knight
Creed
Raid
Deacon
Sebring
Other Titles by Kristen Ashley:
Fairytale Come Alive
Heaven and Hell
Lacybourne Manor
Lucky Stars
Mathilda, SuperWitch
Penmort Castle
Play It Safe
Sommersgate House
Three Wishes
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S.
Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic
sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the
publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual
property. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Kristen Ashley
First ebook edition: August 15, 2016
First print edition: August 15, 2016
Wouldn’t Even Blink
Franka
That day had been one I wished to quickly
forget.
Indeed, the months since those witches took
my Antoine had been time I wished I had the power to erase from my
memory.
I had power.
I did not have that kind of power.
These thoughts on my mind, I moved down the
hallway of the Winter Palace seeking my room where I planned to
pull the cord, ring a servant and request several bottles of
Fleuridian wine.
Wine might not make me forget, but I’d found
of late that it served well to dull the pain.
I turned the corner, my eyes to my slippers,
but my senses made me lift my gaze to the passageway.
At what I saw, I halted and grew still, then
slowly and quietly retraced my steps and ducked behind the corner,
peering back around.
Oh my.
The Prince Noctorno of the other world was in
the doorway to a bedchamber.
Although, he was not actually a prince. Not
in this universe. Apparently they had very few princes in that
other world. A world that existed on a parallel plane where all
beings had twins to my own world.
This I thought was rather mad (everything
about it, obviously), but with few princes, that meant there were
few kings, so who ruled?
He reported that he was instead a member of
the city guard, an occupation he referred to as being “a cop.” A
rather surprising statement considering all that was him.
He was no member of a guard.
He was a prince.
And he called himself Noc for some unknown
reason, as Noctorno was a fine name, a strong name, a regal name
(this last was true as his counterpart in this world
was
a
prince).
And right now, he had his back to me.
He was wearing a pair of trousers the like
that couldn’t be found in my world. They were made of a rough,
sturdy, faded-blue material. He also had a shirt that was not the
fashion in this world. It was attractive and made of an equally
attractive plaid. And it was a shirt that fit his broad shoulders
magnificently.
His thick, black hair was untidy (this also
attractive).
And I could see his light-blue eyes but only
in my imagination as he had his back to me.
They were not eyes you were likely to forget.
With his dark hair and skin browned in the sun, those eyes were
deliciously striking.
There was a day, though now that day seemed
lifetimes ago, when a sight such as Noctorno Hawthorne of another
world (or indeed this one) would have caused me to have a much
different reaction, not only to him, but to my plans for the
imminent future.
That was before Antoine.
That was before I met the man who introduced
me to, well…
me
.
Now I stood peeking around a corner, my body
hidden (something I would
never
do before Antoine, unless it
served a purpose of course), but it wouldn’t matter if I was around
the corner or dancing a jig in the corridor.
The two people standing in the doorway of the
bedchamber just down the hall wouldn’t know I was there unless I
shouted.
For Noctorno of the other world was not
alone.
He was standing with Circe. Circe of this
world, my world, but she’d spirited herself through magic to the
parallel universe and decided to stay.
She was facing Noctorno, and once I could
tear my eyes from his shoulders, his hair, his arse in those
trousers, I looked at her face.
And again went still.
There was much I read in her look.
I was Franka Drakkar of the House of Drakkar.
And if any member of the House of Drakkar was clever (and I was
clever, very clever, but not clever enough), they learned early how
to take in anything they could in order to read a situation and
then manipulate it to their advantage.
Therefore, I saw the sated look on her face,
and I knew why Noctorno was standing there in her bedchamber door,
his big body loose, relaxed, his hand lifting so he could gently
stroke her jaw with his thumb.
And what I knew as I watched this was that
they’d just had relations, and at least for Circe now of the other
world, she’d enjoyed it.
Greatly.
But there was more to her look. More that
would have given me, the woman I used to be, everything I needed to
cut her to the quick for social sport, or bring her low in order to
cow her to my every whim.
Relief. Acute relief.
And gratitude. Extreme gratitude.
I felt something stirring in the region of my
belly, looking at her lovely face, knowing her story.
Knowing how she’d been misused since she was
a child. Her parents slaughtered by a king who then made her his
plaything in all the ways he could do that, every one of them
despicable. Knowing of her escape from his captivity, which only
brought her into the hands of pirates (and further misuse). Knowing
her exceptionally unfortunate luck took her from said pirates to
the savage land of Korwahk where she was entered into the Wife
Hunt—a heinous practice, its simple name stating exactly what it
was, if not relaying the information that when the “wives” were
captured, they were violated.
Awaiting the Hunt, that had been the end for
her. She’d used her considerable magic,
all
of it, and sent
herself to a different realm. Another world. That parallel
universe. One, from the snippets I’d heard, that was very different
from my own.
Circe had exchanged herself for her twin. And
the Circe of the other world was now the Golden Warrior Queen of
Korwahk, beloved, even revered, not only by her people but her
husband, King Lahn.
No one would know if the Circe I saw now,
standing with Noctorno, would have earned that adoration from a
ruler and his people if she’d chosen to remain after all that had
befallen her since childhood.
Therefore it didn’t matter.
Now was now.
And that very day, the evil triumvirate of
witches that threatened two continents had all been dispatched.
Executed.
This made it safe for the most powerful men
on those two continents to live out their days in harmony with the
loves they’d found across universes.
Found them and impregnated them.
All four of them.
It was the way of men.
Quite tedious. Lay claim and then
lay
claim
: planting their seed so they could bind their women to
the servitude of motherhood and the men could live eternal through
their spawn.
As far as I knew (and I was not privy to
much), none of these men (save Frey Drakkar, my cousin) had been
with their loves for more than a few years (and in some cases it
was only months).
And yet all the women were expecting; three
of them with their second child.
This had naught to do with me.
I was going to drink wine. Sleep. Wake.
Leave.
I tried not to be in Lunwyn—my icy country,
my beautiful home—very often. Not only because, to many of those I
knew, I wasn’t welcome.
Even so, I didn’t wish to return to Fleuridia
where I had apartments and spent most of my time either.
They were apartments I’d shared with
Antoine.
I needed to be rid of them.
Where I would go, I had no idea.
Of course, it was a must I first visit with
Kristian, my brother, who, after what I was forced to do in the
hopes of saving my lover, had suffered.
My brother was bountiful of heart but weak of
character. He needed looking after. He needed protecting.
I’d see to him.
As I always did.
Then…
I had no idea.
But now was not the time to decide that.
Now, as I stood watching Circe press her jaw
into Noctorno’s touch, I knew he’d taken care of her. In so doing,
I knew he’d been immensely gentle, took great amounts of time and
paid tremendous attention.
All of this I understood from the replete
expression on her face.
The relief I witnessed in her visage was
likely, after all she’d endured, that she didn’t think any man
could offer that kind of pleasure and she was delighted to know
they could.
The gratitude was not for the gentleness,
time, attention and the undoubted climax he’d given her.
It was simply for him being him.
The kind of man who had all of that in
him.
One man in billions.
In two universes.
My vision went hazy as memories flitted
through my brain.
I closed my eyes at the colossal pain those
memories caused.
I had that, didn’t I, my love.
We
had that. Didn’t we?
I grew uneasy even through the pain,
wracked with uncertainty.
Did I give you that, my
Antoine?
As had been the case every time I sent my
messages blindly to the gods in hopes they’d feel generous and send
them where they were meant to be received, even before he expired
after enduring such cruelty, I had no reply.
I couldn’t allow the images the witches had
sent of his torture to come to my mind’s eye. If I did, it would be
crippling. So I only let them through when I was alone at night in
bed and could be crippled by them, tossing and turning, sleepless
for hours.
Days.
Weeks.
I opened my eyes and, again swiftly and
quietly, turned and made my way back down the hall, leaving Circe
and Noctorno to their moment.
As I did this, I felt my lips curl in a
scornful smirk.
Look what’s become of me, Antoine.
I
called out silently to the ether.
Walking away from that
touching scene without even catching Circe’s eyes to share I’d seen
what I’d seen and I knew what I knew. You did this to me,
mon
cœur.
I must get back to who I am. If only to have something
diverting in the years to come that don’t have you in them.
I halted again, halfway down the passageway,
when Antoine’s deep, polished voice sounded in my head in
answer.
That is not you,
mon ange,
and I
would be most annoyed if you went back to impersonating that woman
you never were.
Mon ange
, his angel.
All those months we’d spent together…
Did he even know me?
This was a vague thought.
A more crucial one came to my lips.
“Are you there, beloved?” I whispered to the
empty hall.
