I turned again to Noc. “That means yes.”
“It so doesn’t,” Noc replied, his lips
quirking.
“It absolutely does,” I returned.
Noc gave up the fight, grinned, shook his
head and then plucked my nephew right out of my arms with a
practiced ease I found both astounding and bizarrely pleasing. In
the same manner he planted Timofei on his hip, reached to grab my
hand, his fingers tight around mine, and thus he dragged me into
the hall carrying my nephew and speaking.
“Dig you bein’ cute, babe, always. But
everyone’s talking about this liquid chocolate so I wanna get some
in me. To do that you need your cloak, I need my coat and this
little one needs to get bundled up. So let’s get a move on,
yeah?”
I had no choice of whether or not to agree to
get a move on
.
Noc moved me by keeping hold of my hand and
pulling me with him.
Again with no choice, as Josette was at the
grand entryway awaiting me with my cloak, I accepted it and my
gloves and hat.
Noc shrugged on his other-world coat, a nice,
dark-blue, double-breasted wool that Finnie shared later was a,
“Navy pea coat…
hot
,” (her words exactly).
Timofei was bundled by his nanny.
And away we went.
With me in Noc’s sleigh.
He did not attempt to press me to go to his
world during our trip. Nor during our time at Esmerelda’s. Nor much
later, when he was my dinner partner at dinner (something Queen
Aurora seemed intent on doing, only Kristian had taken his place
but once in all the dinners I’d shared with them).
And yet he did.
And he did it simply by being Noc.
* * * * *
Valentine
Valentine studied Lavinia with unconcealed
distaste.
After her friend swallowed a bite of her
sidewalk-hot dog-vendor hot dog while standing on a street in New
Orleans, Valentine shared, “I can introduce you to much more
sumptuous delicacies, my friend.”
Lavinia took another bite of the chili, onion
and mustard slathered hot dog and said through a full mouth that
had Valentine’s lip curling, “But this is
delicious
.”
She was quite wrong.
Valentine didn’t share this.
She looked across the street.
It was nearly time.
“I’ve decided you’ll come to my world more
often and the next time you come, I’ll take you to Arnaud’s.”
“Do they have these at Arnaud’s?” Lavinia
asked and Valentine turned again to see her lifting the remaining
quarter of her hot dog.
“No,” Valentine drawled disgustedly.
Lavinia grinned, took another bite, glanced
away from Valentine and promptly choked on her hot dog.
Valentine’s attention went to where her
friend’s eyes were aimed and she saw Dax Lahn walking out of the
handsome building wearing his exceptionally well-tailored suit.
She would not have thought a man such as him
would wear a suit well, but she was wrong.
“You brought the Dax here?” Lavinia asked
incredulously.
“No,
chérie
, I did not,” Valentine
answered.
There was a moment’s silence before Lavinia
queried, “That’s…that’s…
this world’s Dax
?”
“It is, indeed.”
Through this, her friend didn’t tear her gaze
from Dax Lahn as he walked to the waiting sleek, gleaming-black
Mercedes parked at the curb.
“He’s an attorney, known as ‘the Savage,’”
Valentine informed her fellow witch. “He’s quite feared in the
courtroom, it’s said. Razor-sharp. Shrewd. Sly. A cunning
strategist. And ruthless.”
The man under discussion got in the car while
Valentine spoke, and both women watched as the vehicle smoothly
moved away from the curb.
They continued to watch until it disappeared
from sight.
Only then did Valentine feel Lavinia’s eyes
on her and she turned her attention back to her friend.
“He’s wealthy,
very
,” she stated.
“Unmarried, obviously. And he gives not only generously of money
but also of the expertise of his firm, of which he’s the founding
and managing partner, to a local domestic violence shelter. This
for reasons I can’t fathom, outside the fact he’s simply a good
man, for his mother and father had a long, loving relationship that
only ended when his father died in a tragic car accident.”
“Valentine—” Lavinia started.
Valentine didn’t allow her to continue.
“And he moves in circles that are such it’s
unlikely he’ll run into the office manager of a towing
company.”
Light had already dawned in Lavinia’s eyes,
but with that she moved closer to Valentine.
“With our Circe, I’m not sure this is wise,”
she declared.
“You would be wrong,” Valentine sniffed.
“My dear—”
“It is, as it can’t have escaped you, the
natural order of things,” Valentine reminded her.
Lavinia’s focus wandered to the street where
they last saw Dax Lahn’s car.
She then whispered, “The Savage.”
“Perfection,” Valentine decreed.
Lavinia’s attention cut back to her. “I hope
you know what you’re doing.”
Valentine tried not to be offended.
And failed.
“I know precisely what I’m doing,” she said
with a slight snap.
“I think you believe that down to our emerald
soul, I just hope you’re right.”
“I’m absolutely right.”
Lavinia held her gaze and shook her head.
Really, her friend’s misgivings were quite
insulting.
“It’s late in Lunwyn and I have things to see
to there,” Valentine announced. “Are you finished with that…
fare
?” She tipped her head to the remains of Lavinia’s
repulsive hot dog.
To that, Lavinia shoved the last bite in her
mouth and followed that by chewing at the same time smiling.
Valentine controlled her lip curling in
derision.
She then moved them both to an alley close by
that was deserted and there were no eyes on them.
And with verdant green smoke mixing with
jade, the two witches disappeared.
Always but Always
Franka
“Goodness, almost a bull’s-eye.”
I jumped at Cora’s words and looked to her to
see I was so engrossed in what I was watching out the window, I
hadn’t even sensed her coming close.
And what I was watching out the window was
Finnie and Frey, with some of Frey’s men and Lahn looking on,
teaching Noc how to go about using a bow and arrow.
I’d been watching for some time, and I’d
noticed in this time he not only took very little of it to feel
comfortable with the weapon but to start shifting back further and
further from the target with his aim, each time quickly coming more
and more true.
“You want to get our cloaks and go out with
them?” Cora asked, turning her eyes to me.
“Certainly not,” I sniffed and forced myself
to move sedately from the window to take a seat on one of the two
couches sitting parallel to each other by the fire. The couch I
selected was empty. The one across from it had Circe and Brikitta
sitting on it, Circe grinning knowingly at me, Brikitta regarding
me closely.
I ignored both of them and reached forward to
the tea service that had been laid out for us to pour myself some
tea.
“She so does,” Circe declared, and I knew she
was talking to Cora.
I also knew it was a tease.
But my deep-seated feelings of guilt and
shame surfaced, and struggling with them now for some time I was
unable to push them back.
Therefore I looked to Circe and snapped, “You
do realize that not long ago my lover was tortured to death.”
Circe’s lovely face went stricken, and at the
sight of it, my guilt and shame increased.
“I’m so sorry,” she said quickly. “I do know
that. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No,” I stated, looking away, feeling my
embarrassment in the heat in my cheeks and bringing my teacup to my
lips but not sipping. “There was no reason for me to be curt when
you were simply teasing.”
I sipped and hoped that was where the matter
would lie.
My hope was in vain.
“It’s sweet, you and Noc,” Cora said, coming
to sit next to me. “And it’s not bad, you and Noc. He’s a good guy,
Franka. And he gets it. I don’t know, I’ve never lost what you’ve
lost, but he’s that good of a guy, he’s just trying to be there for
you, as we all are. And you should take that, babe. People caring.
Let him in. Let
us
in. We might be able to help.”
“He is a…” I hesitated before I tried out the
words, “
good guy
. It’s not like I don’t know this.”
She scooted closer to me.
“What I’m saying is, if you want to get your
mind off things, it won’t hurt anything or anyone to put your cloak
on and go out and be with people who like being around you and who
want to be there for you,” Cora further explained.
“I’ve feelings for him,” I blurted.
Gads!
Now I was blurting my thoughts
willy-nilly.
Cora stared at me and as she did I felt the
room grow still.
Why I said it I didn’t know, but as was
happening quite often of late, I couldn’t stop it and further, I
couldn’t stop myself from continuing to share.
And this is precisely what I did.
“It’s wrong and it’s shameful and it’s
disloyal to Antoine’s memory. He’s barely made his way to the lap
of the gods and here I am, admiring another man.”
“There’s a lot to admire about Noc, Franka,”
Circe said carefully. “The guy is hot.”
“As I understand this word in your
vernacular,” I replied to her, “you are very right. That makes it
no less shameful and disloyal.”
“I understand your struggle,” she
murmured.
“It’s more,” I stated.
Drat.
Why couldn’t I stop speaking?
“More?” Brikitta asked, her regard of me
kind.
I fastened on that and kept bloody
speaking.
“These past days, in being with you and
Kristian, and these past weeks, being with the others and their
mates, I’ve realized the inadequacies of my relationship with
Antoine. My mind conjures them frequently, doing so as if trying to
find some excuse for the feelings I have for Noc.”
“Shit,” Circe murmured.
She understood.
Why did that feel so good?
“Indeed,” I replied.
“Okay, listen to me,” Cora demanded, and I
looked her way. “Hot guys have power. Trust me. My hot guy looks
exactly
like Noc so I know. When we, uh…” she paused, only
her eyeballs slid Brikitta’s way and then she looked back to me and
went on, “first met, he hated me. Like
loathed
me.
Seriously. And he made no bones about it. I still thought he was
hot and totally got into it any time he touched me. And forget
about it if he actually kissed me.”
I found this confusing.
“Why was he touching and kissing a woman he
loathed?” I queried.
“Well, because he liked doing it and, of
course, he kinda wanted an heir.” She looked fully to Circe and
finished on a slight grin, “He didn’t mess about getting that taken
care of.”
“So you’re saying,” I began, calling her
attention back to me, “simply because a man is exceptionally
attractive, I should feel no compunction about my utter
faithlessness to a lover I committed treason for in order to
attempt to protect?”
“The way you say it makes it sound really not
good,” Cora mumbled, but her eyes were still lit with good humor.
“Though,” she carried on, “what you didn’t get about what I said is
that obviously,” she put her hand to her belly, inside of which the
second child she would give Prince Noctorno was growing, and it was
put there not simply because he desired another heir, “something
was there between us. Something in the end that was really,
really
good.”
By the goddess Adele, this was true.
“What inadequacies?” Brikitta asked.
I looked to her, still shaken by Cora’s
words. “Pardon?”
“You say your mind conjures inadequacies in
your relationship with Antoine. What are these conjurings?”
“I kept him,” I informed her.
“What?” Circe asked.
I looked to her. “He was a prostitute. We
suited. In order for him to be solely mine and give up his
employment, I kept him housed, fed, clothed, entertained, etc., and
I did so in a way in which he was accustomed. He was not a partner
in my life, even though in some senses he was. To all intents and
purposes, however, he was my paid lover.”
“Mm…” Cora mumbled.
“This is not unusual, Franka,” Brikitta
stated quietly, and I watched both Cora and Circe turn surprised
expressions to her and knew from their reactions that this was not
the same in their worlds.
As they’d grown accustomed, they both hid
those reactions before Brikitta caught them.
Then again, her attention was fixed on
me.
Still kindly.
“And such arrangements are oft not long
lasting,” Brikitta went on. “That does not mean there is not
affection between the two players. Or even, as in your case, love.
And it does not lessen your grief, no matter what feelings you have
for a man who shows you attention, is sensitive to your
circumstances and is very attractive. To end, what I’m trying to
explain is, you’re declaring these thoughts as ‘conjuring’ as if
you’re making them up, when in fact they’re quite true.”
I didn’t wish to believe it but it couldn’t
be denied she was right.
However.
“It was not solely the fact that he was not a
partner in the traditional sense. He was not thus in other ways as
well,” I pressed on. “For instance, Antoine did not assist me in
making life decisions. Or any decisions at all. It was not only not
his place, it was not his nature. He was not a pillar to lean on
when times were difficult, though,” I said the last vaguely as I’d
just recalled it, “I was that to him when he had some familial
problems, and, of course, the troubles his friends caused when he
left the life they all shared and committed to me.”