Midnight Soul

by Kristen Ashley

  I felt my face form a scowl at his mentioning a discussion we’d already had.

  One which we ended in whole-hearted agreement (of a sort, Noc was much the champion of being married, doing it in my homeland, something that he knew meant much to me, and it being rather private—he was not quite the champion of going it totally alone, but he’d given in…for me).

  “This is not their moment, Noc.”

  “Not sure Sue’s gonna see it that way,” he replied. “Or Dad. Or Dash. Or Aurora. Orly. Finnie. Frey’s gonna give me tons of shit. And I don’t even wanna think how Jo is gonna react.”

  “She’s dealing with her own emotion concerning that odious Glover,” I snapped and Noc’s brows rose.

  “Odious? How’s Glover odious, sugarlips? It was Jo who dumped him.”

  It was indeed.

  She’d explained this days prior to our being spirited away for our holiday, stating, “I tried, Frannie. I really tried to see it in him. But watching you and Noc, he didn’t have it. So in the end, he just didn’t do it for me.”

  She was falling into our new-world language, then again she would as we’d been in that new world now for many months.

  She was also quite right about taking her leave of Glover.

  If he didn’t do it for her, it was time to scrape him off.

  “It isn’t easy dumping someone, Noc,” I shared. “She feels awful.”

  “She should. He was totally gone for her. And he was a good guy.”

  “Not good enough, this, I will note, I always knew.”

  Noc shook his head but did it grinning.

  He was still grinning when he declared, “We need to have another ceremony when we get to Rimée Keep.”

  “Whyever would we do that?”

  He didn’t answer, he kept on his bent.

  “And we need to have another one when we get home.”

  “The deed is already done,” I pointed out.

  “Right, you tell Sue she can’t wear a crazy hat to some shindig,” he returned. “And by the way, being married here is not legal at home and we get a tax break for being married.”

  “We’ll have a ceremony at home,” I stated instantly.

  Another grin from Noc as he muttered, “That’s my Frannie. If she can keep her money so she can spend it on herself or anyone else she wants to lavish shit on, she’s gonna do it.”

  “I do not mind your government knowing we’re eternally joined. As you say, if I felt it prudent to part with the money it would cost, when we returned home, I’d hire an operator of an airplane to write it in the sky.”

  That did not get me a grin.

  That earned me Noc dropping his mouth to mine and giving me a deep, wet, heated kiss.

  When he lifted it and our eyes opened, he whispered, “Franka Hawthorne.”

  That name.

  Such beauty.

  “That’s me,” I whispered back.

  His face started to grow soft when, suddenly, we both stiffened.

  This was because the room was tinted green.

  Noc lifted up alertly to an outstretched arm, causing me to press my lips together to stifle the pleasured moan for we were still joined and his movements were far from unpleasant, doing this growling, “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”

  I pushed up to my elbows and turned my eyes to where my senses were guiding me.

  And there, on the table by the window of the lovely inn in which we were staying, was an elegant tea service set out, its porcelain painted in a stunning motif of emerald green.

  From the spout, wafts of smoke drifted from the heated brew inside.

  Along with a glitter that was unmistakable.

  I felt a slow smile form on my lips as the green tint of the room faded.

  “Fuck, is she here?” Noc bit off.

  “She’s not here,” I answered him and his eyes came to me. “But she knows we’re wed and has left us a present.”

  “A present?”

  I put a hand to his warm, wide chest. “Are you fatigued, my love?”

  “Are you crazy, gorgeous?” he returned but didn’t wish an answer. He kept talking. “It’s my wedding night and I’m feelin’ the need to beat my record.”

  My brows drew together. “Your record?”

  “Ten times, babe,” he stated, causing a rather delicious tingle at the memory. “Tonight, I’m gonna go for fifteen.”

  My attention drifted to the tea.

  He would best that.

  Oh yes he would.

  Splendidly.

  And I would best my record of three.

  Oh yes, I most definitely would.

  And I’d do this splendidly.

  It was time for some tea.

  * * * * *

  “So this is a bridesmaid dress,” I murmured, staring down at myself.

  I was of a mixed opinion.

  The design was very fine.

  The color—a pale pink—did not a thing for me.

  Cora, wearing her own dress, the same exact one for reasons I couldn’t fathom, came to me.

  “It is,” she confirmed.

  “It’s the same as yours,” I told her something she already knew.

  “It’s that too.”

  “I must say I don’t quite understand why we need to be dressed identically.”

  “It’s just the way it is,” she stated.

  “In your old world,” I told her. “We’re not in your old world. Since both Finnie and Circe are bound to this world everlasting, in order that they can be her bridesmaids, my-world Circe is marrying Dax in Lunwyn.”

  “Yeah, but she’s giving him his kind of wedding seeing as they’re doing the Justice of the Peace thing when they get back home.”

  I knew of this “Justice of the Peace thing.”

  But for Noc and I to “make it legal,” at the inflexible demands of his stepmother, my dearest Jo (who was, indeed, very vexed Noc and I had wed without her), and even Valentine (who had reunited with her lover amongst great drama and had become quite the romantic, in a detached way, of course) we had not gone to a Justice of the Peace and then gone somewhere else to have some cake, as Noc shared with them at first we would do (to a calamitous uprising).

  We’d had a “shindig.”

  A large one.

  I got a very fabulous dress out of the situation and we were showered with gifts that were all very lovely, even if we could afford to buy them ourselves. Not to mention, having this gave us an excuse to go on what was called a “honeymoon.” This we did in a tranquil place filled with astounding beauty called the “Caribbean” where we were able to make love on a blanket on a sandy beach with the sea lapping at our toes (amongst other places, a number of them).

  The door opened and my brief conversation with Cora was interrupted when my husband entered the room.

  All eyes, including mine, Cora’s, Maddie’s, Finnie’s, Circe’s, Aurora’s, Josette’s, and the bride—the other Circe (attired in a dress that was far more becoming than my own)—went to him.

  His eyes came to me.

  I saw his face go soft, his gaze drop to my gown and his lips tip up before his attention turned to the bride.

  A bride he was “giving away.”

  Although this was said to be against all tradition, Jo was not only my maid of honor at our other-world ceremony, she’d also walked me down the aisle and placed my hand in Noc’s.

  She’d done this sobbing.

  Like a ninny.

  Gods love her.

  “Is he ready?” Circe asked Noc as he approached.

  “Babe, you don’t haul your ass into that sanctuary and soon, Dax is gonna tear in here and drag you down the aisle himself,” Noc answered.

  Me and my friends all gave each other knowing, delighted looks.

  Circe gathered her skirts and her bundle of adela tree twigs and bustled to Noc, declaring, “Then we must go. Dax impatient is not a good thing.”

  “Dax impatient to make you his wife is probably a g
reat deal worse,” I shared.

  Circe gave me big eyes.

  Even so, I noted they were glowing and happy.

  Oh yes.

  Yes.

  I did so enjoy when a carefully crafted scheme succeeded.

  At Finnie’s command, we all collected the arrangements of flowers we were to hold in our hands, and we lined up in order to start the proceedings.

  I was the last in line before Circe and Noc.

  Jo had been my maid of honor but Circe had also stood up with me.

  And I was to be Circe’s maid of honor and Josette was also to stand up with her.

  And an honor it was.

  Indeed.

  As we’d been told (and actually practiced the night before, for reasons beyond me—we were all walking down an aisle and then standing at the front of the pews, listening as the Vallee droned on and on, it was hardly worth the military-style drilling Finnie forced us through), we filed out and did as we’d practiced.

  We all got to the front and took our places opposite Dax, who was standing alone wearing a well-cut suit, looking impatient (and looking that frighteningly).

  He was scowling down the aisle (like Circe was going to do anything but maybe throw decorum to the wind and run down the aisle to him), waiting for the doors Noc and Circe were to come through when something not practiced happened.

  This was Frey’s booming voice ordering, “Stand!”

  I looked to Jo at my side and then watched as the meager audience (the outside of the Dwelling was heavily guarded, there were two Noctornos, two Dax Lahns and two Circes in that room and it wouldn’t do for anyone who shouldn’t to see that).

  After all stood, suddenly, filing in from the side, came Frey’s men. As they moved along the back wall to the aisle, Frey fell in in front of them.

  We then saw Apollo’s closest soldiers following Frey’s, led by Apollo.

  When they traversed the aisle, Lahn and Tor got out of their pews and joined the men.

  They marched up the aisle before Noc even guided Circe into the sanctuary.

  When they made it to the front, they lined up around the bridesmaids and to the other side around Dax, turning and standing almost what appeared to be at attention, watching as my husband finally guided Circe into the room and slowly walked the bride down the aisle.

  I reached out a hand and found Jo’s, hers already searching mine.

  We held on as we watched Circe’s lips quiver while she made her approach, taking in the assemblage in front of her, a woman who was once violently stripped of everything, her family, her virtue, her freedom. She’d had no one to whom to turn. No one she could trust.

  And now she had the armies of four countries at her back and six sisters at her side.

  I felt my own tears welling when suddenly, the room filled with green.

  “Fabulous.” I heard Frey mutter sardonically.

  I understood his lament.

  Valentine did very much like to cause a drama.

  But I heard this at the same time I heard on the other side of me, Circe’s wondrous, whispered, “Oh my God. Pop.”

  And then I saw an older man who’d formed from a rise of green mist move out of a pew toward Noc and Circe, who had just made it to the middle of the long aisle.

  “If you don’t mind, son,” he said to Noc, his eyes never leaving Circe, “I’ll take it from here.”

  “Who’s that man?” Jo whispered to me.

  “My dad,” Circe whispered to Jo.

  Both Josette and I cut our gazes to Queen Circe who was openly weeping.

  And hugely smiling.

  We looked back to Circe as Noc took one look at the bride, dipped his chin and stepped aside.

  The man I would eventually know as Harold Quinn walked his other-world daughter to her groom, grinning like a lunatic, his eyes filled with pride as they rested on both the daughter he claimed and the daughter he made before he guided the bride to the man she loved.

  Noc moved to stand by Lahn and Tor.

  But before I turned to the couple to watch them wed, I caught sight of her standing in the shadows at the back.

  She was wearing a fabulous dress of jade green.

  Love is everything. I heard Valentine’s voice whisper in my ear. Every way love can be.

  And then, a cat’s smile flirting at her lips, she faded away in a beautiful drift of jewel-green smoke.

  * * * * *

  New Orleans

  Noc

  “I say, I’ve kept you up long enough. It’s time for me to find my bed…and my wife, and you yours,” Kristian stated.

  Noc, sitting outside with his brother-in-law, having a whiskey while Kristian enjoyed a cigar, nodded.

  It was definitely time.

  He liked the man but he liked his wife better.

  They rose from their padded chairs and lifted their chins at each other as Kristian moved through the courtyard toward the carriage house at the other side where Franka had created a guest suite.

  Noc left the bottle and glasses where they were on the table between the two chairs and walked into the house.

  He went through it, knowing the doors were locked, the windows closed and latched.

  He checked them all just the same. There were precious beings sleeping under his roof, a number of them, and it was the man he was that he’d make sure they were safe.

  At the top of the stairs, looking up and down the hall, he saw no light coming from under the door to the master suite, or any of the others.

  Except a dim light coming from under one in the middle of the hall, a door that led to a room that was painted pink.

  He felt the grin hit his mouth but his body jerked when a different door, the one right beside him, opened.

  Noc’s father blinked sleepily at his son then grunted, “Damned bladder.”

  And then his dad lifted his hand, patted Noc’s shoulder, and walked the opposite way, toward the bathroom.

  Noc walked toward the light.

  He put his hand on the handle and turned it, opening the door a crack, doing it silently.

  He stopped it at just a crack when he heard his daughter speak.

  “Really, Momma?” Amara was asking in her little girl voice.

  “Really, my sweetest love,” Frannie replied.

  “Daddy did that?”

  “Yes, my darling, your father did that. He did that and more. So much more.”

  There was a beat of silence before Amara declared sleepily, “Mm, I believe it. Daddy’s so sweet.”

  Noc grinned again.

  “He is that, beautiful Amara Judith,” Frannie agreed. “He’s also something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He’s my valiant.”

  Noc’s body locked.

  “What does that mean?” their daughter asked.

  “That means, precious girl, your daddy is my hero.”

  Noc closed his eyes and rested his forehead on the doorjamb.

  “He’s mine too,” Amara declared.

  Noc’s throat closed.

  “I know, baby,” Frannie cooed. “Now it’s very late. I’ve told you your story. It’s time for you to go to sleep.”

  His daughter’s sounded dreamy as she shared, “I can’t wait to find my valiant.”

  Frannie’s tone was crisper when she returned, “We’ll talk about that in thirty years.”

  Amara’s voice was higher when she asked, “Thirty?”

  “Go to sleep, darling.”

  “I’m not gonna be thirty-six when I get married.”

  “Amara, my love, sleep.”

  “All right.” Noc heard his girl mumble.

  At that, Noc moved from the door, down the hall and into his and Frannie’s room.

  He went straight to the window.

  He didn’t pull the curtains closed.

  He stood looking down at their quiet courtyard with its riot of flowers, all of it lit by moonlight.

  He heard her enter behind him.


  “Has Kristian finished his cigar?” she asked his back.

  “Yep,” he answered the window.

  “Foul things,” she murmured and the door clicked.

  Noc stared at the courtyard.

  Frannie came right to him, circling him with her arms and fitting herself to his back.

  “I love having the house filled with family,” she whispered.

  She was talking about Dad and Sue, Kristian and Brikitta and their three boys visiting.

  She was also talking about their own five kids.

  Four boys.

  One girl.

  Amara right smack in the middle.

  “Noc,” she said softly, “is everything all right?”

  He looked from the courtyard to her hands at his stomach, her diamond blinking faintly in the moonlight. He felt her breasts pressed to his back, the belly she’d nurtured his five children in tucked to his ass.

  He could smell her.

  He could feel her power contained but still emanating through her.

  And it took no effort at all to pull her face up in his mind’s eye, that delicate neck, her beautiful mouth, her gorgeous hair.

  Her arms around him tightened.

  “Darling? Are you okay?”

  Noc took her wrist and pulled it to his side, forcing his wife to circle around to his front.

  She kept hold of him, and when he stopped her, she tipped her head back to catch his eyes.

  He let her wrist go and lifted his hand to cup her jaw.

  Holding her there and drawing his other arm around her to pull her close, he dipped his face to hers and studied the woman he loved, so goddamned beautiful, even more right then, lit by moonbeams.

  “My valiant,” he whispered.

  He saw those beautiful blue eyes of hers warm.

  And then he saw them grow bright with wet.

  She lifted up on her toes so that fucking amazing mouth was a breath from his.

  But she didn’t kiss him.

  She whispered back.

  Two words he never believed.

  Two words he knew she believed down to her glorious soul.

  “My hero.”

  The End

  This concludes the Fantasyland Series.

  Thank you for reading!

  *****