Fantasyland: Midnight Soul Part 38

G.o.ds.

I nodded again.

He smiled at me tenderly. s.h.i.+fting his fist so his hand cupped my jaw, he swept his thumb through the wet there. Once he'd done this, he bent and touched his lips to my forehead.

He straightened, gave me another squeeze with his one arm and held me steady until I made a slight move to share I was all right to stand on my own.

He let me go and went to the cord that would send Josette to me.

He pulled it and moved to the door.

Stopping at it, he turned to me. "I'll see you at dinner, sister."

I again nodded and replied, "You will."

Another tender smile before he started to close the door behind him.

"Kristian," I called.

He stopped and tipped his head to the side.

"You know I love you too," I told him.

He stood solid in the doorway, eyes on me, and I watched them grow bright with wet.

I also watched the one tear fall.

And I heard the hoa.r.s.e of his voice that was so beautiful, if it held healing power, the scars on my back would vanish in but an instant, when he replied, "That, my beloved sister, you truly must know I always, but always, knew."

And on that, he shut the door, disappearing behind it.

Averting my face from Noc (who was my dinner partner, again) an hour later, with Josette's a.s.sistance, feeling and more importantly looking refreshed, I sat down at the table as Noc held my chair.

Regardless, I averted my face, for I looked refreshed but Noc had a way of seeing beyond the surface, and tonight of all nights, this was something I didn't wish him to see.

I busied myself with my napkin, my jaw tilted away from him as Noc took his own seat.

My efforts were instantly foiled when he barely got his a.r.s.e in his chair before his lips were at my ear.

"Baby, what the f.u.c.k?"

d.a.m.n.

And he hadn't even properly seen me!

I smoothed my napkin over my lap.

"Pardon?" I asked with an effort at innocently, failing miserably because this trait was something my parents stripped from me when I was five, so I had no idea how to pull it off.

"Look at me."

Oh blast.

I couldn't demur, he'd force the issue. At the dinner table. And it was safe to say I'd already endured enough mortification at this dinner table.

I turned to Noc and he pulled his head away while I did.

His eyes traveled my face and I fought both a blush and s.h.i.+fting in my chair.

He looked at me and his repet.i.tion was this time growled.

"Baby, what the f.u.c.k?"

"I'm returning to your world after Brikitta delivers my future niece or nephew safely," I announced.

Noc did one of those odd blinks that was slow and included his eyebrows lifting.

"Say again?"

"I'm going to your world," I stated. "And when I shared this with my brother earlier, he and I had a..." I struggled to find a word, "moment. I found it..." more struggling, "affecting. I needed some time to collect myself. I'm collected. Now I need wine."

"Great. And now I don't know whether to go high five Kristian for pulling that off or punch him in the face," he declared.

My shoulders straightened with affront. "Why would you punch him in the face?"

"Because you look emotionally wasted by whatever was affecting and he was the one who did that to you."

"Noc-"

"But you're goin' home with me so I should probably keep my s.h.i.+t."

"There's no probably about that," I stated tartly.

Finally, the harshness in his face disappeared and he grinned.

That was worse.

Drat.

I moved past that and queried, "What does 'high five' mean?"

Inexplicably, he grabbed the wrist of the hand sitting in my lap and lifted it up in front of me.

"Palm out, fingers straight," he ordered.

I did as told.

He kept hold of my wrist, and with his other hand, slapped mine.

I jumped in surprise at this preposterousness.

He then slid the hand holding my wrist up so his fingers were laced in mine and he brought both our hands down to rest on the table, like we were lovers out at an intimate dinner by ourselves, not sitting at a table in a palace surrounded by royalty.

By the G.o.ds.

b.l.o.o.d.y Noc.

"High five," he declared.

"Pardon?"

"Five fingers, slapped high, high five."

Oh.

Well that explained the name of said maneuver.

But it did not explain the absurdity of it.

"Why would one do that?" I asked.

"To celebrate," he answered.

"You do know that's absurd," I shared.

He grinned again. "You're comin' home with me, sugarlips. That means I'm gettin' you into the Seahawks. We'll be in Saints country, but you and me, we'll keep our allegiance true. And when they kick a.s.s, you'll get the high five."

"You do know that all those words are understood by me and yet all of them are not."

His grin grew.

I sighed.

"Wine, milady?" the footman asked, and I pulled my hand from Noc's to look over my shoulder at him.

"Absolutely."

He nodded and poured. He barely got to Noc's other side before I had a healthy dose down my gullet.

I took the gla.s.s from my lips, drew in a large breath, let it go and relaxed.

I ceased relaxing when Noc's hand wrapped around my thigh under the table and squeezed.

This was not bolstering, as Cora's squeeze had been.

It was something else entirely.

"Pleased as f.u.c.k you're comin' home with me," he declared, thankfully letting my thigh go.

"Mm..." I murmured.

"It's gonna be culture shock, trust me, huge. But you'll get over that and love it."

I hoped so.

I said nothing and took another sip of wine.

"Baby?" he called.

I looked his way and nearly downed the gla.s.s at the happiness warming his face and making his handsome so much more handsome it was almost unendurable to lay witness to.

"You made the right decision," he decreed.

"I hope so, Noc."

"I know so, Frannie."

I nodded.

He smiled.

Hesitantly, I smiled back.

Late that evening, after Josette had prepared me for bed and gone to seek her own, I stood in front of the mirror in the dressing room and closed my eyes.

It had been so long since I'd tried this-and the last time I'd done it my mother had sensed it and punished me for it-I was quite certain it wouldn't work.

But I needed to do what had to be done and I'd made a variety of decisions that day.

It was time to carry them all out.

Therefore I sought it and it wasn't hard to find, the quickening I felt in my innards, always there in truth, but vague, and it having been there for so long, I'd learned to live with the sensation.

And ignore it.

Now, I focused on it, and the instant I did, to my astonishment, I felt it sparking up my spine, the sensation like the light touch of a lover, stirring tickles of awareness all over my skin.

I opened my eyes and saw the muted glow of the one lamp I'd lit had a sapphire, hue and the mirror in front of me had gone from clearly showing my visage to cloudy.

"By the G.o.ds, it worked," I whispered, staring at the clouds in front of me as they started to swirl, those too, tinted blue.

I'd managed that, it was time to try my next.

"I wish to speak to you," I said into the mirror.