Midnight Soul (9 page)

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 sought 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 him 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.”