Endure

Franka

 

I sat curled in an armchair by the fire in my room wearing my silk nightgown, my lacy-knit wool shawl held tight around my bared shoulders, staring at the fire, thinking that Kristian’s home was an eight-day sleigh ride from Fyngaard, where the Winter Palace was located.

A long, cold ride for me and Josette, but as much as I wished to get to my brother, I would savor it, for it would likely be the last time I’d sled over my Lunwyn.

Over a lonely day and a lonely dinner, I’d made my decision.

I was going to Airen, across the Green Sea. I’d heard the sky city was marvelous. Dark and austere, but it opened onto a bay with stunning views, and the Sky Citadel was made of the glinting black stone that could only be found on that continent, but I’d heard it was extraordinary.

And I’d heard Firenze had barely taken its first steps into the civilized world, but their city of fire, and the barbarians who lived there, might be to my taste, if only to see one (or several).

Not to mention, there was the magical sisterhood of the Nadirii, who lived shrouded by enchantments, a warrior class of women who dwelled solely amongst their own, using males only for purposes of procreation…and pleasure.

I was no warrior. But I had other attributes and no need for male companionship. Not anymore. I’d never been good at being a member of the sisterhood. But facing a new life and new adventures, it was worth a try. Perhaps they’d allow me behind their enchantments.

Therefore, even if I couldn’t talk Kristian into going with me, I was going.

And perhaps I could find a way to dull the pain through adventure.

Before I left, however, I’d give my brother plenty of jewels and coin to make him safe. He loved his wife, his son. He might not be as sharp-witted as most of the Drakkars (a boon for him, for without that sharp wit he also did not have sharp claws, and that was something of a lovable anomaly for our House—none of this, of course, I’d ever told him, or ever would), but he’d definitely desire to have the means to keep his family safe.

I’d sent a bird to share I was arriving so he’d know and could prepare.

I just hoped the bird made it.

I didn’t like communicating by bird. It obviously took much less time to do so than sending post by land or sea. But it was easy to intercept a bird, or other things befell the creatures, and half the time they didn’t make it to their destination.

And alas, for Kristian, after what had befallen him when he’d helped me with my traitorous plans, my arrival would not be a pleasant surprise.

Therefore I decided to send another bird prior to my departure in the morning, just in case.

The door to my dressing room opened and Josette moved through it.

“All’s packed and ready for our departure on the morn, milady,” she said, moving toward me.

“Thank you, Josette,” I replied.

She stopped several feet in front of me. “Is there anything you need?”

I shook my head, turning my attention back to the fire. “No. You may seek your bed.”

To my surprise, moments passed and I didn’t feel her presence leave.

I turned back to her.

“Is there more?” I asked.

“He’s alone, back in the morning room.”

I knew to whom she was referring and at the thought I felt a warmth hit my belly at the same time a cold chill slid over my skin.

“I think…well, milady,” she went on nervously, “I think he might be there waiting for you.”

Providing Josette with an elevated salary was not only because she was very good at doing what she did. It also didn’t solely have to do with the fact she did the job of three lady’s maids.

It was because no one knew what was happening in a house better than the servants.

For years, Josette had been my eyes and ears in places I’d never be privy, providing information I’d never have without her, much of it of great use.

She was not the only lady’s maid who offered these services. Indeed, I suspected they all did if they were any good at their jobs.

But she made a point of ascertaining all I might need to know (and some I didn’t but it didn’t hurt to hold the knowledge) and sharing it with me.

Yes, she earned her elevated salary in a number of ways.

Therefore, it was not surprising that, even though I didn’t share with my maid what had transpired with Noc the night before, she would know.

However, now, as I gazed up at her, I did not see the usual. A petite, pretty, plump, ash-blonde girl with blank, hazel eyes looking down at me and awaiting my response because she was doing her job.

I saw a pretty girl with kindness and concern in her hazel eyes, looking down on me, knowing all I’d lost and that I had not one, single true friend in the world.

That look only made me feel warmth.

Touch her hand, mon ange, show her what her compassion means to you.

Antoine’s voice sounding in my head made me blink and lose focus.

“Lady Franka,” Josette called, and I forced my attention from waiting to hear more in my head from my dead lover to my maid. “I’m happy to assist you back into your gown.”

Noc sitting alone in the morning room very well might mean he was waiting for me. That he’d enjoyed our time together (which I knew he did). That he wanted more before I was to leave.

Or perhaps it meant he wanted an explanation of what transpired earlier in the queen’s study.

Either way (especially the latter), I would not go to him.

It would be better he leave this world when he eventually did with nary a memory of Franka Drakkar of the midnight soul.

It was better anyone was not touched by that blackened spirit.

Now I’m just feeling sorry for myself, which is dire as well as boring, I thought.

What I said to Josette was, “We have a long ride ahead of us on the morrow. We should both get a good night’s rest.”

She looked disappointed before she covered her expression and nodded.

“Would you like another sleeping draught?” she inquired.

I didn’t need to sleep twelve hours again (although I actually did). I needed to be up, as I’d instructed Josette to wake me, at half past five so we could see to my toilette and be away before the palace woke and became bustling. This meaning (I hoped) we’d be away without running into anyone I didn’t wish to see.

And one of those primary “anyones” was Noctorno Hawthorne of the other world.

Therefore I shook my head.

Josette nodded again and she seemed to be moving to leave before she hesitated and turned back to me.

“You’ll sleep?” she pressed.

I studied her, noting she couldn’t quite hide her feelings of worry…for me.

Thus I continued studying her, thinking, Gods, did she actually like me?

I’d never been cruel to her. I’d never been overtly kind. I respected her talents, demonstrated that in more ways than monetarily, but never told her so.

Perhaps that was just her way. I wouldn’t know, for outside her sharing gossip while she was attiring me or doing my hair, or I was giving her orders, we didn’t speak very much. But there were many, for reasons unfathomable, who were thoughtful and benevolent to just about anybody.

It appeared my maid was one of those many.

I didn’t know what to do with this. Outside Antoine—and Kristian when I allowed him to do so—no one had ever shown concern for me.

Or kindness.

Not in my life.

“Yes, Josette, I’ll sleep,” I felt safe in assuring her.

To my surprise at this juncture I endured my lady’s maid studying me, seemingly to determine if I spoke truth, before it became clear she approved of what she saw. When she did, she nodded again and made her move to leave, this time following through.

“Goodnight, Lady Franka,” she said as she walked to the dressing room door.

“Goodnight, Josette,” I replied and watched her open the door, move through it, but she gave me one last, long look before she closed it behind her.

The instant I heard it click, I turned back to the fire and whispered, “Antoine, are you there?”

I waited. I listened.

I heard nothing. I felt nothing.

I studied the flames dancing in their grate and came to the understanding Antoine was not coming to me as a spirit to keep me company in the only way he could.

It was just my conscience.

Gods, my conscience came to me in Antoine’s voice.

I supposed it would considering I’d never had one before him.

I sighed and uncurled my legs from under me, putting my bare feet to the thick rugs on the floor.

The morrow heralded the beginning of an eight-day ride to my brother through cold and snow.

Even though it might be, after having had a good sleep the night before, having been given chests of gold and jewels, new trunks filled with the finest furs, the safety wealth provided me, a plan for the coming days, months, years, that I would sleep, I was not counting on it.

So I might as well get down to it.

Whether it bring victory…

Or what I’d grown accustomed to.

Defeat.

 

* * * * *

 

Attend your father.

The hiss sounded in my ear and my eyes flew open.

I saw nothing but a dark room cut only by the faint dancing of firelight from the grate.

Attend your father!

Oh no.

Gods no.

I shot up to sitting and threw the covers off me, my gaze darting through the room.

She wouldn’t come to the Winter Palace. She’d never come to the Winter Palace.

But he would.

He most definitely would.

He did whatever he wished.

And she did whatever she had to to make that so.

Thus, worse, she’d make it safe so he could.

The buttery at the end of the hall off the kitchens, the voice instructed.

I felt the snake of panic and fear coil up my throat, but I didn’t even waste the time to snatch my shawl from the end of the bed after I jumped out of it and hurried to the door.

I just asked the room, “Do you have him?”

I’m near.

Oh gods. Gods.

Never safe. Even with trunks of jewels and gold I was never safe.

And worse, neither was Kristian.

“I’m going to him directly. Let Kristian be,” I demanded as I put my hand to the doorknob.

Accept your punishment, endure the length of it, and your brother will be safe, the voice replied.

At what I knew was to come, I felt saliva fill my mouth and swallowed it down as I pulled open the door.

The hall was lit with lantern sconces on the walls, but faintly. Hesitating only a second, I made the decision to seek the servants’ stairs, a more direct route and one where I was sure not to run into one of my kind. I had no idea where those stairs were but moved instinctively away from the main stairwell to the back of the hall.

I found them and rushed down the flights. The light even more dim there, I held on to the banister to guide my way, my bare feet making no noise on the risers.

I made the kitchens, shifting through the barely-illuminated, deserted area on darting feet, this being an area I’d been made familiar with during Frey’s first interrogation of me after a woman was poisoned at a past Bitter Gales.

I found the door at the end of the hall closed. Even knowing what lay beyond, I hesitated not even a second in opening it.

This room was lit brightly, blinding me the instant I stepped through.

I struggled to become accustomed to the light as I swiftly closed the door behind me.

Too soon, my eyes adjusted and I saw him. Standing tall and strong amongst the casks and shelves of bottles, the Drakkar good looks stamped on his proud features, even through age.

“Papa,” I whispered, fighting the shiver seeing him caused to slither over my skin.

It had been years.

But I was never safe. I knew I was never safe. Not in Lunwyn.

Her magic didn’t reach Fleuridia. And thus I counted on the fact it definitely wouldn’t reach the realms across the Green Sea.

But in Lunwyn, I knew, knew I was never safe.

“You and your brother have behaved very badly, Franka,” my father declared.

“I—” I started to explain.

“Silence!” he barked, leaning toward me, and as used to it as I was, the verbal strike of his loud word still made my body lurch in surprise and fear.

It was then I saw the lash coiled in his grip.

I didn’t take a step back. I never did. Weakness was not tolerated. I’d learned. I’d learned if I showed weakness, Kristian received the punishment and it would be twice as bad.

He could not endure it. We’d discovered that when we were children in a way so heinous, I buried it so deep I couldn’t even remember it, just the feelings it caused.

But we’d learned.

Kristian broke. He did it easily.

Soft heart. Weak will.

Thus I had to endure it. Every last strike. If I broke, they’d turn to Kristian and wouldn’t stop until the blood flowed in streams down his legs while he hung unconscious, receiving his punishment through oblivion.

“What have you done to our House, Franka?” my father asked, but didn’t allow me to answer. He continued on, “The mighty House of Drakkar could have been brought down to nothing, and would have if this generation didn’t see the resurgence of The Frey within The Drakkar.”

How had he heard?

“Please, Papa, if you’d allow me to—” I began.

“There’s no explanation for treason,” he bit out.

Gods! How had he heard?

“Papa, if you’ll let me share. I assisted Frey and the others with—”

“You,” he interrupted me, “are at least a Drakkar. Headstrong. Whip-sharp. I can imagine you have a reason for what you did, though I don’t bloody give a damn what it was. Your brother, however, had no reason. None at all. Except to do as you told him. Always minding you, like a brainless pup. It’s revolting,” he spat his last, the expression twisting his face sharing just how revolting he thought his son was. “I wished to punish him. Your mother, though, she has a soft spot for that boy. So I’m here.”

I was uncertain my mother had anything soft about her. In my estimation, it was less her caring for Kristian and more the enjoyment she got from inflicting pain on me.

“The hook is ready, Franka. Prepare and make your way to it,” he ordered.

I cast a glance to my right and up, seeing the hook was indeed ready as, in times like these, it always was.

But I didn’t prepare and move to it.

I looked back to my father.

“I endure, she leaves him alone,” I stated.

That was the arrangement. It had always been the arrangement. And they had never reneged.

But there was a reason I carried a midnight soul, for the evil contained in both my parents set their souls to cinders years ago. It was not a wonder I’d inherited the blackness.

“You committed treason, daughter,” my father reminded me.

“I endure, she leaves him alone,” I repeated.

Panic threatened to paralyze me when I saw the cruel sneer curl at his mouth, the excitement light in his eyes, the same in the rush of pink to his cheeks.

He enjoyed this. I’d learned that as well. In the past, there needn’t even be a transgression for Kristian or I to earn a punishment. No, our father simply had to be in the mood.

And to our misfortune, he was in the mood often.

“You endure, my daughter, she leaves him alone,” he agreed.

But I knew by his expression. I knew my transgression, Kristian’s, had earned a punishment even I might not be able to survive.

Regardless, I nodded. On shaking legs I focused all efforts on keeping me upright, I moved to the hook.

I was twelve when they’d stopped binding my wrists and hanging me from the hook. From that point, it was part of the punishment to keep my fingers curled around, hold myself up, not fall.

Never fall.

And tonight, I definitely could not fall.

When I arrived below the hook, I turned my back to my father and pulled the thin straps of my silk nightgown down my shoulders and arms. I felt the material drift down my skin to catch on my hips.

Bare up top, I took in a deep breath, closed my eyes tight then set my jaw.

I opened my eyes, lifted my hands and curled my fingers around the cold steel of the hook.

“I begin, my sweet.” I heard my father say and knew he was communicating with my mother. A mother who was not there but could be in a blink if there weren’t enchantments protecting the Winter Palace.

No, she was close to Kristian, ready to complete the punishment should I fall.

On that thought, my fingers gripped the hook tighter.

He did not delay in doing as he said he would.

The first lash I barely felt. Years of this, the scar tissue ran deep.

He would get there, though. He always did.

No, at that point it was the whip whistling through the air, the crack, the sinister whisper as it snaked against my flesh that could unravel my mind.

In order to fight it, I thought of Antoine. His smile. The sound of his laughter. The change in his eyes when I’d bare even an inch of flesh to him. The touch of his fingers as they drifted over my skin.

Another lash came and I kept hold of these thoughts.

Then another. And more.

But I’d closed my eyes and I saw only Antoine. Felt only Antoine’s touch.

Until the first rivulet of blood glided over the upper swell of my hip to soak into the silk of my nightgown.

Then, suddenly, I saw Noc and the fierceness in his face when he’d said he wouldn’t even blink at turning traitor to save the woman he loved.

The next lash came, and the next, the pain intensifying with each strike, but I focused on Noc and his fierceness, focused further on something alien to me.

Hope.

In this instance it was the hope that he found a woman he could love that much, but more, a woman worthy of that kind of love.

I kept this focus through the next lash.

And the next.

It continued and I could no longer think of Noc. Or Antoine. Or anything but keeping my hands curled around that hook, trying to block out the sweat of that effort mingling with the blood trailing down my body. Attempting to force my shallow panting into deeper breaths to beat back the pain. Blinking rapidly as dull cloudbursts exploded behind my eyes threatening to blind me, take me to a blissful, painless oblivion.

There was none of that for me. Not Franka Drakkar. I’d been born to agony and, as ever, simply had to endure.

More lashes and I feared I couldn’t withstand it. It was worse than ever before. Far worse. As my transgression had been.

My hands had gone beyond clammy, they were slipping on the hook and I was terrified I’d lose hold.

I couldn’t lose hold.

Mother was close to Kristian. She could be with him in seconds.

He’d never endure.

Another lash and for the first time I cried out as it hit, tearing through my flesh, feeling like it glanced across my spine.

When it was done, my heated body all of a sudden iced over with fear that I’d lost consciousness when I heard the impossibility of a shocked feminine gasp and right on its heels an enraged, “Fucking hell. What the fuck?”

Noc’s voice.

He couldn’t be here. I had to have blacked out.

“Who are you?” my father asked.

“Get Frey.” Noc’s voice ordered.

“You’ll do no such thing!” my father snapped, his deep voice no longer astonished but annoyed.

“Fucking get Frey!” Noc demanded.

“You’ll mind your betters,” my father hissed.

A moment of nothing before, “Goddamn…get…Frey.”

The pain drove deep as I chanced looking over my shoulder and saw Josette disappear from the doorway.

I also saw Noc, fury carved in his handsome features, moving to me.

How was he there?

Why was he there?

The pain remained, I couldn’t have slipped into oblivion.

Thus he was bloody there.

“Know your place!” my father commanded on a near-shout. “Remove yourself from this room this instant!”

Noc didn’t remove himself from the room. He arrived at my front, his eyes holding mine.

His voice came as a shock, precisely the gentleness running through it that belied the look of wrath seated deep in his eyes. “Let go of the hook, baby.”

“This is beyond the pale, a servant intruding on private matters of members of the most powerful House in Lunwyn!” my father decreed loudly.

“Frannie, sweetheart,” Noc whispered, ignoring Papa, and I felt his hand touch light at my waist, “let go of the hook.”

“Intolerable!” my father bit out. “Franka, is this domestic your lover?” he demanded.

“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 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.”

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?”

“I don’t understand the import of that information,” I declared haughtily.

“Just tell me how old,” he pushed.

“If it’s that interesting to you, five.”

He rose.

Immediately.

Coming straight out of his crouch in a powerful surge, he stood towering beside me on the bed.

And now, at the expression on his face, I fought cowering before him.

“Five?” he whispered.

I fought the pain as I pushed up on my forearms, beginning, “Noc—”

“Five?” he hissed.

I stared up at him, unable to speak in the face of his fury.

Fury on my behalf.

Something that had never happened, not from Kristian, not from Antoine.

Not from anyone.

“You were coerced, Franka, whether you know that shit or not,” he bit off, and before I could utter a noise, even if I had no intention of doing so, a knock came at the door and Noc barked, “Come in!”

He then prowled to the door as a maid came through with towels.

He did this continuing to bark, just not as loudly, and dispensed with the “pleases” and ludicrous “that’d be awesomes” and behaved like the man he would be if he was of this world.

In other words, he issued commands.

“Change the towel with a clean, cool one on her back. Give her the goddamned sleeping drink so she can get some relief from the pain. And get the fucking doctor in here.” He was at the door the maid had scurried through and he turned to me. “You move from that bed, baby, I’m gonna be fuckin’ pissed. Let her take care of you, drink the goddamned drink, get some rest. I’ll be back.”

I had no earthly clue what “fuckin’ pissed” meant.

I still nodded.

Noc watched me do it.

Then he swept out the door.