Valentine nodded, touched in spite of herself at Lavinia’s words.
Valentine made a habit of not connecting with mere mortals. Not that she was a goddess, but she was also no mere mortal. This, a habit she’d broken of late, precisely when she’d started dabbling in travel between the worlds, her own and the women she’d brought here.
“No, indeed, I do believe things will continue to be interesting in this world,” she raised her eyes to Lavinia. “The good kind of interesting this time.”
Lavinia shook her head, a smile playing at her mouth, and Valentine knew if she didn’t feel it was beneath her, she would have rolled her eyes.
Valentine felt her lips curl at her friend’s reaction, but her thoughts strayed.
There had been much that had happened over the last years in this universe. It took a great deal of attention. So it wasn’t a surprise that the few people she knew in this world, most of them quite clever, had not taken the time to scratch under the surface of Franka Drakkar.
The truth of the matter was Valentine would have been interested in her even if she was as vile as they all thought she was.
In this world, much more than Valentine’s own (even though it was still prevalent in her own, irritatingly), a woman had very little power.
In this world, she had to rely solely on her cunning and wits, her looks, her sexuality, anything at her disposal, in order to get what she needed, grasp hold of what she wanted, wield as much power as she could amass.
These were not weak weapons in any arsenal, a woman’s or a man’s.
It was just, for some reason Valentine didn’t understand, the organ swinging between a man’s legs put him at an advantage.
In this world, where wars were still fought with swords, bows and arrows, it was understandable physical strength was valued.
Understandable but still unacceptable, as the successful reign of Queen Aurora would attest.
And from what Valentine knew, Franka Drakkar enjoyed a good life with no paid occupation, traveling the Northlands, flitting from ball to ball in fine dresses, wreaking havoc as sport as she injected her venom, her aim so true there were many who actually feared her.
Yes, Valentine found Franka Drakkar very interesting.
She had business to attend to, amongst other, more intimate needs to be met, at home. Those intimate needs she hadn’t seen to in a long time.
She needed to return to New Orleans, see to that business, then spirit back for the wedding.
She was in the mood to do a little scratching, dig beneath the surface.
And it was what lay under the skin of Franka Drakkar that she wished to discover.
* * * * *
Noc
“You’re brooding.”
“I’m not brooding.”
“You’re totally brooding.”
“Who even says brooding?”
“They do here.”
Noc scowled at Cora.
Princess Cora, to be precise. Her twin was an evil one, and now a dead one, a casualty of yesterday’s dramas, and not a big loss.
Her body had been spirited to her parents in Hawkvale.
Fucking spirited.
Apparently they grieved.
But they were the only ones.
Jesus, this place was fucking crazy.
It was also crazy interesting.
But it was still fucking crazy.
The woman sitting next to him had to seriously love her man to give up their world to live in what seemed to Noc like a Renaissance Festival run amuck. A really good one. But with all that snow outside, a really cold one.
Though Cora had told him Bellebryn, where she lived, was much farther south and had a different climate.
“We have weather like Florida. Cool winters, warm summers, sunshiny days,” she’d said then shot him a huge smile. “Without the humidity, which makes it totally perfect.”
Noc shook himself out of his thoughts and carried on the conversation.
“She’s not that girl,” he stated as to the reason of why he was “brooding.”
Cora’s beautiful face got even more beautiful when she openly showed her concern.
“I don’t know her, but from what Frey and Apollo say, she is, as in she really is,” she replied. “And Maddie told me the story of what she’d said to her, right to her face, and, Noc, it was not nice.”
“It’s an act, Cora. All a big show,” he told her.
“Maybe so, but if it is, from what I’ve heard, it’s a good one.” She leaned his way where she was sitting beside him at the dinner table. “And Noc, okay, she helped save the world. That was a big deal. But Frey explained to you what they gave her in the queen’s study. In our world value, it’s worth millions.” She leaned closer. “Maybe even billions. No joke.”
“She put her ass on the line, babe,” he returned. “And maybe she needs it.”
“Perhaps the furs, some coin.” She shook her head, moving away and tipping her eyes back to her plate. “But all that?” She kept shaking her head, speared a buttered, herbed new potato and looked back at him. “She’s a member of a House. In Lunwyn, they take care of each other in aristocratic families. She’ll have an allowance. And that allowance will be handsome. You can’t know this, but her clothes are of superb quality. She clearly has more than one maid, the way she’s tended to. She wasn’t hurting before. Her taking all that, well, I don’t need to know her to know it’s greedy, Noc.”
“I’m a cop, Cora, I read people for a living. And I’m tellin’ you, that woman who walked into that room today is not the woman that woman is.”
“I know,” she muttered, lifting the potato to her mouth. “You told us all that before she showed.”
She ate the potato, and Noc looked to his own plate to spear one too because this world might be crazy, but they had great food, and he didn’t know how those potatoes were made, but they fucking rocked.
“Maybe she was, I don’t know…playing you,” Cora suggested softly.
Noc turned his eyes to her. “I don’t get played.”
“From what I hear, she’s a master.”
“I don’t get played,” he repeated.
“Okay, then maybe she’s more likeable when she’s drunk,” Cora tried.
Noc chewed and swallowed his potato then turned fully to the gorgeous princess at his side, his dinner partner, as Cora explained, something that was important in any seating arrangement in this world.
Crazy.
“There’s more to that woman than meets the eye,” he stated.
Her head twitched. “Are you…I mean, I thought…uh, well, you know, you and Circe seem like…are you…do you…?”
He put her out of her misery by sharing, “Circe and me, that was what it was, and what it was was between us. She’s an amazing woman. We’ll keep in touch when we go back to our world. But she doesn’t want that and I’m not looking for it either. We both knew that going in. We both knew what we wanted going in. We both got that. And that part’s done.”
“I don’t actually get any of that,” she admitted.
Noc gave her a grin that he hoped took any sting out of his next words. “Not yours to get, babe. That’s what I’m tryin’ to say.”
“Right,” she replied.
“And straight up, different time, different world, I’d be into Franka,” he glanced up at Cora’s phenomenal, thick, shining, dark-brown hair, looked back to her and winked. “She’s my type.”
And she was.
He’d dated gold, and Circe was a blonde.
But he knew the one he’d pick in the end would be a brunette.
Cora had great hair, but Franka’s was even more thick and shining and a deeper, richer brown.
Not to mention the woman’s eyes were fucking amazing. That deep blue. Goddamned gorgeous.
She also had a beautiful neck.
No, not beautiful.
Slim.
Delicate.
Elegant.
But it was h
er mouth that drew him. She was what a cosmetic surgeon would use to create a million different sets of lips. Pink. Full. They looked soft, even pillowy.
Noc had to admit it’d suck, leaving this world and not being able to put his mouth to those lips.
But he was not going to kiss those lips.
He wasn’t about to get in deep with a woman from this world and he knew himself; the way she looked, her manner, the way she was both before and after they got drunk last night, she’d draw him in.
But he’d already done that and it got his ass in a sling in a variety of ways, including him being magicked to a parallel universe, dropped onto some remote island in order to face down three witches who wanted to take over the world and wouldn’t have hesitated to wave their wands or snap their fingers (or whatever witches did) and waste him like blowing out a match.
He wasn’t going to go there with Franka.
That was why he knew they were all wrong about her.
It wasn’t her playing him. It wasn’t her being drunk.
It was that she loved the man who’d been killed by those witches and she’d done it deeply.
The woman they all described didn’t feel anything deep, except for herself.
But the pain behind those blue eyes of hers, she could try to hide it, but it was so immense, that was impossible.
The thing was, Noc didn’t get why he cared so much what they thought.
They’d talked about how much they were giving her, doing this way overkill because they wanted rid of her for good and sneered at the fact she’d take it.
He’d told them she wouldn’t, and the way they’d been when they disagreed was not ugly or mean, just definite.
Then she’d taken it.
He was not that guy who always had to be right and he’d only spent a few hours with the woman.
But he’d felt like she’d personally slapped him in the face when she’d accepted all that treasure from Queen Aurora. He’d been certain, and shared it with Frey and Apollo, after their time drinking whiskey, after she’d admitted how she felt guilt about what she’d done to betray her country, she’d decline.
He didn’t feel like the asshole who had lost a bet. That moron who was in the position to take the hit of I told you so.
He’d felt like she’d betrayed him by not being who he was certain she was by doing what he was sure she wouldn’t do.
All of this meant it was probably good she was leaving tomorrow.
First, she needed to get away from folks who didn’t like her and didn’t mind in the slightest sharing that with her. No one needed that.
And second, Noc needed her away from him.
He was going to go to Apollo and Maddie’s wedding.
After that, he was going to sail with Frey and Finnie as they took Cora and Tor back to Bellebryn.
When they’d offered him his own chests of jewels and gold, he’d bartered instead for that. A few months in this world, taking it in, seeing as much of it as he could see.
Before he’d come here, discussing his involvement with Valentine, he’d already put in notice at work.
And then Valentine had assured him she would find him a position in New Orleans and he was all for that. A big adventure where he didn’t have to worry about reporting for duty, any cases he’d left open, nothing.
Then afterward, a new place, new job, new start.
And the good news was, Circe would be there because she lived in New Orleans, so he’d have someone to hang with.
Valentine lived there too but Noc didn’t see that woman hanging with anyone. Though he suspected if they found a place that made good martinis, she might stoop to throw a couple back with them.
Queen Aurora (and Frey, and when Noc kept refusing, the kicker, Cora) had insisted he take a small bag of those ice diamonds and a small chest of gold. And with his adventure in this crazy place, that was all he needed. More than he needed (Circe had taken more but she’d had a seriously fucked-up life, was trying to make a go of it in NOLA as an office manager of a towing company, and after all she’d had done to her, she deserved some cush and the means to spoil herself).
And that was what he was going to get, what he was going to do, what was up next for Noc.
The beautiful, but grieving, Franka Drakkar with her pretty mouth didn’t factor.
“So she’s your type,” Cora said, taking him back into their conversation, “But you’re not gonna go there.”
Noc shook his head. “She’s from here, I’m from home. I’m going home. But it isn’t even about that, babe. Tor got you back. Frey got Finnie back. Won’t go on because you were there, you know. Franka didn’t get her man back.”
“Don’t say that in front of Apollo,” she whispered. “Maddie suggested that and it pisses him off. He thinks she’s incapable of any emotion, much less love.”
“You four couples aren’t the only ones who’ve known love, Cora,” he returned. “Not bein’ a dick, but that’s the way it is. And she’s stone cold on the outside, babe, but inside the woman is in some serious pain. She’s capable of emotion, just like you and me, and I know that because I saw it.”
What he didn’t share was that Franka Drakkar might be capable of more of it, with the pain he saw in her eyes, the guilt that seemed to visibly weigh on her at what she’d done.
She just, for some reason, wouldn’t allow herself to let it show, even maybe fully feel it.
That reason was a mystery and Noc was a cop. Cops were big on mysteries. Solving them, to be precise.
Fuck.
Another reason he had to steer clear of Franka Drakkar.
Cora nodded. “I think your perception of her is right, at least the way she is with you, for whatever reason she gave you that particular Franka. What concerns me, honey, is that it seems to mean so much to you.”
That was what concerned him too.
“Woman’s in pain, she gave me that, she gave me time,” he tried to explain it. “Tomorrow, she’ll be gone and eventually she’ll be just another memory of this place. But you spend hours with a woman drinking whiskey and watching her face light up, the pain she’s trying to hide clearing clean away because she’s never seen a phone before. We’ll just say that’ll be a memory I won’t forget.”
“I’ll bet,” Cora replied, the concern shifting out of her expression, understanding replacing it.
Noc grabbed his knife and started cutting into the tender, moist, perfectly-cooked steak on his plate.
Cora changed the subject.
“I can’t wait to show you my world, Noc. It’s gonna be awesome. You’re gonna love it.”
He looked to her, meat in his mouth and chewing and smiling he said, “Can’t wait either, babe.”
Her face lit up too.
And seeing it, Noc knew that’d be another memory he wouldn’t forget that he’d take home from this crazy world.
There it was.
They were having dinner and Franka wasn’t invited.
Tomorrow morning, she’d be leaving.
So she was a memory of this world.
A mysterious one.
A sad one.
But just a memory.
And Noc had to live with that.
What he wouldn’t admit was that he didn’t like it.
Chapter Three
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.